USA > Indiana > Gibson County > History of Gibson County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 21
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The last regiment organized during the Civil war, in which there was enlistments from Gibson county, was the One Hundred and Forty-third. This regiment was largely composed of veterans who had seen service in other commands. It was organized in February, 1865. John E. Phillips was major of this regiment. William H. Fowler was captain of Company B and Bedford Reavis was captain of Company H. Ralph Redding and Alexander C. Small were lieutenants in Company H.
This regiment was fully equipped and ready for duty, but the war was practically over before they got within hearing of hostile guns.
OTHER ENLISTMENTS.
In addition to the regiments mentioned, Gibson county soldiers found service in other regiments of this state and in other states. Among the other Indiana infantry regiments in which Gibson county soldiers were enlisted were the Fifteenth, Fifty-first, Sixtieth, Sixty-third and Ninety-first, the First, Fourth and Tenth Cavalry, the Eighth Indiana Battery, and the Twenty-first Heavy Artillery.
From first to last, there were more than two thousand volunteer enlist- ments from Gibson county. There were no drafted men, though there was in 1863 an enrollment of those subject to military duty, preparatory for a draft, if this course should be necessary to fill the county's quota in subsequent calls. As an inducement for volunteers to meet these calls the county offered liberal bounties for enlistments in 1864 and 1865. For this purpose the county paid the total amount of $104,014.15 to those who enlisted in some of the later companies. The county also paid for the relief of soldiers' wives and widows during the war the sum of $20,227.01.
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It is difficult for the present generation to realize that the officers and men who composed the army in the greatest war of modern times were boys and young men; that the average age of the rank and file of those who enlisted from Gibson county was not more than twenty years. It is a mis- taken impression that the army that fought to a successful conclusion the war of the Rebellion was composed of old and decrepit men, "who, weary with life's burden, flung the smoking wick of an expiring life into the trembling balance of their country's scales, and sought the rest of death and oblivion in the fire and smoke of battle." It was not of such as these that the army was composed. It was from the flower and youth of the land that the more than two thousand soldiers of Gibson county came. Behind them were doors of opportunity. Behind them were homes and friends, and home com- forts, where "Plenty had her court and Joy and Peace saluted every morn." It was from all this that they turned away. They gave up their hopes, their ambitions, their world, their life and all for the sake of others. They suffered privation and endurance that others might have ease and comfort. They exiled themselves from home that others might have a home. They gave up life that this generation and the generations to come might have life and enjoy life more abundantly.
Gibson county soldiers faced death and mingled in the strife and carnage of nearly all the great battles of the Civil war. They contributed their part in the first great victory of the Western army at Fort Donelson. Some have lived to tell of their experience in the bloody conflict at Shiloh, at Perryville, and at Stone's River. Gibson county soldiers fought with Hovey at Cham- pion's Hill, and with Grant in the siege and capture of Vicksburg. Gibson county soldiers were with Burnside when he stormed the rugged hills of Fredericksburg, and they fought among the burning pines of Chancellorsville. Gibson county soldiers stood with the men who resisted the desperate valor of the veterans under Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg.
Gibson county soldiers stood with Gen. George H. Thomas on Snodgrass Hill, at Chickamauga, on that September Sabbath afternoon, and contributed of their might and valor and made it possible for that grim old chieftain to declare to the impetuous and almost victorious hosts under Hill and Long- street, "Thus far shalt thou come and no farther."
Gibson county soldiers were among those who scaled the heights of Lookout Mountain and fought with Hooker in his famous battle above the clouds ; they were among those, who, with unparalleled courage, charged the rifle pits, blazing with cannon and musketry, and climbed to the heights. of Mission Ridge. And it was a Gibson county soldier who carried the flag
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of the Fifty-eighth Indiana in that charge. He carried the flag unfurled and in full splendor floating to the breeze, and planted at Bragg's late head- quarters, on the summit, the "banner of beauty and glory."
There were Gibson county soldiers in these and scores of other great battles of the war. They were with Sherman in his march to the sea. They followed Sherman through swamps and across the rivers of Georgia, and through the Carolinas, until they joined hands with other comrades from Gibson county, who had followed Grant through the Wilderness, to Rich- mond and Petersburg, on to the final victory and surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox. They participated in that greatest military pageant the world had ever seen, when the veteran regiments under Sherman and Grant, with bullet-ridden and battle-scarred banners, marched down Pennsylvania avenue in Washington, amid the plaudits and cheers of thousands of admiring spectators.
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
Although the men from Gibson county who enlisted for service in the war with Spain, in 1898, did not engage in any battles or skirmishes, they were trained, equipped and transported to different points in the country preparatory to meeting the enemy.
Gibson county was represented in the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth In- diana Volunteer Infantry by Company K. This company was originally or- ganized at Princeton on December 24, 1888, and assigned as Company K, First Regiment Indiana National Guard. In 1898 the company was officered as follows: George Soller, captain; Alva C. Eaton, first lieutenant : Paul S. Brownlee, second lieutenant ; Ollie Watt, first sergeant : Robert Baker, quar- termaster sergeant ; Charles E. Brick, John F. Ervin, James R. Taylor, Will- iam M. Wilson, sergeants; Frank B. Duncan, William F. Moes, John R. Mc --- Ginnis, Albert C. Parke, corporals; Louis O. Salzman and James F. Wheeler were also corporals; Joseph I. Eller and William P. Eaton were musicians; Claude McDonald was artificer ; Iva M. Brewer was wagoner. Oliver M. Tichenor, of Princeton, was commissioned adjutant of the One Hundred and Sixty-first Indiana Regiment, commanded by Col. W. T. Durbin, afterwards governor of Indiana. This regiment spent a good part of its time of service in Havana, but was not in any engagement.
The One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Regiment was formed of the First Regiment of Infantry, Indiana National Guard, and was composed of com- panies from Vincennes, Terre Haute, New Albany, Washington, Evansville,
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Roachdale, Madison, Brownstown, Bloomington, Greencastle and Princeton. The regiment arrived at Camp Mount, Indianapolis, on April 26, 1898, under orders from the governor, for the purpose of being mustered into the service of the United States. The same care was used in the physical examination of this regiment as obtained in other regiments, and they were mustered into the volunteer service of the United States on May 12th. The regiment left Camp Mount on May 22d, and arrived at Camp R. A. Alger, Dunn Loring, Virginia, on May 24th. Broke camp at Camp Alger on August 3d, and marched by easy stages to Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia, a distance of forty miles. Left there on August 28th, and moved by rail to Camp Meade, near Middletown, Pennsylvania, where they arrived August 29th. Under orders for the muster out of the regiment. they left Meade camp on September 11th, arrived at Camp Mount on the 13th, and were furloughed for thirty days. The regiment was mustered out on November 23, 1898.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN GIBSON COUNTY.
One of the most interesting topics of the early history of Gibson county, and one which has never been written, is the "underground railroad," which passed through the county from south to north in the days before and during the Civil war. The underground railroad, in brief terms, was an avenue of escape, a system of "stations," or friends, extending from the slave states into Canada. A negro was transported from one station to another under the protection of the different station masters, who incurred great risks and many narrow brushes with death, in their desire to serve the cause of abolition. Not only from the slave owners in pursuit did the runaways and the station masters have to fear, but from a class of Northerners termed "wolves," who, in order to gain the reward offered for the return of escaped negroes, would endeavor to apprehend the fleeing men. There were many avenues of escape running during the fifties and sixties, and many and diverse were the methods used to smuggle the negroes to the Canadian line. Once in that neutral territory, they were safe from pursuit. One of these lines extended through Gibson county, and there were two stations known to have existed here, the principal one being three miles northwest of the city of Princeton, just below a big hill, at the home of David Stormont; the other station being in the Car- rithers neighborhood east of Princeton, the home of Jolin Carithers. There was also another small relay station one mile west of Patoka, kept by David Hull.
In the history of the underground railroad, written just after the war by William Still, a colored anti-slavery worker, reference is made to the station kept by David Stormont. It is in the story of Seth Concklin, who nobly sacrificed his life to aid the wife and kindred of Peter Still, a slave who had bought his own freedom, but whose dearest possessions were yet in bondage, to escape by the underground railroad route. The plan proposed by Concklin was a hazardous one, and he undertook to execute it alone, with consequent failure. He and his charges were captured after they had proceeded as far north as Vincennes, Indiana, twenty-five miles north of Princeton. To Will- iam Still several letters were written by Concklin during his attempt to escape
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with Peter Still's wife and relatives. One of these missives refers directly to David Stormont, although the letter has the name written as "Stormon." The letter follows :
"Princeton, Gibson County, Ind., Feb. 18, 1851.
"To Wm. Still :- The plan is to go to Canada, on the Wabash, opposite Detroit. There are four routes to Canada. One through Illinois, commenc- ing above and below Alton; one through to north Indiana, and the Cincinnati route, being the largest route in the United States.
"I intended to have gone through Pennsylvania, but the risk going up the Ohio river has caused me to go to Canada. Steamboat traveling is universally condemned; though many go in boats, consequently many get lost. Going in a skiff is new, and is approved of in my case. After I arrive at the mouth of the Tennessee river, I will go up the Ohio seventy-five miles, to the mouth of the Wabash, then up the Wabash, forty-four miles to New Harmony, where I shall go ashore by night, and go thirteen miles east, to Charles Grier, a farmer (colored man), who will entertain us, and next night convey us six- teen miles to David Stormon, near Princeton, who will take the command, and I will be released.
"David Stormon estimates the expenses from his house to Canada at forty dollars, without which, no sure protection will be given. They might be instructed concerning the course, and beg their way through without any money. If you wish to do what should be done, you will send me fifty dol- lars, in a letter, to Princeton, Gibson county, Inda., so as to arrive there by the 8th of March. Eight days should be estimated for a letter to arrive from Philadelphia.
"The money to be State Bank of Ohio, or State Bank, or Northern Bank of Kentucky, or any other eastern bank. Send no notes larger than twenty dollars.
"One half of my time has been used in trying to find persons to assist, when I may arrive on the Ohio river, in which I have failed, except Stormon.
"Having no letter of introduction to Stormon from any source, on which I could fully rely, I traveled two hundred miles around, to find out his stability. I have found many Abolitionists, nearly all who have made propo- sitions, which themselves would not comply with, and nobody else would. Already I have traveled over three thousand miles. Two thousand and four hundred by steamboat, .two hundred by railroad, one hundred by stage, four hundred on foot, forty-eight in a skiff.
"I have yet five hundred miles to go to the plantation, to commence (15)
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operations. I have been two weeks on the decks of steamboats, three nights out, two of which I got perfectly wet. If I had had paper money, as McKim desired, it would have been destroyed. I have not been entertained gratis at any place except Stormon's. I had one hundred and twenty-six dollars when I left Philadelphia, one hundred from you, twenty-six mine.
"Telegraphed to station at Evansville, thirty-three miles from Stormon's, and at Vincennes, twenty-five miles from Stormon's. The Wabash route is considered the safest route. No one has ever been lost from Stormon's to Canada. Some have been lost between Stormon's and the Ohio. The wolves have never suspected Stormon. Your asking aid in money for a case properly belonging east of Ohio, is detested. If you have sent money to Cincinnati, you should recall it. I will have no opportunity to use it.
"Seth Concklin, Princeton, Gibson County, Ind."
However, as has been stated before, the worthy Concklin failed in his mission to get his negroes to the Canadian line. Concklin was placed in jail, whereupon he wrote to David Stormont to get funds for bail. A report afterward circulated, and found to be reasonably true, was to the effect that a man was found drowned, with his hands and feet in chains and his skull fractured. This was Seth Concklin.
In his book, "Looking Back from the Sunset Land," Rev. N. R. Johnston has written a very interesting narrative of his observation of Seth Concklin and his party. He writes :
"In fulfillment of presbyterial appointments I was at Princeton preach- ing two or three Sabbaths the latter part of March and the first of April. Early in the week before my last Sabbath there, Mr. David Stormont came to my lodging place ( Elder Robert Stormont's) and told me that Seth Conck- lin and the four escaped slaves were at his house, having recently arrived safely from Alabama. Of course I accepted Mr. Stormont's invitation to ride with him to see his guests. They all were well, though tired and sleepy. and all were anxious about their safety as they knew that though they were now in a free state they were not free from the danger of being captured and taken back to slavery again. They had arrived the night before, having been conducted by the colored man, Charles Grier. Mr. Concklin gave me a warm welcome and was somewhat cheerful. With the others I soon became acquainted, though the two sons and the young daughter were reserved and diffident, having had no other school than the slave plantation. Mrs. Still, 'Aunt Vina,' was quite free in conversation. She was manifestly a woman of great natural ability and of rare common sense. I spent the day and the
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evening with the fugitives and their rescuer and from them learned the whole story of their flight and journey. To me it was intensely thrilling, and I am sure that it would be the same to the reader if I could give it at length and with all its incidents as narrated by the fugitives. All I can do is to give the merest outline as told to me so that the reader may know how the escape was effected.
"At Cincinnati Mr. Concklin bought a large skiff and took it with him on board an Ohio steamer, and afterwards up the Tennessee river to Florence, Alabama, not far from the plantation where the slaves were. Here, under the assumed name of Miller, he busied himself inquiring for work and, repre- senting that he was a miller, as he once had been, he tried to explain to the inquisitive why he had brought a skiff with him. In his meanderings he went to the plantation, and to the shoe-shop by the wayside, where one of the slaves was the cobbler for the others. Concklin needed some shoe mending done and thus he had an opportunity and without suspicion to obtain desirable in- formation as to localities, for the time was near when, according to the ap- pointment that had been made by Peter Still and his wife, he must go to visit her in the night. When the hour came Concklin was there 'sharp.' After waiting a while in the tolerably dark night, a colored woman approached quietly accompanied by one of her sons (no doubt) timidly. In subdued voices they spoke to one another. How could Aunt Vina know that this man was the very one that her husband had sent from Philadelphia to conduct her and her children out of the house of bondage? I will tell the reader, but in my own words, as she told me that afternoon at the house of David Stor- mont. She said: 'When my husband was about to leave me to go back to Philadelphia, I took off the cotton cape I had on and gave it to him. It had a hole in one corner. I said, "Give that cape to the man that is to come for us and tell him to bring it back to me, and when I get the cape and find the hole in it I'll be sure that he is the right man."' And as she told me this incident she went to her bundle of clothes and brought the cape and said to me : 'See there, sir ; there is the hole,' showing it to me ; and then she added : 'Then I knew all was right and I was glad.'
"Their interview was necessarily brief. Concklin told the woman what to do and when to bring the children to join him in the boat. They came at the appointed time and place and were soon rowing down the Tennessee river. When daylight came and when they saw people on the shore who might sus- pect that they were fugitives they laid down in the boat so that they could not be seen from the land. At one place some men on the shore shouted to
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the boatman to stop. He did not obey the order, but rowed on the more stoutly. The fellows on shore then fired guns at the boat, but the God of the oppressed preserved those in the skiff from harm. Passing out into the Ohio and thereon up to the mouth of the Wabash, they rowed up this stream to New Harmony, and then carried out their plan as written in the letter to William Still.
"The night that I lodged at Mr. Stormont's Mr. Concklin and I slept in the same room and conversed until a late hour about things in which we both were interested, and we were not forgetful that the house might be sur- rounded at any hour of the night by a posse of pursuers of fugitive slaves.
"That was probably the last time that Seth Concklin ever slept on an ordinary bed. The next day duty called me away and I bade good-bye to the fugitives and their faithful friend and guide. Shortly after they were all on the highway towards Canada.
"What happened after their departure from Mr. Stormont's was not known except from unreliable reports from published telegrams and from Seth Concklin's letter to David Stormont, written after Concklin had been lodged in prison. Probably the reader may understand the situation at this time if I here copy a brief extract from a letter I wrote from Evansville, Indi- ana, to William Still under the date of March 31, 1851.
"'I think it was twenty-three miles above Vincennes, Indiana, where they were seized by a party of men and lodged in jail. Telegraphic dis- patches were sent all through the South. I have since learned that the marshal of Evansville received a dispatch from Tuscumbia to look out for them. By some means he and the master, so says report, went to Vincennes and claimed the fugitives, chained Mr. Concklin and hurried all off. As soon as he was cast into prison Mr. Concklin wrote to David Stormont at Princeton to find bail. As soon as he received the letter and could get away, two of us were about setting off to render all possible aid when we were told they all had passed south a few hours before, through Princeton, Mr. Concklin in chains. What kind of process was had, if any, I know not. I immediately came down to this place and learned that they had been put on a steamboat at three p. m. I did not arrive until six. Now all hopes of their recovery are gone.'
"After the letter from which this is extracted was written, additional facts were learned that threw some light on the dark tragedies. I communi- cated some of them to William Still, and this letter also he published in his book which came out nearly twenty years afterwards. I did not hear of the
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capture of the fugitives until Mr. Stormont came into town and informed me of the sad intelligence. This was sometime on Saturday. Nothing could be done for the prisoners until after the Sabbath, when I was expected to preach. Besides, Mr. Concklin's letter had said that the trial was fixed for Thursday of the week following. Accordingly we made arrangements to go to Vincennes as soon as the Sabbath was over, that we might do all in our power to rescue the captives.
"Early on Monday morning Mr. Stormont and I were seated in the buggy and the lines in his hand, ready to set out from Princeton on our errand of rescue as we tried to hope, when a friend came hurriedly to inform us that we need not go as, on the day before, the captured party had all been taken through the town, going south in charge of the United States marshal from Evansville, and accompanied by the slave owner, MeKiernon, from Alabama. Afterwards, the following facts were learned. The telegram that had been sent from Evansville into the South had been read by Mc- Kiernon, who hastened to go for his chattels. Taking the United States officer with him from Evansville, he hurried to Vincennes and claimed his slaves. They were given up to him and into the possession of the marshal without any trial whatever. The law was obeyed to the letter and the per- sons surrendered 'on the claim of him to whom such service or labor is due.' Concklin was handcuffed by the marshal and put into the stage coach with the colored people, and behind the coach rode in their own carriage the slave owner and the marshal. They left Vincennes on Sabbath morning and reached Princeton in time for dinner. While the master was in the hotel eating, the prisoners were retained in the stage under guard and without food; and then they all hurriedly drove on to Evansville.
"As I was expected to preach in St. Louis the next Sabbath and as I believed it my duty to do everything possible to prevent the dragging of the fugitives back into bonds, and if possible to save poor Concklin from chains, and from the awful fate which seemed to await him if carried into Alabama by the bloodhounds who had caught him, I hastened to take the morning stage for Evansville in the hope that I might reach the city before the de- parture of the captives and their captors. It was my purpose to hasten to employ an attorney and have writs issued for the release of the captives who had been brought away from Vincennes without any trial whatever. But I was too late. Three hours before my arrival all the party had departed by steamboat for Paducah, a town at the mouth of the Tennessee river. That same night I took the first steamer going down the river, and still hoping that
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possibly if I could reach Paducah before the departure of the company I might do something for the friendless captives. Vain hope! An hour be- fore my arrival at Paducah the master and his slaves had taken the stage tor Florence, Alabama. I could do nothing. But what of Seth Concklin? My boat was detained an hour or two, so that I had time to go ashore and make inquiries of some colored men laboring on the wharf. They told me what they had heard the people say and from what I learned afterwards I believed that they were partly correct, as we will soon see. The United States marshal had gone down to Paducah, still having in his charge the slaves and Mr. Concklin. The passage was in the night. The officer sat up in guard of the captives, Concklin still handcuffed. Reports said that after the boat landed at Paducah, and while it was yet night, the marshal fell asleep or had asked McKiernon to guard his prisoner while he would sleep. It was reported moreover that when the marshal returned to where he left Concklin the latter was gone. McKiernon told the officer that while he ( McKiernon) was watching he fell asleep and on awakening saw that the manacled man was missing. No one had seen anything of him. When morning came search was made and the dead body of the man, yet in his chains, was found in the river. On the side of his head was a very severe wound, probably a broken skull. The body was taken to a sand bank on the shore, not far distant, and buried in his clothes and irons as before death. All kinds of conjectures and reports were afloat. Having learned all I could possibly in the short time I had, I returned to my steamer and went on to St. Louis. On landing I hastened to find the vessel which had brought the fugitives from Evansville to Paducah and sought an interview with the officers to learn what I could from them. As the boat was owned by Northern men, I felt free to converse with the officers, though while the boat lay at the wharf at Paducah waiting for the morning nearly all the officers were asleep except the clerk, so that he was almost the only one who could tell me anything reliable. He had seen nothing of the parties after a late hour of the night, until in the morning after the man in irons was missing; but he told me what he had seen and heard after that time. One of the reports or opinions expressed was that Concklin (known by the name of Miller) had jumped overboard to drown himself rather than be taken to Alabama to fall into the hands of slave holders or Southerners. Another was that he had jumped into the water in the expecta- tion of wading or swimming ashore, even though wearing heavy manacles, but that in leaping to the water he had been struck accidentally on the head, the blow causing death. A third supposition, or rather suspicion, was that
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