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Came across a photo of a William Childress that was in the Civil war,from
Buchanan County VA. If anyone is interested in it I'll send a .jpg to you!
indiana jack
1 Harris H. Beecher, Record of the 114th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. Where It Went,
What It
Saw, and What It Did (Norwich, NY: J. F. Hubbard, Jr., 1866), 306 (first
and second
quotations); Orton S. Clark, The One Hundred and Sixteenth Regiment of New
York State
Volunteers (Buffalo: Matthews & Warren, 1868), 151 (third quotation); John
Mead Gould,
History of the First--Tenth--Twenty-ninth Maine Regiment (Portland: S.
Berry, 1871), 410;
Thomas B. Marshall, History of the Eighty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the
Greyhound
Regiment (Cincinnati: The Eighty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry Association,
1912), 125;
John M. Stanyan, A History of the Eighth Regiment of the New Hampshire
Volunteers (Concord:
I. C. Evans, 1892), 383; Natchitoches Union, April 1, 2, 4, 1864.
2 Gould, 410 (first and second quotations); Florison D. Pitts, "The Civil
War
Diary of Florison D. Pitts" ed. Leo M. Kaiser Mid-America 40 (January,
1958): 56; Alfred
A. Rigby, Union Soldier's Diary (N.p.: Tortoise Press, n.d.),
unpaged--entries for April
2-3; Marshall, 124 (third quotation); Beecher, 304.
3 Gould, 411; Marshall, 125; Beecher, 307 (first and third quotations); John
Scott,
comp., Story of the Thirty Second Iowa Infantry Volunteers (Nevada, Iowa:
by the author,
1896), 135 (second quotation); J. T. Woods, Services of the Ninety-Sixth Ohio
Volunteers
(Toledo: Blade Printing and Paper Co.), 1874, 53 (fourth quotation); Frank
M. Flinn,
Campaigning with Banks in Louisiana, '63 and '64, and with Sheridan in the
Shenandoah Valley
in '64 and '65 (Lynn, Mass.: Thos. P. Nichols, 1887), 99 (fifth and sixth
quotations), 98
(eighth quotation); Beecher, 307 (seventh and tenth quotations); Elias P.
Pellet, History of
the 114th Regiment, New York State Volunteers (Norwich, NY: Telegraph &
Chronicle Power
Press Print, 1866), 193; Scott, 135; Clark, 152 (eleventh quotation).
4 H. C. Medford, "The Diary of H. C. Medford, Confederate Soldier, 1864,"
ed. by
Rebecca W. Smith and Marion Mullins Southwestern Historical Quarterly 34
(Oct. 1930): 224;
Scott, 135, map at end of volume; S. F. Benson, "The Battle of Pleasant Hill,
Louisiana"
Annals of Iowa 7 (October 1906): 490;
5 Henry H. Childers, "Reminiscences of the Battle of Pleasant Hill" Annals
of
Iowa 7 (October 1906): 516; Benson, map after page 490; Beecher, 308; J. P.
Blessington,
The Campaigns of Walker's Texas Division (New York: Lange, Little & Co.,
1875): 194;
Scott, map; Flinn, 99 (first quotation); Scott, 201 (second quotation); Amos
J. Barron,
A History of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana ... (N. p.: n.p.), 1969, 3; Pellet,
193-4 (third
quotation).
6 Benson, 500; Childers, 514-5; DeSoto Parish History: Sesquicentennial
Edition,
1843-1993 (Mansfield, La.: DeSoto Historical and Genealogical Society,
1995), 104.
7 Benson, 502; DeSoto Parish History, 105; Scott, 152; Childers, 516;
William H.
Heath, "Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana" Annals of Iowa 7 (October 1906):
517.
8 Childers, 506; Blessington, 178, 179 (quotation), 180; Barron, 3.
9 Childers, 506 (quotation); DeSoto Parish History, 104.
10 Lillie Dandridge Sleet Stinson, "Reminiscences of the Battle of Pleasant
Hill,"
Typescript. Mansfield State Commemorative Area, Mansfield, La.
11 Ben Van Dyke, "Ben Van Dyke's Escape from the Hospital at Pleasant Hill
Louisiana," revised by S. F. Benson Annals of Iowa 7 (October 1906): 523.
12 Barron, 3 (both quotations).
13 Harding (Miss Sidney) Diaries, 1863-1864, 1865, Manuscript Group #721,
Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Hill Memorial Library,
Louisiana
State University, Baton Rouge, La. in Records of Ante-Bellum Southern
Plantations from
the Revolution Through the Civil War, Series I, Selections from the Louisiana
and Lower
Mississippi Valley Collection, Louisiana State University Libraries, Part I,
Louisiana
Sugar Plantations. (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America,
1988),
typescript, 10, 11 (first quotation), 12 (second quotation), 13-14.
14 "Three Women of DeSoto Parish, Who Helped the Cause of the Confederacy,
and
the Battle of Mansfield, April 8th, 1864," in DeSoto Plume (Mansfield, La.:
DeSoto
Historical Society, 1980), 137; DeSoto Parish History, 326, 141; "The Last of
the
Mohicans" in DeSoto Plume (Mansfield, La.: DeSoto Historical Society, 1980),
106,
107 (quotation).
15 "The Last of the Mohicans," 106.
16 Blessington, 182-3; T. R. Bonner, "Sketches of the Campaign of 1864"
Land
We Love 5 (Oct. 1868): 462 (quotation).
17 Harding, 14 (quotation).
18 "The Last of the Mohicans," 107 (quotation); "Mansfield 'Battle Plan,"
Typescript. Mansfield State Commemorative Area, Mansfield, La.
19 B. A. Botkin, ed. Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery
(Chicago,
Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1945), 196; DeSoto Parish History, 150-1,
167, 240.
20 (p.171) "Walter Bailey Townsend" by Nannie Townsend Walters, Father Wore
Gray ed. Lela Whitton Hegarty (San Antonio: Naylor, 1963), 149, 168 (first
quotation),
171 (second quotation).
21 Blessington, 191; "The Last of the Mohicans," 107 (first, second and
third
quotations); DeSoto Parish History, 226; "Three Women of DeSoto Parish," 137
(fourth
quotation).
22 "Keatchie College Organized" in DeSoto Plume (Mansfield, La.: DeSoto
Parish
Historical Society, 1980), 176; Benson, 501; W. H. Lewis, "Mansfield's
Newspaper Story"
in DeSoto Plume (Mansfield, La.: DeSoto Historical Society, 1980), 158;
DeSoto Parish
History, 137, 232, 242, 367; William Riley Brooksher, War Along the Bayous:
The 1864
Red River Campaign in Louisiana (Washington: Brassey's, 1998), 140 (first,
second, and
third quotations).
23 Louis Hall, "The Battle of Mansfield: The Experience of a Veteran,"
Typescript. Mansfield Public Library, Mansfield, La. (first and second
quotations);
Felix Pierre Poche, "Excerpt from Poche Diary" in DeSoto Plume (Mansfield,
La.: DeSoto
Historical Society, n.d.), 2: 1.
24 Harding, 16-17 (first quotation), 17 (second quotation), 18, 19 (third
quotation).
25 Lewis, 158 (quotation); Benson, 501, John B. Reid, The Civil War Letters
of John B. Reid (Greenville, Ill.: Bond County Genealogical Society, 1991),
87.
26 Reid, 89 (quotation); Mrs. Mary Porter Goss, "Information on Big Battle
Recalled," Typescript. Mansfield State Commemorative Area, Mansfield, La.
27 Clarence Poe, ed. True Tales of the South at War: How Soldiers Fought
and Families Lived, 1861-1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press,
1961), 90-92 (all quotations).
28 Barron, 3-4 (first quotation); Stinson, "Reminiscences of the Battle of
Pleasant Hill," (second and third quotations); Benson, 495, 502 (fourth
quotation).
29 Childers, 507-8.
30 Liz Chrysler, "The Battle of Pleasant Hill--From a Boy's Viewpoint"
Mansfield Enterprise, May 17, 1977, 15.
31 Benson, 502.
32 Medford, 220-1; Mamie Yeary, Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 1861-1865
(Dayton, Ohio: Morningside House, 1986), 239, 406, 458; Scott, 197
(quotation).
33 Blessington, 201 (first quotation); Botkin, 197 (second quotation);
Yeary,
406 (third quotation).
34 Benson, 499, 500 (quotation); Medford, 224; Grisamore, 151.
35 Childers, 507-8 (first quotation); Benson, 502 (second quotation).
36 Stinson (first quotation); "Battle of Mansfield Was Horror to Soldier
from Area." DeSoto Plume (Mansfield, La.: DeSoto Historical Society, 1980),
55
(second quotation).
37 Childers, 514 (first quotation); Stinson; Benson, 499-500; Ben Van Dyke,
"Ben Van Dyke's Escape from the Hospital at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana."
Revised by S.
F. Benson. Annals of Iowa 7 (Oct. 1906): 524 (second quotation); Medford,
224-5.
38 Stinson; Henry A. Shorey, The Story of the Maine Fifteenth... (Bridgton,
Maine: Press of the Bridgton News, 1890), 105; Benson, 501; Van Dyke, 524.
39 Benson, 501 (first and third quotation), 502 (fourth quotation); Scott,
152 (second quotation); Barron, 4; Stinson.
40 Silas T. Grisamore, The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T.
Grisamore,
C.S.A. Edited by Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University
Press, 1993), 151 (first quotation); Yeary, 28 (second quotation); 3Medford,
220 (third
quotation), 223, 224 (sixth quotation); Botkin, 197 (fourth quotation); Liz
Chrysler,
"The Battle of Pleasant Hill--From a Boy's Viewpoint." Mansfield Enterprise,
May 17,
1977 (fifth quotation); Barron, 4.
41 Shorey, 107 (quotation); Benson, 503; Barron, 4.
42 Benson, 504.
At the Childers mansion, all the halls and rooms filled with the
wounded, except for
two bedrooms, the dining room, and the kitchen. Henry Childers vividly
remembered "one
soldier who was brought in shot through the head. He seemed to be aware that
his end was
near and begged that he be put out of his misery. He died very soon
afterwards." When
one federal soldier recalled the kind treatment his men received from the
"noble" Pleasant
Hill ladies, he named Maria Childers "very chief among them all."35
Mrs. Sleet and her daughters returned to find their house had been used
as a hospital,
and the dead and wounded were strewn in the "commons" in front. Moreover,
the building had
been stripped--everything in it was stolen or ruined; what the Yankees could
not use or send
home was destroyed; our old family Bibles and records were burned, mirrors
put on the floor
and stepped on, ink poured on them and the floor; mahogany bureau drawers
taken to feed
horses in, away off in different places in woods and fields. Absolutely
nothing but the shell
of the house left. The Sleet family was not the only one left with almost
nothing. W. F.
Mills wrote home that "It was hard to see the poor women and children
standing around crying
over their losses. They had nothing to sleep on and nothing to wear."36
For the first few days the Confederate and federal wounded were not
divided but lay
side by side. Henry Childers later commented "it was both beautiful and sad
to see the
soldiers and nurses of the two contending armies in pleasant conversation
together, exchanging
ministrations and offering up prayers together." Not so beautiful was how
numbed the children
came to be at the sight of the dead soldiers, so much so that some were
caught jumping from
body to body and crowing like roosters. Maria Childers soon requested that
her home be used
solely as a Confederate hospital, so the federal wounded were moved to the
Pearce-Payne College buildings, and the Confederate wounded were concentrated
in the homes and buildings along the main street. One physician and "one
sound Yankee" established an overflow federal hospital to handle one hundred
casualties at the camp meeting ground just east of town. The next day
Confederate surgeons reached that site and "they were amputating arms and
legs, almost by the wagon load."37
One of the first problems was the lack of food--for three days after the
battle Mrs. Sleet
and her family had nothing to eat except pickled beef scavenged from the
battlefield. On the
11th the Confederates sent a relief party from Mansfield which brought
provisions and other
assistance, and on the 12th or 13th the federals sent Dr. Sanger, medical
director of the 19th
Army Corps, and two big army wagons loaded with empty ticks for cots and
other supplies. At
the campground hospital, rations were very short "and we had so few cooking
vessels that we
were compelled to keep them going nearly all day and night."38
The wounded federals later wrote movingly about the care they received
in Pleasant Hill.
Rations were meager and simple, provided by an Irish cook, and consisted
mostly of meal and
coffee. Solon Benson, of the 32nd Iowa, remembered the kind-hearted southern
ladies, who
remained at home with their little ones, were frequent visitors at the
hospitals, and
generously supplemented the bill of fare with such delicacies as their
slender larders
afforded, for they, too, had been plundered by both armies, and were
almost constrained
to part with the widow's last mite. . . . the coming among them of
these gentle messengers
of sympathy and mercy, was especially beneficent; and all the more so
when it is remembered
that all of them were true southern people, and in full sympathy with the
southern cause, while
we were in their eyes, their "Yankee invaders."
Michael Ackerman, also of the 32nd Iowa, later mentioned "the ministrations
of the wife of
a rebel officer who lived in the neighborhood, a Mrs. Cole, who came every
week with such
supplies as her home afforded, the tears running down her cheeks as she
looked upon the
starving men she could not feed!" One dying officer handed his gold watch to
Mrs. William
Hampton to repay her for her "constant kindness" but she promptly refused the
generous gift.
ally Hampton, recalled as the "curly headed flower girl," usually brought a
bouquet when she
accompanied her mother who often provided soup to the wounded lying on
pallets on the school's
floor. Mrs. Bullen, who made frequent visits to the hospital from her
country home on muleback,
fell from the mule at one point and her fractured "limb" was tended by the
federal Dr. J. E.
Armstrong. Lillie Sleet recalled that "all the ladies in our little town
nursed the wounded,
Yankees and Confederates alike, and did all that could be done with so little
to do with."39
The Confederates who died on the battlefields were the first to be
buried. The army
sextons took some of the Mansfield casualties in that city's cemetery. On
the crest of the
hill were buried Genl. Alfred Mouton, Col. Leopold L. Armant, Maj. Mercer
Canfield, Capt.
Arthur H. Martin, and Adam Beatty, volunteer aide to Col. Henry Gray. By
April 14 the "gentle
ladies of the village" had covered these graves with flowers and bouquets.
Other Confederate
casualties of the fight at Mansfield were buried near where they fell. A
member of Terrell's
Brigade saw them "in trenches with their hats and clothes on" although H. C.
Medford had also
seen "hundreds of negroes and straggling soldiers ... plundering the battle
field--robbing the
pockets of the dead and stripping them of their best clothing." Lafayette
Price said "they just
dig a big hole and put 'em in and threw dirt on 'em. I went back after two
or three days, and
the bodies done swell and crack the ground." Richard and Bob Wilson, the
boys who had helped
take water to the wounded after the battle of Pleasant Hill, watched the next
day as the
ground was opened up with turning plows, and the dead of both armies were
laid head to foot
all the way around the south side of the Wilson place, and the whole hillside
was "wrapped up
with soldiers and the unburied dead." When the earth began to warm later in
the season, huge
cracks appeared in the ground. It swelled up in ridges, like a big mole run,
and the entire
hillside turned green with flies.
By Sunday, April 10, H. C. Medford reported that all of the Confederate dead
from Mansfield
had been buried, but on Tuesday near Pleasant Hill he still saw bodies
including "a great
quanty [sic] of dead men piled up in the head of a deep hollow and brush only
thrown over
them. Whatever officer is in charge of this ought to be cashiered." Many of
the Pleasant
Hill Confederate dead found unmarked places on the edge of that town's
cemetery as well as
at the Old Campground cemetery nearby. Some bodies were sent home, wherever
that was.40
Of the four hundred wounded federals left in Pleasant Hill, over half
died, and they
were buried in a makeshift graveyard behind Pearce-Payne College, either
individually or
in pits. The plots were "rudely marked, with name and regiment of the
deceased." Five
years later, after the war had ended, the War Department visited Pleasant
Hill to disinter
the bodies and take them to the national cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana,
opposite Alexandria.
By then, only seventy could be recovered, and none could be identified.
Preliminary research
indicates that those who survived the makeshift hospitals of Mansfield and
Pleasant Hill were
exchanged directly during the summer, without joining their captured comrades
at Camp Ford
near Tyler, Texas.41
Solon Benson, who lost his arm at Pleasant Hill, returned to Louisiana
sometime before
his 1906 article in the Annals of Iowa appeared. He reported the relocation
of the town of
Pleasant Hill and the shifting of fields, forests, streets, and buildings.
Despite these
changes the community remained "rich in treasured memories of 1864." He also
visited
Mansfield, where he noted Memorial Day was still celebrated every year on the
anniversary
of the battle of Mansfield, April 8th, and where "the event is emphasized by
the long rows
of buried dead from the battle-field, which their local cemetery contains."42
Surgeons cared for wounded Federal soldiers at the Campbellite
[Christian or Disciples
of Christ] Church and most of the storehouses. The most severe cases of both
sides were
taken to the Baptist Church. John E. Hewett recalled that
"At dark on the eve of the tenth, one of the nurses lighted a candle
and holding it
in one hand attended the patient with the other, but the delirious patient
struck down the
candle and the light, catching the loose cotton used as bedding, set it on
fire, and in a
moment the flames filled the building. To save the wounded from death by
burning, the men
who were in Mansfield rushed in and carrying the patients through the fire or
casting them
out of the windows saved about 200 soldiers from a horrible death. As the
rescuers were
about to abandon the work, a young Creole Confederate soldier suffering from
slight wounds
and a young Union soldier arrived upon the scene and answered the wild calls
for help from
within. The fatigued rescuers joined them and another dozen of the men were
saved from the
flames." The Baptist Church burned to the ground.25
Federal and Confederate wounded later recalled the kindness of the women
of Mansfield.
Major John B. Reid wrote his family in Illinois that "I had the very kindest
of treatment
from the very nice family in which it was my good fortune to fall, were it
not for this
attention, I fear my chances of life would have been poor. . . . So far the
Confederates
have given us as good as they have themselves, so we have no reason to
complain." Many of
the Southern wounded who had been nursed in the Jacob Wemple mansion wrote
back both during and after the war to let the family know how they were
doing, and to thank them for the care that they had received in their home.26
Between Mansfield and Pleasant Hill but east of the main stage road,
Mary Higgenbotham
had decided not to abandon her home. At about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, she and
her children
"heard the low rumble of drums in the direction of Grove Hill and in a few
minutes the sound
of marching feet." Soon Walker's Texas Division came around the bend in the
road a column
of ragged, weary, gray-clad men marching in columns of fours. . . . They
halted in front
of our house, then stacked arms in the road and were told to 'fall out' for a
fifteen minute
rest. Some had blood-stained bandages on their heads--some had an arm
suspended in a bloody
bandage or wore bandages on their necks or shoulders. Others staggered
toward the house to
beg for a bite to eat.
The yard and house were soon full of tired and haggard men--some with
the most haunted
look in their eyes I have ever seen. She (my mother) gave them all the
leftovers from dinner
(in fact we had been too excited to eat any dinner at all) but still they
kept begging, 'Mom,
save some for me. I haven't had a bite since Thursday evening. Please, just
one bite.'
Next, Ma went out to the backyard followed by dozens of ragged, bearded
men. Our big old
washpot (probably a hundred years old) was full of freshly cooked lye hominy,
warm and ready
to eat. So she began issuing it out with a large wooden cooking spoonful to
each man. Some of
them took it in the crown of their dirty hats, some in their bare, dirty
hands, some in cups
or on pieces of boards they had picked up. All of them ate it right there
like a pack of hungry
wolves. When the hominy was gone she next went to the smokehouse, which
contained the family's meager supply of bacon for the coming months. There
she began cutting up sides of bacon into portions half as large as your hand,
handing a piece to each man as with tears in their eyes they begged for it.
An officer on horseback at the road sent his orderly to the house to beg
for a piece of bacon for him and the man begged Ma to 'please give him some
bacon for his
captain.' Before the man reached the gate on his way back with the precious
morsel the officer
galloped up to the fence and was leaning far over into the yard when the
orderly reached him.
The look of hunger and despair in his face and eyes was something that has
haunted me ever
since that day. Grabbing the piece of meat he tore into it with his teeth at
once. Soon the
smokehouse as well as the washpot was empty. But the men seemed reluctant to
leave, crowding
around Ma to thank her again and again and to invoke the blessings of Heaven
upon her. Some
handed her a dollar bill, some two or even five (Confederate money) and
others hugged her as
they left the yard. They had marched all night Thursday night, marched and
fought all day
Friday, then buried their dead at Moss' Lane during the night--all with only
a few hours sleep
and without a bite to eat since Thursday. A blast of the bugle soon brought
the men back to
the road where they secured their rifles and quickly lined up. Then the
order rang out sharp
and clear, 'Attention! F-o-h-r-w-a-r-d--M-a-r-c-h' Then the order, 'Double
quick!-- M-a-r-c-h!' Soon they disappeared in a cloud of dust in the
direction of Pleasant Hill."27
Meanwhile, the Federals were pulling back into the town of Pleasant
Hill. Sallie Chapman
recalled that "they were whooping, hollering and cursing shamefully, which
caused great e
xcitement among the women and children. . . . One officer told Mrs. Rembert's
[nee Sallie
Chapman] mother, 'Your folks sure did give us a licking at Mansfield.'" Some
of the officers
demanded food and beds, while others prepared for the pursuing Confederates.
The women and
children of Pleasant Hill at first took shelter inside their homes, but
before long the
Sleet family heard "the bullets raining on our house . . . worse than any
hail storm." After
the battle had started, the residents were advised to leave the area, but to
not go between the
two main roads. According to Lillie Sleet,
In haste to join the other families that were leaving too, no time to
pack and toosorely distressed and frightened to think, she [Lillie's mother]
gave her oldest daughter, a child of seven years, a double handful of
jewelry loose in her hands, put the teaspoons in her own stockings, and left
everything else. It was a pitiful sight, this evacuation of women and
children and the children's nurses. Our family had no sooner crossed the
street, to join my aunt's family, before the soldiers in the yard dropped
their muskets and ran into the house,greedy for plunder. While at my aunt's,
waiting for them to join in the exodus, some Yankee officers came on the
porch. One had our forks and tablespoons in his coat pocket; her second
daughter saw and recognized them and started to pull them out. This scared
her nearly to death as she thought he'd kill the child, so she pulled the
little thing away quickly and he never knew they were seen. Our little band
wandered all day in the woods, got lost and went into that section
between the two main roads where we were warned not to go. Bullets rained
down on us but fortunately their force was rather well spent and no one was
hurt. At nightfall we stumbled upon a Yankee camp. The officers were
very much surprised, saying, "Why, ladies, where are you going with these
little children?" She told them we were seeking safety from the battle, so
one of the officers said, "You can't go farther, you will kill the children.
You are safe here." They spread blankets down for the children and made
coffee for the ladies and they spent the night sitting on logs around the big
camp fire."
Sallie Chapman also remembered taking refuge in the woods east of town where
they could hear
the battle's roar. During the worst of the fighting, Mrs. Hampton was
dismayed to hear her
children laughing, and she scolded them that they should be praying instead.
Her daughter
Emma replied "O Laudy, mamma! it's no use praying now, the Yankees have got
us."28
Little Henry Childers, his family and their servants took refuge in the
cellar at the
rear of the Childers mansion. The two armies met in the old Jordan field to
the west of
his house, immediately in front of the "flower yard." He did not stick his
head out of
the cellar door, but Henry Taylor, one of the slaves, did venture to the
front of the house
and reported that "a bombshell had hit the house. This caused great alarm,
as we thought
it meant an explosion and burning down of the house. . . . However, an
examination after the
battle, showed that a ten-pound round bomb had struck the house and passed
through several
walls, shattering several pieces of furniture and lodging itself between the
ceiling, without
the more serious damage of explosion." This shell cut the pillow on which,
according to
one account, the head of Gen. Banks had lain the night before. Many bullets
struck the
house, but no member of the family was hurt. The Childers even managed to
save one sick
Confederate who had been left or who managed to find his way to the house,
and "old Aunt
Sally," the cook from the tavern who was trying to make her way to the woods
during the
battle.29
Two young boys, Richard Joshua Wilson and his brother Bob, were thinning
corn near
Pleasant Hill when the battle opened. Richard told his grandson, Waylon
Maroney, that
"It sounded like fire coming through a canebreak; cannons roared like
thunder. We heard
mama call us on the horn for dinner, but we had to find out what was going
on." When they
reached the battlefield men were lying everywhere, and smoke and dust were
hanging over the
area. Confederates and federals were mixed up "like salt and pepper, horses
were spinning
like windmills, some without eyes, some looking like shells had gone clear
through them.
Men were crying for water." The two boys helped an unidentified doctor by
carrying water
from a spring three-quarters of a mile down the hill to give drinks to the
wounded and
the dying.30
The next morning Mary Hampton also went out across the old Jordan field
to help
however she could, "while the dead were yet unburied, the wounded not all
gathered in, and
the debris of the great conflict scattered everywhere. Especially touching
to the feminine
heart were the boyish red uniforms of the Zouaves, 162nd New York [actually,
the 165th],
whose dead, likesacred roses, dotted all the long slope from the great ditch
where
Benedict fell, up to the crest of the hill on which stood the village of
Pleasant Hill."
Solon Benson, of the 32nd Iowa, called her "the heroine of the
battle-field."31
Confederate soldiers and others traveling between Mansfield and Pleasant
Hill the next
day commented about the aftereffects of the running fight between the two
towns. H. C.
Medford estimated that dead men and horses were scattered over an area of at
least nine
square miles--J. M. Foster thought that he could have walked on dead federals
for a full
five miles. Cannonballs and shrapnel had shattered trees to the point that
one cavalryman
thought "we were more in danger from falling timber than from bullets or
cannon balls."
The Federals had attempted to burn all wagons that they could not save, but
some were
captured fully loaded, their sheets painted with mottoes such as "Texas or
Hell." Gus Hall
later wrote the St. Louis Republican: "Ruin was on every side. Helpless
women and hungry
children stood tearfully by desolated homes. The naked chimnies showed where
houses had been. Not even a bird was to be seen, nor any living thing that
could get away. The wells were
polluted; dead horses and broken vehicles lined the road."32
Joseph Blessington of Walker's Texas Division particularly sympathized
with the
wounded horses, "some still plunging and endeavoring to drag their broken
limbs after
them. The poor animals look at you most reproachfully, as much as to say, I
had nothing
to do with all this carnage. I was brought here against my will, and why
should I suffer?"
Lafayette Price was also impressed with the horses. "Next day, coming home,
I want to tell
you the hosses didn't lay on this side nor on that side. They just squat
down, they was
dead." John Howard King of the 23rd Texas Cavalry reported that at Pleasant
Hill so many
horses were killed that "the citizens piled them and burned them."33
As soon as the battle ended, Pleasant Hill, like Mansfield, became one
large hospital
and morgue. Every house and building, including many with cannon ball and
bullet holes in
them, filled with the wounded, both Confederate and Yankee. All that
Saturday night "the
surgeons labored with the wounded, and when the bright Sabbath sun rose on
the morning of
the 10th, the [federal] army had disappeared, and that little town of less
than one hundred
souls found itself oppressed with seven times its number of wounded belonging
to both armies.
And in their haste the army had taken away everything needed for the comfort
of the men.
There were neither provisions nor medical supplies." Only five federal
surgeons and a few
attendants remained behind with approximately four hundred federal wounded.34
Young Sallie Chapman called it "a day of terror for the women and
children." Houses were ransacked by soldiers. All cows, pigs, chickens and
turkeys were killed and turned into food. Pantrys were raided and food
taken. Stores were broken into and the goods taken off. Several
stores were full of meal for the Confederate Soldiers and that was taken.
They took clothes or anything they wanted. The girls school building was
burned. ... Yards and gardens and all fences were torn down and used for fuel
to cook their food. In some houses almost everything was destroyed. The
women and children were almost wild with fear among thousands of Yankees.
For two nights they did not undress for bed.12
By March 29, rumors began to circulate in Mansfield that the federals
were advancing
and on April 1, twenty-two year old refugee Sidney Harding wrote in her diary
that the
Confederates had retreated as far as Pleasant Hill, "Yankees not far behind."
On Saturday,
April 2, she and three others left their temporary home near Keatchie and
went to Mansfield.
They started to church the next day. "[W]hat was our surprise to see the
road strewn with
wagons--the army retreating But we went on not knowing the extent of it when
Aaron Prescott
met us and asked us to return. Our army was really retreating. ... We
returned--had
difficulty in passing train. We got ready to come home immediately. ... We
started [,] hard
to pass all the trains--gave up--here safely--saw Lt. Winchister said he
wanted to send his
servant up to give us warning in time to leave." Sidney decided to stay in
town, and as late
as the 7th recklessly went down to Carrol's mill to visit her beloved 2nd
Louisiana Cavalry.
Soon the sight of wounded men convinced her to return to Mansfield.13
As the fighting got closer, many of the citizens decided to take
whatever they
could save and evacuate the town. Many moved to the Dollette (sometimes
spelled Dolet)
Hills a short distance away to the east-southeast and waited to see what the
impending
battle would bring. Samuel Foster Smith wrapped up the DeSoto Parish record
books in oil
cloth and took them to the Dollette canebreaks for safety. His wife remained
in their home
and sent him food by one of their slaves. John Patterson Finch and his
family, who lived
four miles southeast of Mansfield, hurriedly buried some of their possessions
and put the
rest in their wagon and left. Others, including twenty-two year old Eliza
Crosby Fields,
stayed in Mansfield. She held her baby daughter, Roberta, in her arms and
stood at the
gate of her father's house, watching as the Confederate army, including the
Crescent Regiment,
retreated through the town.
Captain [Robert Seth] Fields stepped out of the ranks, and gave his
wife and baby
a fond embrace, said a few words, and took his place again at the head of his
company. What
the thoughts of this gallant soldier were, no one can tell, for he was
apparently leaving all
that was near and dear to him in the hands of the enemy. This brave wife
stood without a tear
in her eye, evidently striving to make the shock of the separation as light
as possible on
the sorely stricken soldier. As soon as he was out of sight, she rushed to
her room with her
baby and closed the door.14
One little boy remembered:
That day was the saddest we ever beheld, for the Confederate army passed
through
Mansfield on its retreat, and there was none left here but the women and
children, for every boy and man that was able to do so had a gun in his
hand and was in the ranks. There were two or three decrepit old men left,
and as many disabled soldiers who could not be moved and everything was as
quiet as death, all awaiting for the 'Yankees to come.' The negroes had
practically all been carried to Texas, and the town was forsaken.15
Brig. Gen. James P. Major, with Lane's Cavalry Brigade and three
regiments of Bagby's
Brigade, engaged a larger federal cavalry force at Wilson's Farm, three miles
north of
Pleasant Hill on April 7 in what could be described as a severe skirmish.
The Confederates
continued their strategic retreat. The next morning, on a Confederate
national day of prayer
and fasting, Walker's Texans were ordered to move their camp to just behind
Mansfield, where
they were formed into the line of battle. At 11 a.m. Taylor ordered them to
advance, and
they stepped off with the bands playing "Dixie." T. R. Bonner recalled:
The sun of the 8th as it rose majestically in a cloudless sky,
presented to the view
of the astonished inhabitants of Mansfield, the divisions of Walker and
Mouton marching
proudly back to meet that foe before whom they had so long retreated. As we
passed through
the streets of the beautiful town, they were thronged with fair
ladies--misses and matrons--
who threw their bright garlands at our feet, and bade us, in God's name,
drive back the
Yankees, and save their cherished homes. As their cheerful songs of the
Sunny South fell in accents of sweetest melody upon our ears, we felt that we
were indeed "thrice armed," and through greatly outnumbered, would drive back
the foe.16
Sidney Harding was "was waked up early by shouts, our reinforcements. We
dressed in a
hurry to see them. Nearly all of our army passed down. ... We saw nearly
every one we knew.
All Walker's division, Mouton and Polignac's brigade and a great deal of
artillery. The Lt.
and galant Col. Armant at their head how handsome he looked. All of our
brave soldiers How
sad it made me feel to see them all marching down to meet their fate. Poor
fellows, many
of them will never return."17
Eliza Fields and her father's family joined the others along Polk
Street, watching the
army and the bands march by. As his regiment again passed the Crosby home,
the captain
kissed his hand at his wife and baby, and made some remark, but as a soldier
could not leave
his command when a battle was about to commence, he could not stop.
However, thewife never flinched, and with her baby in her arms rushed out and
took her position beside her husband in the ranks and the soldiers roused a
tremendous rebel yell, for the captain's wife and child.
The writer [a small boy at the time] not knowing what to do followed her, and
with Mrs. Fields
marched to the spot where the K. C. S. depot now stands, where the soldiers
were halted and
the cartridge boxes filled with buck and ball. Everything was in a rush
and we remember that
a staff officer and Colonel Beard of the Crescent regiment were rushing the
work, as it was
important that the troops move rapidly. Under the circumstances, Captain
Fields could pay no
attention to his wife and baby, but several times as he passed, he
stopped, and hurriedly
kissed them, and with a "God bless you," he marched away. The people of
Mansfield then turned
their attention toward caring for the anticipated casualties. "The women and
older men began
to gather all available mattresses, bed clothes, straw, cloth for bandages
and other necessities, and readied the courthouse, churches, Mansfield Female
College and their homes to care for the Confederate wounded."18
The armies met and fought that late Thursday afternoon and evening, with
the federals
losing over 2,000 killed, wounded, and captured, and the Confederates losing
just under half
that number. The sound of the battle carried for miles. Lafayette Price, a
fourteen year
old slave later told interviewers:
Mr. Carroll [his master] say that at Mansfield where they was shooting
the big guns, the ladies was crying. He told 'em they needn't to cry now;
when they was shooting the big guns they wasn't killing men, but when they
hear the little guns shoot, then they could start crying, 'cause that mean
that men was gitting kill. I dunno if you ever parch popcorn. That the way
the little guns sound. He say that then they could begin crying.
At the first cannon volley, little Richard Shackleford Fortson in the
Naborton area east of
Mansfield, ran into his house and found his mother hiding her silverware and
other valuables.
he children and slave women of Miles Walton Goldsby, left alone when he
joined the army
at Mansfield, took refuge under the beds for hours until the battle was over.
Mary Ann
Owens Mixon simply mounted her mule and rode away, leaving all behind her.19
William Newton Whitton, seventeen years old, heard the battle from near
the Sabine
River. He had joined the Home Guard in San Augustine, Texas, the year
before, along with
"old men with long beards of various colors and boys too young to shave."
The Guard had
been ordered out "to take a stand and use guerrilla war tactics in case
General Taylor
and General Walker were not able to defeat the Federal forces at Mansfield or
other places
in that vicinity." They could hear the sound of cannon and massed rifles,
"but they could
not get any information for several hours from couriers to determine which
side was winning
the battle. They waited and watched many hours for the Yankees to spring
upon them, but
they never came. However, hundreds of scared white people and Negroes were
fleeing from
Louisiana to Texas in front of the Union soldiers. All persons were stopped
and investigated.
Some were sent home, and some were held for further investigation."20
The doctors and chaplains spent the night going over the Mansfield
battlefield with
their lamps, serving the dying and attending those who might recover. Local
women joined
them, searching for their husbands and sons. Eliza Fields found her
husband's body "riddled
with bullets." He had been "one of seven men killed carrying the colors" in
a Crescent
Regiment charge which helped save Mansfield. "As soon as she had seen him
buried, she did
not succumb to grief, but threw herself with unselfish devotion into the work
of caring for
the Confederate wounded and the Crosby home was full of them, and she found
herself to be
just as great a hero as was her martyred husband, who carried the flag to the
cannon's mouth."
Twenty-eight year old Martha Howell Lord emerged from a cave in the Dollette
Hills where she
had hidden her children, and she and her nine year old son William rode
horseback to the
battlefield. They discovered the body of her husband, Seth Lord, also of the
Crescent
Regiment, recognizable only by the socks she had made for him. She returned
home, hitched
up her wagon, drove it back herself, retrieved her husband's body and took it
to Grove Hill
Cemetery for burial. To add to her troubles, when she got home, she found
that "Union troops
had destroyed everything; bedding, carried off all meat, syrup and lard; all
chickens but
one blue hen that was on a nest in an ash barrel." A federal straggler
appeared at her house
and asked for a drink of water from the well. When she told him that she had
no cups or
vessels of any kind to offer him, he became angry and shot her puppy which
was near her at
the time.21
By the next morning, all of the nearby farm houses had been converted to
hospitals,
and then the wounded of both sides were carried on to Mansfield and to
Keatchie. In Mansfield,
the town hall, the Methodist Church and the Mansfield Female College were
converted to
Confederate hospitals. When these filled, nearly every private home became a
hospital,
including those of Dr. James William Fair, and nearby Roseneath, Walnut Hill,
and Land's
End plantation homes. Everywhere was the sight and smell of "seared flesh,
clotted blood,
splintered limbs, and dismembered corpses." Wounded and dazed soldiers
wandered the streets.22
In 1910, Louis Hall, formerly of the Crescent Regiment, wrote to the
editor of the
Mansfield Enterprise of his experience after the battle. He was first taken
to the
Mansfield Female College where he was laid on the floor, "every space was
occupied by our
wounded soldiers and some of Banks's men. We were all treated alike. I was
soon attended
to, wound bandaged etc., while others were put upon the table, arms and limbs
amputated."
Numerous ladies came to the makeshift hospital, asking to take soldiers home.
Alice, Hattie,
Florence, and Helen Parker approached Hall to see if he would like to go with
them. "I gladly
accepted their kind invitation, was put on a stretcher, and brought to their
home, where I
found every space, even the dining room and parlor occupied by wounded
soldiers." Hall noted
others who nursed the wounded--the Dr. Gibb's family, the Howards, the
Winbushes, Laura and
Susie Crosby, as well as Eliza Crosby Fields, already mentioned. Felix
Pierre Poche, a
volunteer aide-de-camp to Col. Henry Gray, mourned the wounded and the dead
of Mansfield,
adding in his diary "But on the other hand the sight of the ladies who rushed
on all sides
bringing food and comfort to the suffering of their country was a spectacle
upon which the
patriotic eye feasted."23
Sidney Harding reluctantly accompanied a cousin and others to see the
battlefield. "I
had rather gone to the hospital as it was Sunday ... As we passed the
hospital the gallery
was full of our dead. Oh how sick it made me. It was a dreadful ride to me,
very sad."
Seeing only an open field, she returned to Mansfield to the home of Mrs.
Gibbs. "All busy
picking lint. Mrs. Prescott, Cus. A., Mrs. King and others there. Ma and
Mrs. Pitts went
to hospital. I went after dinner. Oh what a dreadful sight. Our poor men
just lying on
the floor in cotton. And such an odor. And they bore it so bravely. Not a
groan was heard,
all so cheerful. I only went to one church. There are more than a thousand
wounded. Every
house in town like a public building and every private house full." She
visited one of the
hospitals again the next day, and sought out the Missouri wounded at the
request of one of
the soldiers. "They like so for the ladies to visit them. Oh the sickening
sights. Some
shot in face, both eyes out, head bent, arms, legs, everywhere." By Tuesday
she had returned
to her home near Keatchie, where the family took in the wounded. When one
man, "a handsome
boy," died, they attended the funeral. "Poor soldier, thy warfare is
over."24
This is the account of a Childers' southern mansion in the middle of a civil
war battle, that becomes a hospital, and the events around it. I will be
sending in parts due to the length of the story.
CIVILIAN REACTION
TO THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN, 1864,
FROM NATCHITOCHES TO MANSFIELD, LOUISIANA
by Vicki Betts
Elizabeth Greening DuBois, wife of Capt. S.P. DuBois, Consolidated Crescent
Rgmt., one of many Mansfield residents whose home was opened to wounded
soldiers on the night of April 8, 1864
On April 2, 1864, the first of 36,000 federal troops under General
Nathaniel
Banks entered Natchitoches, Louisiana, "with music and unfurled colors" as
they
marched from occupied Alexandria toward certain victory in Shreveport and
East
Texas. At that time Natchitoches boasted a population of about 2,000
persons,
over half of them of French descent. Harris Beecher, of the 114th New York
described the town as "a quiet resort of wealth and refinement. With the
exception of Franklin, Natchitoches probably is the most beautiful inland
town
of the State. Although its buildings are of an antique architecture, yet
they
bear an air of neatness and elegance. Unlike most southern villages, the
houses
are all painted, and have green blinds. Most of the people live in second
stories,
from which are constructed airy balconies and bow windows. . . . The
inhabitants
were well dressed and intelligent, very sociable with the Yankee invaders,
and
apparently not at all terrified or dissatisfied with the occupation of the
town
by northern 'mudsills.' Among young soldiers, the most observable feature of
the
place was the beauty of its women." Orton S. Clark of the 116th New York
reported
that "Among the inhabitants, most of whom were French, there seemed less of
that
antipathy which we had always seen manifested in other places, and the women,
we
were foolish enough to think, showed evident signs of pleasure at our
arrival.
All later was explained as only their joy that we were being so easily led on
to
certain disaster." The Natchitoches Union, whose presses were immediately
seized
by the 13th Corps, printed at least three issues (April 1, 2, 4). In one of
these
they offered an amusing article in which the "thawing" of the local
population was
described, from the first hour, when nothing but closed shutters greeted the
invaders, to a few hours later when young ladies would stand at their gates
and
talk to the troops as they passed.1
Despite orders to the contrary, some of the federals "foraged
considerably"
in the area. Perhaps as an example, the provost marshal picked up six of the
offenders, punished them "severely," and "turned them over to Col. [George
L.]
Beal for court martial, which was done." However, on at least one occasion,
it
was the local citizenry who disciplined the bluecoats. On Saturday, April
2nd,
three men of Co. I, 24th Iowa Infantry went out foraging at a nearby
plantation.
Three armed men (no uniforms mentioned) demanded that they surrender. The
federals
were taken two miles away and tied up. One escaped, the second was shot and
killed,
and the third was knocked in the head with the butt of a gun but later made
it back
into camp and reported the incident. General Thomas E. G. Ransom sent the
rest of
Co. I out the next day with orders to burn everything at the plantation which
was
of no use to the quartermaster department, and those orders were carried out
"with
exceeding cheerfulness." This was one of only two accounts of the federals
burning
civilian property before the retreat following the battles of Mansfield and
Pleasant
Hill--all burning prior to this point was conducted by Confederate troops
destroying
cotton sheds to deprive the federals of one of the supposed main objectives
of the
military campaign.2
The old stage road from Natchitoches to Pleasant Hill lead through
"piney
woods", forests of huge original pines and a "thick, matted growth of
underbrush."
The land was described as "sandy, clayey, deserted," "this land of gloom,"
and
"little more than a great masked battery." Everything that the federal army
needed
had to be brought with them. As one Yankee officer put it, "Such a thing as
subsisting an army in a country like this could only be achieved when men and
horses
could be induced to live on pine trees and rosin." The men passed only a few
small
clearings in which they found "the meanest construction of log and mud
houses," houses
"merely built in clearings, of pine logs thatched and plastered with mud."
"The
houses are very poor, much like our barns and hog pens. The chimnies [sic]
are built
of sticks and wood. Indians seem to form quiet [sic] a proportion of the
settlers",
according to Elias Pellet of the 114th New York. The men also found a
Confederate
camp of instruction consisting of about six rough barracks over which hung a
sign
proclaiming it "CamP Bou re gard." The name "soon disappeared, as did also a
good portion of the buildings."3
A mile and a quarter to two miles before the troops reached Pleasant
Hill,
they came across an old camp meeting ground, probably Methodist, which was
situated
in a clearing between the Old Natchitoches Road and the road to Grand Ecore.
A spring
provided the local water source and a number of crude sheds had been
constructed to
shelter worshippers who might spend a week or more at the site each year. A
cemetery
lay adjacent.4
Pleasant Hill, established in the early 1850's, had a population of
about 100 to
200, and was located in a clearing in the woods on the edge of an old field
at the
intersection of the road between Mansfield and Grand Ecore, and one from
Texas and Fort
Jessup to Blairs Landing on the Red River. It had about twelve or fifteen
houses, a
Methodist Church, possibly a Baptist Church a short distance away, a post
office, a
hotel, three storehouses, a school building for girls, and the as yet
uncompleted Pearce
Payne Methodist College for boys. One federal declared that it showed "more
than the
common degree of enterprise and taste" and another described it as "intended
in its
inception as a place where the families of those cultivating plantations on
the low
lands might more safely reside during certain seasons." A New Yorker wrote:
There are some delightful residences here. This is one of the
favorite summer resorts of the wealthy. It is a charming place and must be
almost a paradise, as a protection against the excessive heat of the lower
country. We are told that in 'peace-times' it was the scene of luxury and
fashion, and that the woods were made to ring with music and dancing. There
is something romantic in penetrating a dense forest hundreds of miles, and
almost beyond the pale of civilization, and establishing for a time, as it
were, a little world of fashionable revelries. The back woodsman
andhalf-breed settlers must have gazed with astonishment on the seeming
frivolities of these aristocratic visitors. Appearances indicated that for
long years to come there would not be heard at Pleasant Hill, the sound of
mirth or the soft music of its former days.5
Pleasant Hill had two points of special pride--Pearce Payne College and
the
Childers mansion. Pearce Payne consisted of two unfinished brick buildings
designed to
be wings of an as yet unconstructed grander central building. Each structure
was about
40 by 80 feet, two stories, with rough floors. The John S. Childers mansion
had been
constructed about four years before for the not inconsiderable sum of
$10,000, which did
not include the cost of the slave labor. It was a fine wood frame structure,
with two
stories, eight large rooms, a spacious hall in front and a very large dining
room and
kitchen in the back. A balcony supported by four rounded pillars with Doric
pediments
stretched over a broad porch across the front. According to one grandson
living in the
house at the time of the 1864 battle, "this house was known all over
northwest Louisiana
as being the finest." The fifty-six year old widow Mrs. Maria Childers lived
there
without any "male protector"--only her daughters, possibly daughters-in-law,
and some of
her grandchildren. At least one son was serving in the Confederate army at
the time.6
Other community members living in Pleasant Hill in the spring of 1864
included Mrs.
William Hampton and her daughters Mary, Sarah, and Emma; Mrs. Pullen; the
Davises; the
Harrells; the Coles; Mrs. Jack Sleet and her three young daughters; and Mrs.
Rebecca
Jordan. Stephen Decatur Chapman, Maria Childers' younger brother, had taken a
wagon load
of area slaves to Texas, leaving behind his wife, Caroline, and their
children, including
seventeen year old Sallie. Homes in Pleasant Hill ranged from the Childers
Mansion to
a "large double frame house" boasting a large double parlor with two
fireplaces to "small
cottages".7
Confederate troops, particularly cavalry, had operated in and around
Pleasant Hill
for some time, and passers-by brought news of Banks' progress up the Red
River. On April
1, Walker's Texas Division arrived in town after a fast march from Marksville
via Fort
Jessup. J. P. Blessington reported that "The whole country, far and wide,
was aroused to
the highest pitch of excitement by the retreat of our army. The inhabitants,
all along
the route of our retreat, were hurriedly quitting their homes, and flying
before the
approach of the invader. Consternation and alarm everywhere prevailed among
the citizens.
Old men shouldered their muskets and came to our assistance, to help drive
back the invader."
On April 2nd Walker's men marched five miles down the Natchitoches/Grand
Ecore road and
then hightailed it back as the federals advanced. The next day the
Confederate infantry
retreated in the direction of Mansfield, leaving Pleasant Hill, consisting
entirely of women,
children, and slaves, to face the Yankees alone. Every white man in town
except for Dr.
Beal and the Sleet's elderly overseer had either joined the army or taken
their slaves
and stock to Texas. Soon even Dr. Beal left.8
Henry H. Childers, grandson of Maria Childers, recalled that soon the
blue uniforms of
Yankee officers appeared in our little back yard under the China trees, on
horseback. The
exercise these officers had taken that morning had given them an appetite and
they demanded
victuals. My grandmother, at first, did not think that she could afford to
furnish food
energy to the enemy but a certain wise discretion accompanied with some
premonition,
persuaded her that she had better feed these men. After eating, they
proceeded to inquire
for money and valuables and received unsatisfactory answers. The silverware
and other
valuable articles were then in the bottom of a six-hundred barrel oblong
cistern under
the house. . . . Soon after they had left the house, the soldiery began to
pass on their
way to Mansfield. When General N. P. Banks arrived it came as no surprise
that he chose the Childers mansion as his personal headquarters.9
Nearby, Mrs. Phillip J. "Jack" Sleet had barely said goodbye to her
husband, a scout
with the 2nd Louisiana Cavalry, Company B, when thousands and thousands of
Yankees appeared near her home. Two lines of soldiers took up residence
between her house and her front fence. They began coming to her holding their
caps and asking that they be filled with meal and other food. Her husband's
English plantation manager advised her to comply, "so he took the
key to the meat house, gave food to these, then they came in droves and
stripped it completely.
The whole top was hung with hams, bacon, etc., and in a very short while it
was empty except
for a hogshead of molasses for the negroes." They took that, too, and others
killed cows,
calves, and all fowls. "Little chickens too small to eat were stepped on and
killed; setting
hens were killed and the eggs destroyed." Some of the soldiers asked the
family's slaves if
they were treated well, "to say the word and they would burn their mistress
and her children
up in the house." The slaves protested that they had a good master and
mistress, but Mrs.
Sleet still asked for and received a guard to protect her home. She had tubs
and other
vessels filled with water and then the family shut themselves up in the house
for safety.10
Soldiers also stripped out Caroline Chapman's food supply--again,
everything except
a barrel of molasses. The thirty-eight year old wife and mother sat on that
and refused
to budge. The federals "after wrangling a little over the matter," agreed to
let her keep
it, and even agreed to roll it into her house to keep others from
confiscating it.
Unfortunately, in doing so they found out that the contents were not molasses
but the family
wine supply, which prompted a fight among the men. Evidently some of the
wine survived the
fisticuffs, because after the battle at Pleasant Hill a canteen of it was
offered by a member
of the 15th Maine to a wounded man of the 14th Iowa.11
I don't know why he sent it to me, but I told him I would forward it.
-Jason
>From: "Phill Eisenberg" <peisenberg(a)powernet.net>
>To: "Jason Childers" <jchilders(a)mindex.com>
>Subject: Re: [CHILDERS] Charles Louis/Lewis Childers
>Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 18:50:44 -0800
>X-Priority: 3
>
>PLEASE TAKE ME OFF YOUR DISTRIBUTION!
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jason Childers <jchilders(a)mindex.com>
>To: CHILDERS-L(a)rootsweb.com <CHILDERS-L(a)rootsweb.com>
>Date: Monday, January 17, 2000 9:07 AM
>Subject: [CHILDERS] Charles Louis/Lewis Childers
>
>
> >Hi. I was looking at the Childers-L website, and I found a Charles
> >Lewis Childers. My stumbling block has always come to my
> >g-g-grandfather, Charles Louis Childers. Can anyone give me
> >information on the former? Maybe I've found my connection.
> >
> > Yours,
> > Jason
> >Jason Childers
> >Rochester, New York
> >jchilders(a)mindex.com
> >
> >WWBBD?
> >
> >
> >==== CHILDERS Mailing List ====
> >This list is dedicated to the search for ancestors of CHILDREN, CHILDS,
> >CHILES, CHILTON, CHILDRESS, and even CHILDERS. If you know of other
> >researchers (& other variants), please refer them to our list.
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Jason Childers
Rochester, New York
jchilders(a)mindex.com
WWBBD?
Winston Churchill said of him--"No man has done more harm or done more
genuine malice or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon the common people
of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred
for the land of his birth. "
For A short bio. and photo. go
to---http://www.uq.net.au/~zzrwotto/britmil-bio.html <A
HREF="http://www.uq.net.au/~zzrwotto/britmil-bio.html">British Military
Figures A-J - SAWVL</A>
I am posting for the first time in a long time in hopes that someone
with Childers/ Childress can help me. Does anyone know who a Mrs.
Orville Childress was? She wrote an article in the Fayette Facts around
1976 that has my lineChilders/Childress in it, although she does have
some facts wrong. Will enclose what she has written and will also
enclude where we have differences in hopes that someone out there will
recognize their family and contact me so we can share information.
Fayette Facts Fayette Co. Ill. Vol V 1976 pages 44-45 information from
Mrs. Orville Childress Loudon Township.
William Henry Childress(actually it is Wm. HarrisonChilders)was born in
IN., place not known (he was born in Orange CO. IN.) 13 Aug. 1831(we
have 16 Aug 1831).
He married in Clay Co. IL. Mary (Elizabeth) Montgomery, probably a
sister to Joseph Montgomery. They came to Fayette CO. in 1874 with
several big wagons ,
purchased a farm and cleared the land in the Kaskaskia River bottoms.
William Henry(Harrison) died 3 July 1900 &Mary E. died 30 July 1876 aged
40y, 1 mo., 6 days. Both are buried Dial Cemetery.
Children
Joseph D.(C.) b. 16 Nov. 1855 (25 June 1873) d. 16 Sept. (26) 1875
unmarried buried Dial Cemetery.
Martha J.(Jane) Childress(Childers) b. 1858(21 July 1858) d. 1966(15
March 1926)m. James M. Morris b. 24 Jan. 1851 d. 15 Sept. 1909. Buried
Dunkard Cemetery. (Married #1 Noah Taylor 4 Nov. 1877 ,#2 James Morris)
Isaac Nathan Childress (Nathaniel Isaac did go by Childress)b. 1 May
1861 d. 4 Feb. 1927 buried Spring Hill Cem. married 1. Sarah Jane Enlow
of Bowling Green Twp. b. 5 Nov. 1868 d. 11 Jan. 1917. m. 2 Mary
Catherine (Beeman ) Landers, widow of Douglas( I presume Douglas
Landers) b. 1873 d. 2 June 1861.
( We had his 2nd wife as Mary Catherine Beeman , I now believe she
was Mary Catherine Landers at the time of her marriage to Nathanial
Isaac Childress.)
Robert Andrew (also went by Childress) b. 18 Feb. 1863 in Clay Co. IL.
d. Loudon TWP. 21 April 1949 m. 15 June 1882 at Vandalia, Lucinda Petty
of Cowden b. 1858 d. 19 Sept. 1936, both bur Dial Cem. Robert Andrew
lived in a remote area , had no schooling , but he was an astute
business man, owned much land in the Kaskaskia Bottoms.
Lee Childress( I believe she is talking about William Levi Childers)b.
1865 (26 Nov. 1865) d. 1937 (19 Feb. 1934) m. 1 ? 2 Ella __ Sloan,
buried at Spring Hill with both wives.
George Childress(George Washington Childers )b. 1870 (27 Dec. 1869) d.
?( 17 Feb 1897) m Mary Mahon or Mahan (Levina Emaline Maughan). He died
many years ago, no further information.(We have lots, this is my direct
line.)
Generation II
(We have children from Martha Jane and Noah W. Taylor. Mrs Orville
Childress doe not.)
Children of Martha J. Childress(Childers) & James Morris, surname
Morris.
Samuel Morris b. 1878 d. 1969 m. Lillie E. Childress (she
daughter of Robert Andrew Childress) b. 19 Feb. 1899(19 Feb 1883) d.
1963 (23 July 1963)
m. 30 Dec. 1899 . Thei r children : Harvey Morris m. Dorothy Rice liv
Cowden no chil & Fern Morris m. Otha Garrison liv near Vandalia chil:
Samuel,Ervin,Eljean m. Raymond Rush, Robert Garrison.
Thomas Morris, teacher, thought to have been unm.
Bee Morris m. Ross Dunaway Ch: Irene Dunaway m. Robert D.
Bieber has son Robert Ross Bieber m. Betty Jane Masters. Bee b. 27 Mar.
1884 d. ? buried Spring Hill .
Delores Morris m. Wm. Luckenbill. These children also had a
half sister , Gwen Swineman, a teacher liv at Maroa.
Children of Issac Nathan( Nathaniel Isaac) & Sarah Jane Enlow
William Childress liv St. Elmo, m. twice no ch.(William
Wilson b. 11 May 1882 m. Julia M. ? . m. Emma May Baughman.)
Mae Childress (Mahuldah Mae) m. Jack Fair (we have Rev
James Fair)
from St. Elmo . Ch: Jack Fair liv St. Elmo and dau. m. McMillen.
Cora (Cora Ellen) Childress b. 29 Nov. 1886 d. 31 July
1865( 31 Jan. 1965) m. 1. Charles Scholes b. 1 Aug. 1882 d. 4 March
1920? 2 m. Mr Goff(Sherman Goff)
Cleve Childress (Cleveland Isaac) b. 1888(24 March 1888)
d. 1970 m. Bertha L. ? 2. ? .(We have he m. Maude Jackson 1 March 1907
and they divorced. he then m. Leona Cummins and had 3rd wife Bertha ?)
bur. Spring Hill. had two sons Arthur liv. Yakima Wash. & son lives
Garden City Kansas.
Mamie (Alice Mammie) Childress ( b. 1 Oct. 1890
unmarried d. 15 Nov. 1907.)
Bessie Childress(we have Dessie Emily) m. John Logdon
had 13 ch. see vol. III no. 4. (help, I do not have that Volume.)
Charles Childress (Charles Elzie) m. Elsie Luckett. He
b. 1892 decd. Elsie 1898-1965.(we have his death as 4 March 1920)
Jesse Childress (Jessie Thomas) b. 1898 (25 Nov. 1898)
m. Vada M. Wright b. 1895-1961 m. 2. ? he now decd.( we have her as
Lavada Margaret Wright)
( Mrs. Orville Childress does not have Mary Jane Childers b. 1880,
we have but have no further information.1st born of Nathan and Sarah
Jane. )
Children of Robert Andrew Childress & Lucinda Petty
Lilly Belle Childress b. 19 Feb 1883 m. Samuel Morris.(lilly
Belle b. 19 Feb. 1883 m. Sam Morris 30 Dec. 1899 she died 23 July 1963.)
John Lawrence Childress b. 12 Feb , d. 26 June 1885. ( b. 12
Feb. 1885 d. 26 June 1885.)
Lemuel Andrew b. 25 Nov. 1893 decd. no date, minister of the
Church of God m. Alma Watson. Ch: Cecil, Howard, Lloyd,Virgil decd,
George, John Ivan decd, Lorrain m. Mr Bolton, Marcel m. Tex McWhorter.
All liv Calif. ( we have Lemuel m. to Alma Rachael Watson and he died
15 Sept. 1966.)
Dora M. Childress d. 1889(we do not have this daughter)
James William b.16 Sept. 1889 d. 1 Sept. 1969 m. Myrtle Iva
Eagleton b. 1887 d. 1966.(married 25 Nov. 1908.)
Mary Ann(Anne)Childress b. 8 June 1886 d. 21 Nov. 1909 m. Mr
Hudson, (James Hudson) also d. young, dau Lotha Fay Hudson reared by
grandparents m. C.L. Denton liv Ramsey & St. Elmo ch: Iris m. Jack Orr
liv St. Elmo . Keith and Kent twins. Keith m. Mary Durbin liv on
original Childress farm.(Does anyone know these people or just where the
farm is? Is this the Kaskaskia River Bottom farm?) Kent m. 1. Joyce
Brewbaker 2. Helen ? liv Effingham, pianist for a singing group.
Lotha Alice Childress b. 21 Feb. 1897 d. 1 June 1950 m. Thomas
G. Kelly (we have George Thomas Kelly married 25 Dec. 1913)b. 21 May
1895 d. 25 Dec. 1914 ch: Thelma Fay b. 24 Jan. 1916 d. 2 Oct. 1917,
Kenneth Luther b. July 1917
d. 17 March 1943 killed on Okinaw. Rosemary m. Carter( now if Thomas G.
Kelly died in 1914 then who is the father to these children? ) Rosemary
m. Carter had ch: Paul was in Vietnam War killed in auto accident after
his return m. Judith Hazlett ch: Virginia, Thomas George, Lora Yvonne.
Paul b. 30 May 1943 d. 17 Aug. 1969. Thomas m. Ora Pauline(Ross) Harris.
(We have another daughter that this Mrs. Orville Childress does
not have- Florence Elizabeth Childress b. 5 Nov. 1891 m. 27 Nov. 1912 to
James Ozrow Beck. Florence died 12 oct. 1977. )
Children of Lee(William Levi) & Lizzie
Elbert Childress
Betty Childress
John Ervil Childress liv. Los Angeles. ( Anyone know these
people?)
Children of Charles Childress(Charles Elzie Childers) & Elsie
Luckett
Elvin Childress
Violet Childress m. Raymond Orr (know these people?)
Children of Jesse Childress(Jesse Thomas Childers) & Vada Wright
Sleeta Childress m. Logan Diveley
Nelson Childress m. Alvia Guffey liv Mode in Effingham Co.
Don Andrew decd. m. Dorothy
Ralph, killed in wwII m. Bessie Welch from Herreck, 1 son
liv Montana
Mary Childress m. Ralph Watson liv Plainsville, Ind.
Lenore Childress m. Dale Smith liv Brownstown
Lydia m. Larry Beck liv Beecher City
Eugene Childress . 1. Mava Jean Brailey 2. ?? liv Toledo Ill.
Wayne Childress m. Peggy Sparks liv St. Elmo
Dorothy Childress m. Darold Rhodes, gaurd at Ill. Penal Farm
liv St. Elmo
(know any of these people?)
Children of James Wm. Childress & Myrtle Eagleton
Morris Andrew m. Ruth Jackson
Edna Marie Childress m. Melvin Jackson, uncle of Ruth
Orville Allen b. 5 Feb. 1913 d 22 May 1971 m. E. Bernice
Grubaugh
Olive Louise m. Loh Rogers
Ruby Faye m. Donald Barker liv Sefton
La Nell m. Ethel Thompson from Texas
Veda Lucinda m. Spencer Sidwell, Brownstown
Myrtle Maxine m. 1. Tho. Sidwell 2. Wm. Justice liv Greenup
Ill.
Ira Delano Childress m Joyce Ramsey liv Indinia
This ends the piece written by Mrs. Orville Childress with
inserts of the facts we have, some corrections, a lot of the information
we do not have or know for facts. Please look through this(sorry it is
so long, but wanted to be as accurate as possible) and if you recogonize
family members please email me at hazzie01(a)inreach.com so we can get the
facts correct and add them as lost family members.Illionois Genealogical
Society should have a copy of this paper and if anyone could get me a
copy on line for all to see a copy of the other volume it would help.
Thank you and I hope to be flooded with information on Childress and
Childers.
--
Hazel (Dedman) Conway
Home page - http://home.inreach.com/hazzie01/index.htm
Family tree- http://home.Inreach.com/hazzie01/hazel_tree.htm
Hi. I was looking at the Childers-L website, and I found a Charles
Lewis Childers. My stumbling block has always come to my
g-g-grandfather, Charles Louis Childers. Can anyone give me
information on the former? Maybe I've found my connection.
Yours,
Jason
Jason Childers
Rochester, New York
jchilders(a)mindex.com
WWBBD?
I hope I don't get in t rouble for sending this to the list. I had this site
bookmarked for several days and just today used it. The search engine
brought me back over 50,000 hits for my family name of Childers. So I sent
it to all of my friends and a couple of non-genealogy lists. So far I have
received 5 messages from people who used this search engine and broke down
brick walls they had battled for years. Evidently this search engine is one
super duper fantastic search engine. It not only searches names for
genealogy purposes, but will search any word, phrase, thing.
I hope it works as well for everyone.
<A HREF="http://www.alltheweb.com/">FAST Search: All the Web, All the Time</A
>
Jack Childers in OKC
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--
NORTH CAROLINA
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--
ARTILLERY
There are no known Childers/Childress who Served in this branch at this time
CALVERY
ALLEN CHILDERS 6th Cav.
65th St.Tr. Co.A,E
ALLEN CHILDERS 7th Bn. Cav. Co.A
WILLIAM CHILDRESS 1st Cav.
9th St. Tr. Co.H
INFANTRY
FRANKLIN A.CHILDERS Thomas' Legion
Inf. Co.C
GEORGE CHILDERS Thomas' Legion
Inf. Co.A
J.M.CHILDERS
Sgt. Thomas'Legion
Walker's Bn. 2nd Co.D
NIMROD CHILDERS Thomas' Legion
Inf. 1st Co.A
NOAH A.CHILDERS 2nd Inf. Co.A
WILLIAM F.CHILDRESS 2nd Inf. Co.F
PETER A. CHILDERS 7th Inf. Co.K
J. CHILDERS 6th Inf. Co.I
JAMES CHILDERS 6th Inf. Co.B
BENJAMIN F.CHILDERS 7th Inf. Co.K
J. C. CHILDROY 8th Inf. Co.B
DAVID CHILDERS 16th Inf. Co.K
ELIJAH C. CHILDERS 16th Inf. Co.C
NIMROD CHILDERS 16th Inf. Co.A
THOMAS R.CHILDERS 25th Inf. Co.K
WILLIAM A.CHILDERS 25th Inf. Co.G
JAMES F. CHILDERS 28th Inf. Co.I
HIRAM CHILDRESS 28th Inf. Co.A
JOHN H. CHILDRESS 28th Inf. Co.A
STEPHEN CHILDRESS 28th Inf. Co.A
WILLIAM H. CHILDRESS 28th Inf. Co.I
W. M. CHILDERS 32th Inf. Co.C
FRANKLIN CHILDERS 33rd Inf. Co.D
JAMES CHILDERS 33th Inf. Co.D
JOHN CHILDERS 33rd Inf. Co.N/A
JOHN E.CHILDERS 33rd Inf. Co.D
WILLIAM CHILDERS 33rd Inf. Co.B
WILEY B.CHILDERS 34th Inf. Co.B
WILLIAM J.CHILDERS 34th Inf. Co.E
WILY C.CHILDERS 34th Inf. Co.C
GILBERT CHILDERS 35th Inf. Co.K
HENRY H. CHILDERS 35th Inf. Co.K
CALVIN CHILDERS
Cpl. 37th Inf. Co.A
JAMES F. CHILDERS 37th Inf. Co.A
JOHN CHILDERS
Cpl. 37th Inf. Co.A
JACOB CHILDERS 38th Inf. Co.I
ELIJAH C. CHILDERS 39th Inf. Co.K
NIMROD CHILDERS
Cpl. 39th Inf. Co.K
GEORGE P. CHILDERS 46th Inf. Co.K
JOHN C. CHILDERS 46th Inf. Co.K
WILLIAM B. CHILDRESS 50th Inf. Co.A
WILLIAM R.CHILDERS
Sgt. 55th Inf. Co.H
WILLIAM CHILDRESS 56th Inf. Co.C
WILLIAM CHILDERS 60th Inf. Co.G
RESERVE TROOPS
ALFRED CHILDERS 4th Sr Res. Co.F?
OSBERN CHILDERS 5th Sr. Res. Co.C
P. A. CHILDERS 5th Sr. Res. Co.D
MILES W. CHILDERS 8th Bn. Jr. Res. Co.B
UNKNOWN SERVICE BRANCH
HIRAM CHILDRESS 9th Bn. S.S. Co.A
N.A.CHILDERS Mallett's Co.
W.F.CHILDERS Mallot's Co.
Back to the North Carolina main page
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--
GEORGIA CHILDERS/CHILDRES STATE ROSTER
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
ARTILLERY
E.T. CHILDRESS> Lt. Arty
Echol's Tiller's Co.
J.A. CHILDRESS Lt. Arty.
Echol's Tiller's Co.
WILLIAM CHILDERS Arty. 11th Bn.
Sumter's Arty. Co.A
ROBERT CHILDERS Arty.
Troup Cty. Carlton's Co.
WILEY CHILDERS Arty. Lumpkin's co
WM. CHILDERS Arty.
Pruden's Btty.
St.Tr. Co. N/A
CALVARY
ROBERT T. CHILDERS 1st Cav. Co.A
R.CHILDRESS 6th Cav. Bn.
St.Grd. Co.E
F.M. CHILDRESS 8th Cav. Old Co.I
T.W. CHILDRESS 8th Cav. Old Co.D
THOMAS CHILDERS 10th Cav. Bn.
St.Grd. Co.B
V.N. CHILDERS 15th Cav. Bn.
St.Grd. Jone's Co.
F.M. CHILDRESS 62nd Cav. Co.D
T.H. CHILDRESS 62th Cav. Co.D
INFANTRY
HENRY J. CHILDERS Cobb's Legion Co.D
THOMAS G. CHILDERS Cobb's Legion Co.G
EMSLEY J. CHILDERS Phillips Legion Co.O
LEWIS G.CHILDERS Phillips Legion Co.O
LEWIS J. CHILDERS Reg.N/A Inf. White's Co.
JOHN H. CHILDERS 1st inf co.d J.S. CHILDERS 1st inf co.g LEWIS CHILDERS 1st
inf (Olmstead's) co.e SAMUEL P. CHILDERS 1st. regt. co. g,m,d cpl. THOMAS L.
CHILDERS 1st regt. co. g ROBERT CHILDERS 2nd inf Stanley's Co. ROBERT
CHILDERS inf 3rd bn. co.b J.J. CHILDERS 3rd res co.b JAMES S. CHILDERS 7th
inf co.b LEWIS CHILDERS 9th inf (st. guards) Culp's Co. D. CHILDERS 10th bn.
co.c H. CHILDRESS 11th inf co c WILLIAM T. CHILDRESS 12th inf co. e D.A.
CHILDERS 14 bn.inf (st. guards) co.e CURTIS CHILDERS 18th unf co. e H. K.
CHILDRESS 19th inf co. i WILLIAM B. CHILDERS 20th inf. co. b W. CHILDERS 23rd
bn. inf. Sim's co. Loc. def. BENJAMIN F. CHILDERS 24th inf co.f DAVID
CHILDERS 24th inf co.f music. F.E. CHILDERS 24th inf co.f PEYTON F. CHILDRESS
26th inf co. 1st h JACOB CHILDERS 36th inf (Broyle,s) co.l REUBEN CHILDERS
36th inf (Broyle's) co.l WILLIAM A. CHILDRES 38th inf co. k or co.l A. O.
CHILDRESS 38th inf co. n JACKSON CHILDRESS 38th inf co. n JOHN JR CHILDRESS
38th inf co. n JOHN SR. CHILDRESS 38th inf co. n sgt. JOSEPH H. CHILDRESS
38th inf co. k LAFAETTE B. CHILDRESS 38th inf co. e cpl. SAMUEL CHILDRESS
38th inf co. n M.T. CHILDERS 39th inf co.e JOHN CHILDERS 39th inf co. d,k
WILLIAM CHILDERS 39th inf. co. a WILLIAM J. CHILDRESS 40th inf co. b EZEKIEL
JESSE CHILDRESS 42nd inf co. f JOHN CHILDERS 42th inf co.e SAMUEL CHILDERS
42th inf co.e WILLIAM CHILDERS 42nd inf. co. e ROBERT CHILDERS 43rd inf co.c
WILLIAM M. CHILDERS 43rd inf. co. a WILEY T. CHILDERS 53rd inf. co. h ISAAC
CHILDERS 57th inf co.f MICHAEL CHILDERS 57th inf co.f A.S. CHILDRESS 60th inf
co. i R.A. CHILDRESS JR 60th inf co. i JAMES I. CHILDERS 60th inf co.h R.A.
CHILDRESS SR. 60th inf co. i DAVID CHILDERS 64th inf co.a DRURY CHILDERS 64th
inf co.c WILLIAM W. CHILDERS 4th bn. (s.s. ?) co. b W.J. CHILDERS 3rd res.
co. b
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FLORDIA CHILDERS/CHILDRESS STATE ROSTER
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Artillery
At this time there are no Known Childers/Childress from this state who
sereved in this branch .
Cavalry
At this time there are no Known Childers/Childress from this state who
sereved in this branch .
Infantry
JOHN L.CHILDERS 5th Inf. Co.G
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