He Was Used as a Human Shield

Dr. John Hood and the Legacy he left in Galesburg    

     It’s funny sometimes how leads to articles drop in one’s lap.  My interest in Dr. John Hood was piqued thanks to a recent article in the Galesburg Register-Mail about the gorgeous home that is located on 545 North Prairie Street.  Tom Wilson mentioned in the article that Dr. Hood was a veteran of the Civil War, had been incarcerated in Libby Prison, and jumped off a train in an attempt to reach the Union lines.  This roused my curiosity.  I wanted to learn more about Dr. Hood and his Civil War experiences.

     John Hood was born in Washington County, Illinois on November 17^th, 1838.  His father was Archibald Hood, a native of South, Carolina, one of the many of Scotch Irish descent who settled in the upper Carolina region.  These were independent folk, not the type to be trifled with as Patrick Ferguson and the Tories he led found to their dismay at their disastrous defeat at King’s Mountain during the American Revolution.  John’s father travelled to Illinois at about the age of 30, lured as were so many others by the stories of the cheap and fertile farmland available there, eventually settling in Sparta, Illinois.

       From his boyhood young John was earmarked by his father for the ministry, but the young man balked at his father’s plans for his life.  He went to the University of Indiana with the goal of pursuing a career in law and politics instead.  He graduated in 1862 and immediately enlisted in the Union army as a Lieutenant in Company F of the 80^th Illinois Infantry, being mustered in at Centralia, Illinois. He participated in the bloody battle of Perryville, in Kentucky, where both the division and brigade commanders were killed, as well as a number of line officers.   On the death of Capt. Jones, John Hood was promoted to that rank to take his place, effective April 30^th, 1863. 

     In March of 1863, Union General William S. Rosecrans came up with a plan for a mounted brigade of men to make a raid across northern Alabama into northwest Georgia.  The object of the raid would be to strike the Western & Atlantic Railroad, an important Confederate supply artery.  The 80^th Illinois, John Hood’s regiment, was among the 1700 troops chosen to be part of this expedition that was to be under the command of Colonel Abel Streight.    Remember this number, 1700, and contrast it with the number of men that Nathan Bedford Forrest would later bring against them.

     Lacking enough adequate horses for the planned foray into Alabama, some lackwit quartermaster came up with the idea to use mules for transportation.  Sure, they could be readily procured from rural yet shrewd Tennessee farmers, but a mule is a temperamental creature, and to make things worse, many of those bought or appropriated for the mission were unbroken, old, or incapable of bearing the burden of a rider for great distances.  The lack of adequate mounts had a negative effect on Union morale, as no doubt did the ridicule of the southern farmers that the men had to endure, or the insults of their opponents, who referred to Streight’s men as “the Jackass Brigade.”

     Once underway, the expedition encountered more problems.  The night that the expedition embarked, a stampede scattered 400 of the brigade’s mules into the surrounding countryside, causing a delay as Streight had to halt his command to wait for replacement mules.  Once underway, a heavy thunderstorm made the muddy Alabama roads virtually impassible, forcing another delay.  During this halt Colonel Streight met with General Grenville Dodge, who assured Streight that he  had driven Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s command to the north, opening up a way for Streight’s “Jackass Brigade” to continue their raid unmolested.

     General Dodge was mistaken.  Forrest was well aware of the whereabouts of Streight’s men and easily maneuvering his men past General Dodge’s force, he relentlessly drove his command to intercept them.  Sniping at their flanks and rear, Forrest’s expert use of his command dogged Streight to the point where he dared not stop to rest his weary men and mules.  Giving Forrest the slip was impossible.  The “Wizard of the Saddle’s” scouts later boasted that they could hear the constant braying of Streight’s mules from 2 miles away.

     Streight had to deal with unfriendly locals as well.  At one crucial point during his raid, a 16 year old girl, Emma Sansom,  guided Forrest and his men to a ford which allowed them to gain a march on the beleaguered Federals.  At another point the residents of Rome, Georgia repelled the raiders attempt to capture a bridge crucial to their escape hopes, after ferryman John Wisdom, enraged at the wanton destruction of his ferry, the source of his livelihood, by the Union raiders, raced 67 miles to warn the Georgia residents of the approaching Union troops.  His warning gave them time to gather and initiate the defense that held the bridge.  By the time they reached Cedar Bluff many of Streight’s men were on foot, their exhausted mules having given out.  To make matters worse, much of their ammunition had gotten wet and was useless.  Forrest and his 500 men (yes, only 500) took up positions surrounding Streight’s men, and ordered the Union commander to surrender.  During negotiations Forrest used every trick he could come up with to convince the Union commander that he was outnumbered.  Ruses included having his artillery hauled round the Union position in circles, using a ridge and hills in order to mask their movement to delude Streight into believing that they were many different units.  The Union commander finally agreed to surrender, convinced by the visual ruse that Forrest had orchestrated that he faced a numerically superior foe.

     When Forrest’s small division came out after the surrender was negotiated, Streight was incensed at the trick that had been played upon him.  He angrily demanded that his men be allowed to renege on the agreement so that they could prove their mettle in a fair fight.  Needless to say, Forrest refused the request.  Already becoming almost a mythic figure as a commander, the man who would eventually have 30 horses shot out from under him, and who would kill the same number of men in one to one combat; his outwitting of Colonel Streight only added to his rapidly growing legend.

     Defeat proved especially bitter for the soldiers of the 1^st Alabama, men who had risked their families and homes; everything they held dear basically, because they elected to defend the Union despite their State’s decision to secede.  Forrest soon paroled the privates and the non-commissioned officers, not having the resources to feed them or the men to guard them, but the officers, well-trained leaders, one hundred and three in number, which included Captain John Hood, were reasoned to be too valuable to the Union cause to parole.  They were to be held as prisoners until such a time when the Confederate leaders hoped that they could be exchanged for badly needed prisoners to rebuild the thinning rebel ranks.  Young John Hood’s prison experiences and his postwar life will encompass the other two thirds of this article.

     After being captured with Abel Streight’s command, John Hood and the 102 officers that the rebels opted not to parole were taken to the infamous Libby Prison, an old tobacco barn that had been converted to a holding pen for captured Union officers.  He spent nearly a year there.  This structure was three stories high, with the second and third stories designated as inmate holding areas.  The basement once boasted a kitchen at its eastern end which at one time early in the prison’s history was used by the inmates, but an infestation of rats and the tendency of the basement to be subject to flooding led to the abandonment of that section of the warehouse/prison.  The abandoned area became known as “rat hell.”  With time to reflect upon his life, his situation and the religious upbringing that he had, he found himself pondering his spiritual welfare.  Later in his life Hood said that while enduring his miserable existence in Libby Prison he first received the call to enter the ministry.

    A group of Union officers discovered that by removing a stove and chipping their way into an adjoining chimney, that they could access “rat hell,” the floor of which was covered with two feet of straw.  This straw was a godsend for both covering earth that had been dug out as the men began to laboriously tunnel toward freedom.  It also covered the mouth of the tunnel.  The hundreds of rats that made this area their home were a constant nuisance, finding their way into the tunnel, crawling over the men digging in the tunnels and basically displaying no fear of the men who had invaded their sanctuary.  The only advantage to the soldiers was that the presence of the horde of filthy rodents that had taken residence there discouraged searches through that area.  The guards tended to shun it.  After 17 days of digging by three different shifts of men, they finally succeeded in tunneling through to a 50 foot vacant lot near the prison, emerging beneath a tobacco shed.

     109 Men used that tunnel to make an escape from Libby Prison.  John Hood was not one of them.  The escape of the Yankee prisoners though impacted his situation in that moves were made to address the overcrowding of the prison and to make it more secure.  Captain Hood was one of the officers who was removed and sent further south.

     Macon, Georgia became his next place of confinement, but events in Charleston, South Carolina were stirring that would impact Captain Hood’s life.  Confederate Major General Samuel Jones had been assigned to command of the city.  Despite Mexican War experience, service at the Rebel victory at First Manassas, and the responsibility of commanding a brigade in both Florida and Virginia, Jones had earned a reputation for being difficult to work with.  He questioned his superiors, at times disregarding their order, and was loathe to relinquish troops that he had command of when ordered to send them to areas where they were desperately needed.  After arguing with General Robert E. Lee about such issues, he was relieved of his Virginia command and sent to Charleston.

     By the time General Jones arrived at his new command, the city had suffered eight months of intermittent bombardment.  The streets were pockmarked with shell craters and many of the buildings had sustained serious damage.  Jones wanted the shelling to cease, and finally decided to take a drastic measure to do so.  On June 1^st, 1864, he requested permission from General Braxton Bragg, Jefferson Davis’ military advisor by this time, to have 50 Federal prisoners sent to him to be “confined in parts of the city still occupied by civilians, but under the enemy’s fire.”  General Jones’ request was approved, and orders were issued to pull that number of prisoners from Camp Oglethorpe in Macon, to bring them to Charleston.  They arrived on June 12^th.

     The Charleston Mercury took a great deal of pleasure in reporting the plight of the unlucky 50 high ranking Yankees, besides Captain Hood, a collection of officers that included 5 brigadier generals.  “These prisoners, we understand, will be furnished with comfortable quarters in that portion of the city most exposed to enemy fire.  The commanding officer on Morris Island will be duly notified of the fact of their presence in the shelled district, and if his batteries still continue at their wanton and barbarous work, it will be at the peril of the captive officers.”

      General Jones officially notified General Foster, the commander of the Union force that was besieging the city, of his actions.  Foster replied angrily that Charleston was a legitimate target given that it had munitions factories and wharves to unload supplies that could make it into the harbor past the Union blockade.  General Foster said that ‘to destroy these means of continuing the war is therefore our object and duty.  You seek to defeat this effort, not by honorable means, but by placing unarmed and helpless men under our fire.”

     This war of words escalated with Jones responding that “I cannot but regard the desultory firing on this city, which you dignify by the name ‘Bombardment’, from its commencement to this hour, as anti-Christian, inhuman, and utterly indefensible by any law, human or divine.”  Clearly Jones had his dander up, and he wasn’t about to back down or show any sympathy to the Union officers that he was callously exposing to danger.

     General Foster responded by bringing 50 Rebel prisoners to a place of incarceration on Morris Island, just in front of the Federal batteries, placing an equal number of the enemy in harm’s way.  Federal officials were made aware of the stalemate, and an understanding had just about been reached to exchange both sets of prisoners to eliminate the impasse, when Sherman’s thrust in Georgia threatened the Infamous prison camp at Andersonville and authorities there sent hundreds of prisoners to Charleston for safekeeping.  This despite General Samuel Jones’ objection that it was both "inconvenient and unsafe.”

     The Union commander became upset and angry when he heard of the new influx of prisoners into the city, believing that they were sent there to serve as more human shields.  A stockade was built in front of Battery Wagner, and 600 Confederate officers were shipped in from Fort Delaware.  In this high stakes game using human lives as chips, now each side had put 600 officers in the line of fire.

     As the number of inmates grew, conditions in the camp that held the Union prisoners deteriorated.  Soon 600 officers were sharing space with 300 enlisted men, both black and white, as well as local criminals and deserters from both sides.  Most of them were jammed into A-frame tents set up in the courtyard.  An inmate described the yard as “a dirty little place unfit for human beings to live in.”  Another Federal officer, Louis Fortescue, wrote home to describe the “intolerable heat” that the prisoners had to endure in a courtyard that did not have a single shade tree in it.  Life here was every bit as debilitating as the conditions that the men had to endure in Libby Prison, and to add to the stifling heat and humidity of summer, yellow fever introduced itself into the camp and soon began to take a frightening toll of the weak and malnourished prisoners.

     General Jones, the Confederate commander, reacted to the outbreak of the disease by issuing orders to his Provost Marshall to remove as many of the sick and wounded prisoners as possible who were able to travel and have them shipped back to other prison camps.   One of these gentleman was Captain Hood, who was being sent to Columbia, South Carolina.  While being shipped via train to their destination, Hood and Lieutenant Goode, an Indiana native, jumped from the moving train, using the darkness of night to cloak their departure.  The plunge left them badly bruised and hurt, but despite their suffering, they had to immediately get up and hobble toward the shelter of the woods.  Like the escaped slaves who would hide during the day and travel at night in their trek north toward freedom, Hood and Goode entered into the same routine; they learned to follow the North Star as well, the beacon of freedom.  They had an arduous journey of over 400 miles ahead of them if they were going to reach the Union lines in East Tennessee and freedom.

     In his “Lecture on Prison Life,” a 174 page manuscript which is in the possession of Duke University in their Rubenstein Library Collection, Dr. Hood speaks with gratitude of the kindnesses shown to him by blacks along their route, one of whom risked his own life in order to provide the two escapees with gray uniforms to replace their Union blue.  He also talks of the cruelties that their Rebel captors inflicted upon them during their time in prison, as well as the meager rations and the filth of the surroundings that they were forced to exist in.  Goode and Hood persevered, travelling through South Carolina and Georgia in the hope of reaching the Union line in East Tennessee.  Within 20 miles of the Atlanta and Chattanooga railroad, which was in Union hands, they were accosted by bushwackers and eventually identified as escaped prisoners.  It had to be frustrating and terribly disheartening to have gotten so close to freedom only to be recaptured and sent back into captivity.

     Captain John Hood was sent first to a camp near Athens, Georgia.  Later he was moved again.  He remained a prisoner until being paroled as part of a prisoner exchange that took him out of confinement in Goldsboro, North Carolina.  He returned to Company F of the 80^th Illinois infantry on October 20^th, 1864.  He remained with them until the end of the war, receiving an honorable discharge on May 15^th, 1865.  In November of the same year he entered a Reformed Presbyterian theological seminary in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania.  The following year he became Superintendent of Public Schools of Sparta, Illinois.  He received his license to preach in 1869 and completed his theological studies in 1870.  By this time, a Doctor of Divinity, “Doctor” Hood married Miss Mary Gault of Randolph County, Illinois.  Their union eventually brought them a daughter.  From 1870 to 1878 he served as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Sparta, leaving there on June 30^th, 1878 to become the spiritual leader of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  He remained there until 1889 when he assumed the leadership of the Presbyterian Church of Galesburg, Illinois. 

     Dr. John Hood, during his time in Galesburg, was instrumental in erecting two imposing edifices that still remain to testify to his importance to the community.  The first, the home he had built on 545 North Prairie Street, is a multi-story home, a remarkable example of the Queen Anne style of architecture, boasting a series of arches and curves.  The structure is especially noted for the curved front porch that protrudes to the south.  It was designed by the local architects Charles Gottschalk and J. Grant Beedle.  According to an article about the home written by Tom Wilson, the leaded windows of the home are among the prettiest in the city.   Dr. Hood lived here until he retired from the ministry in 1897.

     During Dr. Hood’s eight year tenure as the spiritual leader of the Presbyterian Church in Galesburg, he was responsible for raising the funding and enthusiasm for building a new sanctuary of worship.  At the cost of $70,000, an imposing stone edifice, still one of the most striking and visually attractive buildings in Galesburg, was erected on the corner of North Prairie and East Ferris Streets.  Yes, Dr. Hood has left a legacy in the city that does credit to his memory.

      Dr. Hood was in demand as a lecturer and patriotic speaker as well.  More on this will be addressed in the last paragraph of this article.  His learning and experiences generally earned him flattering reviews, although one commentator notes that “Hood’s voice was a high-pitched, irritating disappointment, lacking resonance.”  This Civil War officer, prisoner of war, respected lecturer and spiritual advisor to Presbyterian communities of worship died while in Austin, Texas on January 29^th, 1905.  His body was returned to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to be interred next to his wife, Mary, who had died and was buried there in 1886.  A white obelisk marks their burial site, next to which is a simple Grand Army of the Republic stone that commemorates his Civil War service, referring to him as “Lieutenant” John Hood.

      Dr. Hood’s papers are in the possession of Duke University, who purchased them in an on-line auction hosted by Dorothy Sloan Books. Looking at the contents of the lot, it is to be greatly regretted that these papers couldn’t have been acquired by a Knox County library or college.  The documents had at some point endured some smoke and fire damage, but the contents are still readable and hopefully someday will be on-line for everyone to access.  Meanwhile, an aspiring scholar looking for a graduate treatise could do much worse than writing a dissertation about Dr. Hood’s life and Civil War experiences.  The centerpiece of the collection is his 174 page “Lecture on Prison Life,” but it also contains a two and a half page autobiography, correspondence and military papers including pension applications, correspondence from the Galesburg Presbyterian church and the Sparta Church calling upon him to become their minister, newspaper clippings about the lecture on prison life that he had delivered at Greene’s Opera House in Rapid City, Iowa, memorial addresses that he had delivered at Moscow, Illinois, Aledo, Illinois and a speech that he delivered in honor of John A. Logan.  Sloan Books touts Hood’s lecture on prison life as “a major, unpublished Civil War POW narrative.” 

    Dr. John Hood was one of the lucky ones, a man who survived the debilitating conditions of being incarcerated in Rebel prisons.  He went on, like so many veterans did after this and future wars, to set an educational goal, pursue it, and use his learning to benefit the communities that he served in.  Perhaps you’ll think of him next time you stroll or drive past the beautiful church structure that he helped make possible. 

                                        Bibliography

Immortal 600;  Prisoners under Fire at Charleston Harbor During the American Civil War  “America’s Civil War Magazine” June,2006

Guide to the John Hood Papers         Collection Guides/ Rubenstein Library      Duke University

“Reverend John Hood (1838-1905)”  Find a Grave Memorial

History of the Presbyterian Church of the State of Illinois       1879

Church History         History of Galesburg Presbyterian    On-line article

Galesburg Oldest notable Homes:  Former home of Dr. John Hood    “Galesburg Register-Mail” 6/08/14

Dorothy Sloan Rare Books  Auction 22 Listing.  John Hood Lot

“Libby Prison Escape”    Wikipedia article

“Encyclopedia of Alabama:  Streight’s Raid    On-line article

 

To Vanquish the Prince of Rebels

                              Adam Clarke Higgins, Chaplain of the 83rd Illinois

     As with so many of the men who became leaders in Western Illinois, Adam Clarke Higgins emigrated here in his early years, having been born in Middlebourne, in Tyler County, West Virginia, in 1834.  He entered the ministry of the Methodist Church at 18 years of age, and at age 21 he joined the Central Illinois Conference.  After the hostilities between the north and the south broke out, he labored to and was instrumental in raising a number of companies in Knox County.  Realizing that his strengths lay in his religious instruction rather than military tactics or the wielding of discipline, he resigned the Captaincy that he had been elected to and instead accompanied the 893^rd Illinois as its Chaplain.  For two years he was the post Chaplain at Clarkesville, Tennessee.  In the book that Phil Reyburn has recently transcribed and put together of letters home from soldiers serving at the front, Chaplain Higgins sends some interesting observations home in which he equates the rebels against their country to the rebellion of Satan and his minions.  I can’t help feeling that it would be tough to listen to a heavy dose of rhetoric such as this on a Sunday morning.

    “I entered upon my labor as Chaplain of the regiment deeply impressed me with the responsibility of my position, and resolving faithfully to discharge every known duty in the fear of God.  I have in every instance met a warm reception, and have been kindly treated by both officers and privates.  My time has been occupied principally in conducting religious services, visiting the hospitals, and companies, reading scriptures for, and conversing, and praying with the sick, writing letters for those unable to write; answering correspondents, inquiring about sick friends, attending the funerals of the deceased members of our regiment, and distributing tracts, books, papers and magazines among those having the leisure and ability to read. …with regard to the morals of the members of our regiment the standard is not as high as it should be, but in this respect I think our regiment would compare favorably with the same number of men taken promiscuously in any community….

     “Send us moral and religious reading matter—tracts, books, papers, magazines, etc.  The appealing to the God of Battles for the rectitude of our cause, we will sacrifice our lives.  Upon our country’s altar, or live to see the day when treason and rebellion shall be swept from our land, complete victory perch upon our banner, and country enjoy peace again upon the God-given principle of Right.  And in the still greater conflict, we pledge ourselves either to die in the contest or to vanquish the prince of rebels, the arch-secessionist, destroy his confederacy, build up the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and wave the flag of salvation over a world redeemed from the thralldom of sin.”

     In February of 1864, Chaplain Higgins sent a letter back to the Galesburg Free Democrat, excerpts of which the editor shared with his readership.  Among the topics discussed in the letter are his impressions of Clarksville and the Tennessee people, Colonel Arthur A. Smith and the health of the regiment and his personal accomplishments.

     “Clarksville is situated on the Cumberland River, about thirty-five miles above Ft. Donelson.  This was a place that formerly numbered about 6000 inhabitants… It was a place of great wealth.  There was more tobacco shipped at this place than any other point North or South.  The citizens have built many fine residences, some that might properly be denominated mansions, and had the grounds surrounding them beautifully adorned with statuary, tropical trees and flowers.  Having grown rich from uncompensated toil and their damnable tariffs in flesh and blood, as might be expected, this class of society is arrogant, imperious, domineering and overbearing.  A great portion of the masses of society are stupid ignoramuses….This city has done much for the nefarious cause of the South.  She has contributed largely of her means to support of that arch traitor, Jeff Davis, and his plans for the overthrow of our God-given form of government.  She has declaimed boisterously for “Southern Rights.”   In part she has received her rights.  The neglected filthy and ruined condition of her public and many of her private buildings, the paralyzed condition of her public and many of her citizens (who once rode upon the waves of luxury and wealth) to dependence and want, with many other signs, bear unmistakable evidence that much of her former glory has departed.  In this place of six thousand inhabitants, there were but three or four citizens who stood by the honor of our government, or had a word to say for the Union in its hour of trial.  Such a hotbed of treason- I wonder that the city has not been burned or bombarded long before this time.  But perhaps it is best that such has not been done, but ‘I can’t see it’.”

     “Col. A. A. Smith of Galesburg is in command here.   Our excellent Colonel has won an enviable fame among the officers and soldiers of the 83^rd (also other officers and soldiers with whom we have been associated since entering the service) for his good sense, good morals, and of all the elements that are involved in the constitution of a gentleman, a patriot, a faithful officer and a hero.  I have found in him a true friend and a safe counselor.”

     Chaplain Higgins wrote in the same letter of the deaths that had occurred in the regiment up to that point (82), and noted that roughly the same number of men had been discharged.  Judging from the task list that he recounts to the editor in the following segment from his letter, Chaplain Higgins evidently was diligent about keeping a very accurate accounting of his accomplishments.

     “I have recently administered the ordinance of baptism to 18 persons.  During the year 1863, I preached one hundred and three discourses, attended ninety seven funerals, wrote five hundred and seventy three letters (many of them for the sick and to the friends of the sick) and tried to be faithful in my attention to the sick and well, in exhorting, conducting prayer meetings, domestic worship, etc.”

     On March 24^th, 1864, in another letter to the Galesburg Free Democrat, he talks of the Election Day in Tennessee. 

     “…from what I have learned there was a much larger vote pulled throughout West Tennessee than I expected.  There were but few of the citizens of this place that voted; most of them refused to take either President Lincoln’s oath of office or the oath prescribed by Governor Johnson… I think a place could not be found in all secessia where the people are more unanimously opposed to the federal government than are the despicable inhabitants of this treacherous place.  Civil law will be re-established, and sustained by the military, and unless these guilty rebels are speedily found at Lincoln’s altar, repenting of this most damnable of all sins, treason, I trust that they will be made to feel that traitors cannot persist in their opposition to the federal [--rm] with perfect impunity.”

     Chaplain Higgins wrote a letter to the Knox Republican in August of 1864.  It was a chatty letter, but dealt with more military matters than were usually evident in his letters, including an ambush by Confederate bushwhackers that was more like cold-blooded murder.  The Morrison that he lists as missing, later returned to camp after escaping during the ambush.  His grandson changed his name from Marion Morrison to a more masculine sounding “John Wayne” when he went to Hollywood.  Yes, “The Duke.”

     “Arose on Tuesday, 16^th, and accompanied by Lieut. Russell and Capt. Temple rode to the steamboat landing, learned that a little steamboat left for Donelson at 8 o’clock.  After breakfast visited the contraband camp, and the quarters of Capt. Temple’s company.  Met with Capt. Brunt, who has charge of the contraband camp.  Spent our time looking at the improvements, were highly delighted while inspecting one of the finest gardens in all the country.  A large, fine watermelon was plucked, cut and eaten, after which we hastened to the river, arriving just in time for the Lieut. To get aboard the boat bound for Donelson.” 

     “A report reached headquarters on Thursday the 16^th, that three hundred rebel soldiers were crossing, or had crossed the Cumberland at Palmyra between this and Donelson.  Some of the boys met with them, and shots were exchanged.  There are undoubtedly many rebel soldiers, guerillas and blood-guilty citizens in the country.  If the authorities expect us to do anything more than to garrison the post then they ought to furnish more men.  The number of mounted men here to scout, repair telegraph lines, and keep up courier lines, etc. etc., is shamefully and ruinously insufficient.”

     “Mounted infantry came in during Friday night.  They had been to Garnetsburg, and learned from a reliable source that the rebel guerilla Woodward had left in command of three hundred men, not an hour before our boys arrived.  A dispatch was received in Hopkinsville that Woodward had moved onto that place and made an attack early in the morning.  Woodward and several of his men were killed, and the rebel forces were completely routed.”

     “Dr. Cooper unwell.  Hope he will be better soon.  His labors have been very abundant.  A dispatch from Col. Brott today informs us that Captain Turnbull of Company B and seven of his men were murdered while out repairing telegraph lines.  Names of the men killed are: Capt. William Turnbull, Corporal Mitchell Thompson, W.W. Findly, Samuel A Foster, James Patterson, William Martin, John Hogue, and David Nichols.  Missing James Neely and M. Morrison.”

     In a September letter to the Knox Republican Chaplin Higgins talks some of the murders of the telegraph repair party, but spends more ink, seemingly with some delight, in celebrating the death of the guerrilla leader Woodward.  Excerpts from this letter follow…

     “In my last letter I gave you the names of the members of Company B., who were so cruelly murdered and barbarously mutilated by hellish guerilla fiends in human form, between Donelson and Smithland.  Ere this reaches you, you will no doubt have received a detailed report of the circumstances connected with the death of our ill-fated boys.  In their death we mourn high-minded gentlemen, patriotic soldiers and exemplary Christians.  I also spoke of the death of Woodward, the guerilla chief.  Friend Mercer, of the Nashville Times, gives this despicable rascal, who in now reaping the latter wages of his wretched life in the regions inhabited by the congenial spirits of fallen angels and accursed rebels, the following notice:

   “Woodward was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, went a short time to West Point to school, was expelled, and soon after fled to Kentucky in consequence of being engaged in a disgraceful brawl.  He eked out a miserable subsistence by teaching a little country school, in which he met with poor success, being a notorious vagabond, rowdy, liar and profligate drunkard. He often traveled twenty miles to get up rows at circuses in country towns, in one of which frolics he nearly lost his life by getting his head broken by a big clown.  A short time before the rebellion broke out he forged the name of one of his friends to a note for three hundred dollars, and attempted to raise money on it.  Altogether he was a worthless dog, a personal, social and moral nuisance.  He was one of the best representatives of the rebellion that we ever saw.”

     …”Woodward, he whom the miserable, hypocritical, and professedly loyal inhabitants of this place, have styled divine, and over whose death they are weeping and mourning and indulging in imprecations upon the heads of those who committed ‘the monstrous and enormous crime’ of sending him to the place prepared for rebel angels, and specified in the Living Book of the Living God, as the future abode of the living participants in, the aiders and abettors of, and the sympathyzers with, the most damnable rebellion waged against the glorious government of the United States.  Woodward was the God of this people.  Under him, though they now profess to be loyal, and say ‘they never spoke a word’ or ‘performed an act’ favoring secession, many of them shouldered their guns and participated in the capture of this place in August, 1862, and no doubt have frequently been with him in his guerrillaing, thieving and murdering through the country.  To Woodward the people of this place offer up their praying and supplications, and to him many of them expect to go when they die.”

     Adam Clarke Higgins made it through the war.  He was more fortunate than many of the men who enlisted to become part of the 83^rd and history.  At the close of the war he was mustered out with the rank of “major.”  After the war he re-entered the ministry, married Lydia F. Ramsey of Rushville, Illinois in 1865, and was the shepherd for congregations in Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey and New York City.   Eventually adding a law degree to his divinity degree, he moved to Chicago and practiced law there for 15 years.  Civil War pension records note that he applied for and received an invalid’s pension in August of 1890.    Adam C. Higgins was a past commander of the Winfield Scott Chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was also a member of the Improved Order of Red Men and the Union Veteran Association.  He had been making preparations to move to Lincoln, Illinois, to share a law office with his son, Charles. A. Higgins, when he died on March 25^th, 1896 of congestion of the stomach after a short illness.  His death occurred at the home of his nephew in Chicago, Lloyd Higgins.

      The former Chaplain of the 83^rd Illinois had arranged to have his body shipped to Rushville, Illinois to be buried in his wife’s family plot.   There he rests, next to his beloved Lydia, in the Rushville City Cemetery.

                                                                             Bibliography

“Soldiers’ Correspondence to Galesburg & Knoxville Newspapers, 1861-65”       Transcribed by Philip J. Reyburn, 2014.

“Find a Grave”    Adam Clarke Higgins Memorial.

Rushville Times, 1896       Adam Clarke Higgins obituary

Civil War pension records

    

    

"Such a Chaplain was worth a Thousand Men!"

Milton L. Haney, Bushnell’s “Fighting Chaplain”        

     To do a man such as Milton Lorenzo Haney justice would take far more than three 1200 word articles.  The man has written an autobiography, “The Story of My Life.” which was published in 1904 in Normal, IL.  The Galesburg Library boasts a copy in its historical archives.  He has been the subject of numerous articles, and is honored with a monument at the Chaplain’s Memorial at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and with monuments in Bushnell and more recently, one erected in his honor in Abingdon, Illinois.  In the course of this three part series, I hope to emphasize his religious faith, his bravery, which led him to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism at the battle of Atlanta, and the high esteem that his men held him in.

     Milton Haney was born in 1825 in Savannah, Illinois to a father who preached the word for over fifty years.  His faith was contagious; 4 of his sons and a grandson and a great-grandson all entered the ministry of the Methodist Church.  Milton received Christ in his 16^th year, and at the age of 21, only six weeks after he had been licensed to preach, he took the appointment as the junior preacher of the Dixon, Illinois circuit.  Just like lawyers such as Lincoln did, men of the cloth rode a circuit as well in order to service the spiritual needs of their rural parishioners.  Three years later he married Sarah Huntzinger of Princeton, Illinois, a union that would last over 70 years.

     Haney had been a “pronounced abolitionist” since 1847, and at the outbreak of the Civil war he was a vocal supporter of the Union cause.  He had just begun to serve as the pastor of the Bushnell, Illinois Methodist Episcopal Church when he was asked to assist in raising a company of local boys to fight to quell the Rebellion.  Within five days he had gathered over a hundred men, many of them Methodists, who were organized into two companies of the “Bushnell Light Guard.”  Haney was elected Captain of one of the companies, accepted the honor, and on October 11^th, 1861 was appointed Captain of Company F, 55^th Regiment of the 55^th Illinois Infantry.  After five months of serving in that capacity, Haney was asked to resign as Captain in order to assume the role of Chaplain of the 55^th, a role he assumed in March, 1862.

     Over the course of the war he gave a great deal of thought and diligent attention to his duties as his regiment’s spiritual guide.  In his memoirs he pens a short chapter entitled “The Duties of a Chaplain” in which he reflects upon the qualities that a man of God should have when accompanying men to war.

1.        The value of prior military experience was incalculable

          It can hardly be realized how great a blessing it was to me as a chaplain to have first been an efficient officer of the line.  In my five months of experience as a       Captain…I saw the wrongs perpetrated against the men by their officers and disapproved of them.  This gave me power with all [the soldiers] in the line, so an attempt to put me down was a serious affair to any officer, for he knew in doing so he would bring [upon himself] the wrath of the men.  So I fearlessly did many things in the chaplaincy I never could have done had I not gained these advantages.  Hence to the end I was free to follow my own conscience, and none dared to meddle with me.

2.        Chaplains who were merely preachers and not pastors were usually failures

There was a class of preachers who were not a success at home who secured the position of chaplain and failed.  A chaplain who would remain at headquarters and only be seen by the men in connection with a perfunctory “Divine Service” amounted to very little.  An army in motion, as was Sherman’s, rarely gives a chance for a set sermon.  Hence the chaplain who depends wholly upon his preaching seems to be an idler, and easily gets the displeasure of the men.

3.        Chaplains need common sense, divine love, moral courage, and adaptation to personnel contact with soldiers of may backgrounds.

 

Divine love ruling in a human breast always produces a real interest in the weal of others.  A chaplain who is head and no heart is a miserable makeshift.  He must be able to put himself alongside men of a great variety of temperaments and in a variety of circumstances.

 

4.        Above all, chaplains must be watchful for opportunities to help and relieve suffering whenever and wherever possible.

    There is a great deal of suffering in an army, especially when in the field.  Men get sick or are wounded, and the best treatment that can be given, in many cases, would be looked upon with horror in the home life.  The presence of a wise chaplain filled with the sympathies of Jesus in such cases is as an oasis in the desert.  Besides all this, the spiritual interests of a thousand men are on his soul, and so many in death, on field and in the camp, who can be made to see Christ before they go!  It will give me ages of comfort, the memories of what God did for me and through me in those years of war.

     The 55^th Illinois saw considerable action during the war, giving Chaplain Haney plenty of opportunity to bond with the men.  When it came to erecting earthworks, Chaplain Haney took his turn with the shovel, and bore with his charges during the siege of Vicksburg and Sherman’s drive into Georgia.  He took the role of chaplain far beyond what was normally expected of a man of the cloth.  He often led men in foraging expeditions, looked after the needs of the wounded and dying, and had command of the regiment’s ambulances.  At the age of 39 he was easily 15 years older than most of the men, but he was easily the most popular officer in the regiment.  He often could be heard rousing and encouraging the boys by leading them in song, hymns that he knew by heart from a tiny battered hymnbook that he carried with him.  He remained chaplain of the regiment despite being elected to the rank of “Colonel” by the men in recognition of the heroism he demonstrated during the battles around Vicksburg and Chattanooga.  In 1863 he had a chance to take an action that demonstrated his firm belief in the abolition of slavery and his faith in the ability of the black man to fight for his own freedom, and he requested permission to raise a black regiment.  By early June of 1864 though, the combined duties of a Colonel and a chaplain became too burdensome to him.  His allegiance to his God took precedence, so he turned command of the regiment over to Lieutenant=Colonel Jacob M. Augustine to focus his labors full time as the chaplain of the regiment.  The men insisted however, that he retain the honorary rank of “Colonel,” which testified to the high esteem and the affection that they held for him.

     At the dawn of July 22^nd, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood launched a surprise attack against the Union position occupied by McPherson’s division.  Hood reportedly ordered that whiskey barrels be cracked open so that his boys could fill their canteens.  The hope of the Confederate high command was that they would drive the Yanks out of the country and celebrate as they had after a similarly stunning Confederate victory at Chickamauga.  During the morning of the assault, McPherson galloped into a rebel skirmish line and was shot attempting to turn his horse and gallop to safety.  He became the highest ranking Union casualty of the war.  General Patrick Cleburne, one of the South’s most able commanders, continued to push the rebel troops forward.  Two miles north of McPherson’s flank, Chaplain Haney heard the incessant thunder of the artillery, and noted in his memoirs that “the musketry was simply terrific.”  The 55^th Illinois was first ordered to march to Decatur< Georgia, 4 miles away, where General Joe Wheeler and the Confederate cavalry were attacking the Union wagon trains, but Major General John A. Logan, who took command after McPherson’s death, countermanded the order and sent the 55^th back to bolster the Union line. 

     At about 4pm, Cleburne’s attack on the left lost its impetus.  Hood committed his second corps, under General Benjamin Cheatham, to hit the Union center.  This attack would run them up against the line that the 55^th Illinois occupied.

    Chaplain Haney watched as three lines of rebel soldiers, six men deep, advanced toward the 55ths position.  Haney saw a musket lying on the ground.  He normally did not carry a weapon, but he reasoned that the rebels would have little time to recognize that he was a chaplain during this ferocious assault.  Armed now, he stepped into the trenches.  Using the breastworks for good effect, the 55^th Illinois drove the rebels back during the assault on their portion of the Union defenses.  Regrettably, not all of the Yankee units were so stalwart.  The unit adjacent to them, the 57^th Ohio, broke and fled, leaving the 55ths position untenable. 

        “When loading my gun,” wrote Chaplain Haney in his memoirs, “I faced northward and to my surprise the 57^th Ohio was retreating.” As the men of the 55^th Illinois sensed that they were being overwhelmed, they broke too.  Eventually Chaplain Haney and Lieutenant Eichelberger and one other soldier were all that remained within sight of each other in the heavy smoke of the battle.  They finally had to fall back as well, much to the mortification of the Lieutenant, who “roared like a wild man,” before he “broke into tears and wept like a child” as they withdrew, their retreat urge to haste by heavy Confederate fire.

     From the vantage point of his headquarters, General Sherman took immediate steps to quell the Confederate breakthrough and drive them back.  He ordered that 20 cannon from Schofield’s artillery fire over the heads of the retreating Union troops into the horde of advancing rebels.  The fighting was near enough to headquarters by now that a bullet grazed General Sherman’s cheek.  While the artillery was making life hell for the rebels, General Logan led two divisions and a brigade forward to reestablish the Union line.  As Logan’s troops moved forward, Chaplain Haney had a soldier run up to him and assert that some of the members of the 55^th were still holding out, refusing to retreat.  Haney doubted the man at first, but upon questioning him, realized that he was telling the truth.  Knowing that the men holding on could use any assistance he could muster, he began attempting to work with Lieutenant Eichelburger to rally the 55^th and move them forward as well.  Chaplain Haney well remembered their efforts…

     Having gone through the brush perhaps 30 rods, a group of the scattered men began to gather around us, and Eichelburger insisted that we return and retake the works.  The men said they would not go unless I sanctioned it, and now our duty seemed plain.  We fell into a thin line and the farther we went the faster, till suddenly coming into the clearing, we were face to face with a thousand rebels between us and our works, about twenty steps away.  A rebel, seeing me before I saw him, had his musket drawn on my breast.  My musket was down at a ‘trail arms,’ but was changed to a make ready, aim and fire! In an amazingly quick time.”

     Haney estimated that he had roughly 40 men in his stalwart group of heroes, but they fought fiercely.  The brave Lieutenant Eichelberger died, taking a bullet in the head.  Haney watched as some of his comrades staggered and fell to the ground as well.  Some of them had by this time run out of ammunition and were using their fists to attack the enemy.  Haney reflected on that moment in his memoirs…

     “As I turned after firing, it was said by a cool-headed sergeant who was looking on, that one hundred muskets were fired at my person.  It may have been less, but the brush was mowed to the left and right by rebel bullets and by a miracle my life was preserved.  A voice went through me, assuring me that no rebel bullet should touch me.  I praised God until two o’clock that night that he had carried my head in time of battle and enabled me to ‘run through a troop and leap over a wall.’”

     Haney and his small group had delayed the rebel advance long enough.  By this time reinforcements had come up, including more of the members of the 55^th that Colonel Martin had rallied and brought forward.  Now the Confederates were caught in crossfire between the advancing Union reinforcements and the artillery barrage that was pounding their flank.  Haney wrote that the rebels “did go out in haste before the sun went down, and we were again in possession.”  In his battle report, Confederate John Bell Hood vented his disappointment with this entry:  “A heavy enfilade fire forced [General] Cheatham to abandon the works he had captured,”

     Chaplain Haney’s men never forgot their spiritual leader’s heroics, and some of them began to lobby in the postwar years for him to receive the Nation’s highest medal for valor, the Medal of Honor.  The award was finally granted to him on November 3^rd, 1896, for rendering heroic service at Atlanta, Georgia. He “voluntarily carried a musket in the ranks of his regiment, and performed heroic service in retaking the Federal works which had been captured by the enemy on July 22^nd, 1864.” 

      This honor, which would have been the climax and penultimate achievement in one’s life for most men, was not even mentioned in the memoirs that Chaplin Haney wrote in 1904.  He devoted much of that book to sermons that he’d given and revivals that he’d led and to churches that he’d been called to serve in.  What perhaps meant more to him, is a compliment that General Sherman is purported to have uttered when he learned of Chaplain Haney’s heroics in Atlanta.  In his raspy cigar-ravaged voice, he was said to have asserted that “such a chaplain was worth a thousand men.”

     During the evening of July 22^nd Union burial partied found close to 2500 Confederate dead in front of the earthworks.  General Hood’s hope for a great victory outside of Atlanta had evaporated.  Now the city was doomed.  It was at a heavy cost in Northern lives as well though.  Sherman had lost close to 3500 men, including his close friend, General James B. McPherson.  Chaplain Haney worked through the night and late into the morning hours ministering to the wounded and dying of both armies.  One soldier who had been mortally wounded in the stomach was still conscious.  He asked Chaplain Haney to tell him “some words” by which he could be brought to the Lord.  Milton Haney shared the gospel with him, and then softly sang an old revival hymn to the frightened young man.  The soldier listened to the song with his eyes closed, but at the last verse he opened them and said “I have found Him.”  He died at peace and ready to meet his redeemer.

     In the Battle of Atlanta the 55^th Illinois lost so many officers and men that it ceased to be an effective unit.  Chaplain Haney was sent back to Illinois to recruit more men to help fill the regiment, but he was mustered out when General Sherman took Savannah in December and it looked as though the war was nearing its end.  Haney took a pastorate in LaSalle, Illinois in the fall of 1865, and began a 31 year career as a pastor and an evangelist. 

     Haney rose to prominence as a leader in the American Holiness Movement, especially in the West.  He joined the group in 1878, attended the Western Union Holiness Convention, which was held in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1880, and soon began to hold offices of state, and eventually National prominence.  He helped bring about the formation of the National Holiness Missionary Society as well as the California College and Holiness Bible School.  By the time his picture appeared on the cover of the “Christian Standard,” he had achieved national recognition for his zeal as an evangelist. 

     Haney wrote many tracts, books and articles, most of them dealing on religious topics, with such uninspiring titles as “Unsaved Church Members<” “Depravity,” “Tares Mixed with the Wheat,” “Holiness a Hobby” and “Questions to Objectors.”  His 1904 autobiography, “The Story of My Life,” reprinted in 1906 as “Pentecostal Possibilities” has been reprinted and can be purchased on line or through most independent booksellers.

     In the late 1890s the old evangelist’s health began to worsen.  He decided to apply for an increase in his military pension.  The surviving members of his regiment, still holding him in reverence, drew up the following petition, signed their names to it, and submitted it to Green P. Baum, the Commissioner of Pensions in Washington DC.

     “Dear Sir: - We, the undersigned, late members of the 55^th Regt. Illinois Vil. Inf., and now residents of various localities and citizens of different states, having learned that our old Chaplain and Comrade in arms., Rev. Milton L. Haney, is now an applicant for an Invalid Pension, would respectfully represent “First: at the beginning of the war the Rev. Milton L. Haney was a regularly ordained M.E. minister, filling the better class of appointments in Central Illinois, and stationed at the town of Bushnell, Il, and one of the best and most eloquent preachers in his conference.  He early espoused the cause of the Union and threw all of his power and influence of his impetuous nature for a vigorous prosecution of the war.  From the pulpit and the platform, in public and in private, he denounced treason and pleaded for the Union.  He went from place to place holding public meetings and rousing the people to a sense of their duty….doubtless many were enlisted to the cause of the Union by his labors.  Early in the fall of 1861, having enlisted in the army himself, he began the work of securing enlistments, and was very successful, raising two full companies and recruits for others….No citizen of Illinois perhaps, used his influence and abilities to better purpose for the cause of the Union at that time, than Milton L. Haney.  He went to the front as Captain of Company F….and in March, 1862 was promoted to Chaplain…He was respected, honored and beloved by both officers and men and is idealized by them to this day.  He was constant and untiring in his duties and ministrations as Chaplain: in rescuing our wounded and caring for our sick: visiting the most dangerous places in the battlefield in time of battle, and the hospitals in all hours of the night: marching in the ranks and fighting with his musket in battle.

     This man, who gave himself entirely to our cause, and served as few men can serve any cause, now venerable with age and infirm in health and dependent upon his own daily efforts for a living, is an applicant for a valid pension.  His patriarchial and patriotic character, his present straightened financial circumstances, and his faithful services to our common country and to our comrades, both living and dead, of the old Regt. in which we had the honor to serve, impel us, aside from all technical questions of merit in his case, to bespeak for him and his claim, the most considerate, the most lenient and the most generous and liberal consideration, consistent with your high sense of public duty.”

     The petition had the desired effect.  In 1915 Milton Haney’s pension was raised from $30 to $60 a month.  In 1916 the Haneys moved to a new residence at 118 Glorietta Street in Pasadena, California.  There he continued his evangelical work and served as Superintendent of the Southern California Interdenominational Holiness Association.  The fiery old saver of souls finally fell to an attack of pneumonia on January 20^th, 1922, just three days before his 97^th birthday.  More than 50 ministers attended the service.  Chaplain Haney mortal remains are spending their eternal rest in a plot at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California, in Los Angeles County. 

     There is a monument to the Medal of Honor Chaplain at Fort Jackson, South Carolina in its Chaplain Memorial Park.  The monument was moved there from its previous location at Fort McPherson.  For those of you looking for a local tribute to the man, I would urge you to take the short drive to Abingdon.  A recently dedicated memorial at the corner of Main and Meek has columns dedicated to Chaplain Haney, as well as Medal of Honor recipients James B. Stockdale and Robert Dunlop, as well as the early pioneer founder of that Illinois community.  The picture on Milton Haney’s column shows a man in the prime of life, sporting a black beard.  Perhaps this is the same visage that his comrades remembered when they signed their names to his pension petition.

     On the last page of his autobiography, Milton Lorenzo Haney penned words that could well serve as his epitaph.

     “Be it known by any who may read this story when the hand that wrote it is palsied:  There was one heart which did not cease its efforts to save men, till it ceased its beating.”

                            Bibliography:

“The Annals”    March 1994, Volume 15, Number 3,  “For God and Country” by Bill Webber

“Methodist History” January, 1992    “A Song of Courage: Chaplain M. L. Haney and the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

“The Story of My Life”    by Milton Haney, an autobiography, 1906

“Wesleyan Heritage Library”   “Holiness Writers: Sketch of M. L. Haney    by Kenneth o, Brown, 1998.

“Find a Grave,” Milton Lorenzo Haney entry

“Petition by Members of Co. F, 55^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry supporting the claim of Milton Lorenzo Henry for an Invalid Pension