USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 49
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When but twenty-three years of age Matthew Tilghman, in 1741, was commissioned Captain of a Troop of Horse organized to protect the outlying settlements of the Eastern Shore of Maryland from Indian incursions. His wife, Ann Lloyd, was a great grand-daughter of Col- onel Edward Lloyd, the first Puritan Commander of Anne Arundel County, whose commission dated July 30th, 1650, at Providence, now the city Annapolis. With such forebears as these can it be wondered at that Lloyd Tilghman early inbibed by heredity a military spirit which led him to obtain a cadetship at the United States Military Academy, West Point, at the age of 16, in 1832. He graduated with honor in 1836 and was at once assigned to the United States Dragoons. He was commissioned full second Lieutenant July 4th, 1836, but re- signed on the 30th of September to accept the position of Civil Engineer of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, 1836-1837, of the Nor- folk and Wilmington Canal, 1837-1838, the Eastern Shore Railroad
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1838-1839, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1839-1840. He served in the War with Mexico as volunteer aide to General David E. Twiggs at the battle of Pala Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and was captain of a light artillery battery in the Maryland and District of Columbia battalion of volunteers from the 14th of August, 1847 until it was disbanded 13th July, 1848.1 He then served as principal assist- ant Civil Engineer of the Panama Division of the Isthmus Railroad and was engaged in surveying and superintending the construction of south- ern railroads, one from Paducah, Ky., to Memphis, Tenn., the other the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, from Paducah to the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he volunteered in the service of the Confederate States, raised and commanded a regi- ment of infantry comprising some of the best blood of Kentucky, which became the Third Kentucky Confederate Regiment. Beriah Magoffin was Governor, and Gen. S. B. Buckner first in command of the Kentucky State Guard. The State tried to assume a neutral position in the great struggle which had just begun, and Buckner and Tilghman stayed by the State. This position was maintained until the Federal troops en- tered the State. Men then were obliged to take sides, and it was at Tilghman's home at Paducah that Buckner and Tilghman, who were both strongly southern men, decided to join the Confederate cause, and aid it with all their powers. Tilghman, who commanded the 3rd Kentucky Regiment, a splendid body of men, thoroughly equipped and drilled and armed with the best of small arms and having a Battery of Brass Napoleons, entered the Confederate Service and took his entire command with him. The regiment went to Camp Daniel Boone, near Clarksville, Tenn., where Tilghman, who had been made a Briga- dier General, commanded. He went from there to Hopkinsville, Ky., succeeding General Clark, and from there was placed in command of the defenses of the Tennessee and Cumberland, the former being Ft. Henry, a completed earthern work, and the latter Ft. Donelson, a work on the Cumberland directly across the peninsula and distant about fifteen miles from Ft. Henry. General Gilmour, the Chief of the Confederate Engineers, and General Tilghman drew the plans for the Fort and General Tilghman brought them to completion. That great
1 Major John R. Kenly of Baltimore commanded the military escort that had charge of the Mexican General Santa Anna after his surrender. When presented to Santa Anna, Kenly writes "My first thought was, How like my father he is!" and whilst this first impression was dwelling in my mind Captain Tilghman re- marked, "How much he is like Major Kenly's father."
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Chieftain, General Albert Sidney Jonhston, the Department Com- mander, was then at Bowling Green, Ky., in front of General Don Carlos Buell, the Federal Commander. In February 1862, when Grant and Foote advanced up the Tennessee against Ft. Henry, Gen- eral Johnston, knowing the weakness of Ft. Henry and foreseeing that a later attack would be made on the more important and stronger Ft. Donelson which covered Nashville, instructed General Tilghman who was at Ft. Henry "to save his Fort if possible, but to save his command at all hazards." Fort Henry was surrounded by "back-waters," the river being so high as to bring the guns of Foote's fleet on a line with the guns of the Fort. General Tilghman knowing that his Fort would fall sent his entire command over to Ft. Donelson, remaining at his post and retaining only enough men to work his guns and hold the attacking forces until his command could reach Donelson. Commo- dore Foote with his strong fleet advanced to the attack with great gallantry and before the engagement was over was delivering his fire at musket shot range. After two hours of stubborn fighting, his guns mostly dismounted and his handful of men either dead or worn out, Gen. Tilghman surrendered his Fort to Commodore Foote.
For this soldierly devotion and self-sacrifice the gallant commander and his brave band must be honored while patriotism has an advocate and self-sacrifice for others has a votary.
writes President Jefferson Davis, in his "Rise and Fall of the Confeder- ate Government."
This same Company, the "Rock City Artillery" of Nashville, Tenn., after its members were exchanged in the fall of 1862, was re-organized at Jackson, Mississippi, and ordered to Port Hudson, Lousiana to man a battery of heavy artillery. During the memorable siege of Port Hudson by Farragut's fleet of warships on the Mississippi, and General Banks' Army of 30,000 on the land side in the spring of 1863, this same artillery company was nearly annihilated. Three of its four officers were killed outright leaving as its Commander and only surviving officer Captain Oswald Tilghman, a kinsman of Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, who was before joining this battery an aide on his staff.
Mr. Davis in an address delivered before a Confederate Society at Mississippi City, Miss., in 1878, paid the following eloquent and touch- ing tribute to the memory of Gen. Lloyd Tilghman.
Martyrdom has generally been considered, and with reason, a fruit of the sanctity of the cause in which the martyr died. You know how
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many examples your army furnished of men who piously served and piously died from wounds received in battle. The proofs of martry- dom, if I were to attempt to enumerate, would exceed your time and my strength on this occasion. Yet I am not willing to pass by as silent memory some of those examples of heroism, of patriotism, of devotion to country, which the Army of Tennessee furnished. The Greek who held the pass, the Roman who for a time held the bridge, have been immortalized in rhyme and story. But neither of those more heroically, more patriotically, more singly served his country than did Tilghman at Fort Henry, when approached by a large army, an army which ren- dered the permanent defense of the fort impossible; he, with a handful of devoted followers, went into the fort and continued the defense until his brigade could retire in safety to Fort Donelson; then, when that work was finished, when it was impossible any longer to make a defense, when the wounded and dying lay all around him, he, with the surviving remnant of his little band, terminated the struggle and suffered in a manner thousands of you who have been prisoners of war know how to estimate.
All peace and honor to his ashes, for he was among those, not the most unhappy, who went hence before our bitterest trials came upon us.
Gen. Lloyd Tilghman after being incarcerated in Fort Warren, Bos- ton Harbor, for about six months was exchanged, together with General Simon B. Buckner of Kentucky, in the summer of 1862 and placed in command at Jackson, Miss., of 10,000 exchanged Confederate prisoners of war. These had to be re-organized into companies, regi- ments and brigades of infantry, cavalry and artillery, clothed, armed and equipped anew. Most of these troops had been captured at Island Number Ten and at Fort Donelson. This was a most arduous and perplexing undertaking in view of the extreme difficulty of obtaining from the then already impoverished Confederate Government supplies and stores from either Quarter-Master, Commissary or Ordnance De- partments. All this required more than ordinary executive ability on the part of the Commander, which General Tilghman happily pos- sessed in a marked degree, and which was doubtless due to his early military training at the West Point Military Academy. He accomplished this work in a most satisfactory manner in less than three months. In the spring of 1863 when General Pemberton's army was driven by General Grant within the fortifications of Vicksburg, the rear guard of the Confederate Army was commanded by General Lloyd Tilghman. At Champion's Hill or Edward's Station, between Jackson and Vicks- burg, he made a most determined stand against the advancing columns of the Federal Army. As his troops were being forced back he took
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command, in person, of a section of field artillery and was in the act of sighting a howitzer when he received his death wound, a cannon shot striking him in the hip. He was laid under the shade of a peach tree where his life's blood ebbed slowly away, and another hero was added to that long list of martyrs who died for the cause, "the lost cause," though it be, still dear and will ever remain dear to the hearts of all true Southerners to the end of time.
'Tis a well authenticated historical fact that the peaches afterwards borne by the tree which was watered by his blood were as red as blood itself, from skin to kernel. His body which was buried in the ceme- tery in Vicksburg, Miss., was, after the death of his widow, removed to New York City by his sons and placed beside that of his wife, who removed from Clarksville, Tenn. to New York, at the close of the Civil War, and lived to see her sons successful in business as stock brokers, and lived to the advanced age of four score years.
Major General W. W. Loring in his official report of the battle of Champion's Hill or Baker's Creek, Mississippi, fought May 13-16, 1863, says,
at 8 o'clock on the morning of the 16th the enemy moving rapidly upon my pickets he opened a brisk cannonade. I suggested to General Pemberton that the sooner he formed a line of battle the better, as the enemy would be very soon upon us. He at first directed me to form Tilghman's brigade in a line of battle upon the ground it then occupied but soon thought it untenable, and ordered it with Featherstones' and Buford's brigades (my whole division) into a line of battle, on a ridge about three quarters of a mile in the rear and across a small creek. This line was almost immediately changed for a ridge still further back, where my artillery was advantageously posted on both sides of the road, the field in the front being entirely open as far as Mrs. Ellyson's house. Buford's Brigade, about this time, met a charge of the enemy (infantry, cavalry and artillery), and repulsed them in splendid style with great slaughter, the heavy fighting being done by the 12 La. a large regiment under the able and daring This and the gallant 35th Ala. regiment had also distinguished themselves in the charge upon the enemy's right and center, and about this time the brave Alpheus Baker of the 54th Ala. was severely wounded, on another part of the field. During this time Tilghman, who had been left with his Brigade on the road, almost immediately after our parting, met a terrible assault of the enemy and when we rejoined him was carrying on a deadly and most gallant fight with less than fifteen hundred effec- tives. He was attacked by from six to eight thousand of the enemy, with a fine park of artillery, but being advantageously posted, he not only held him in check, but repulsed him on several occasions, and
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thus kept open the only line of retreat left to the army. The bold stand of this Brigade, under its lamented hero, saved a large portion of the army. It is befitting that I should speak of the gallant and accom- plished Tilghman quick and bold in the execution of his plans, he fell, in the midst of a Brigade that loved him well, after repulsing a powerful enemy in deadly fight, struck by a cannon shot, a Brigade wept over the dying hero, alike beautiful as it was touching.
General Tilghman married in Portland, Maine, August 1st, 1843, Augusta M. Boyd. Of their five sons and three daughters there are now living (January 1907) but two sons, Frederick Boyd and Sidell Tilghman of New York City.
He was a strikingly handsome man of slight build but erect in stature, 6 feet tall, with a wealth of wavy dark auburn hair which fell to his shoulders, and deep set dark bright eyes; always faultness in dress, he possessed a dignified presence which commanded the respect of every one with whom he was brought in contact,-but withal a most attract- ive personality, yet ever imbued with the tenderest emotions. He exemplified that high type of manhood described by Bayard Taylor in his song of the Camp, "The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring."
His sons have honored their father's memory by a handsome bronze statue of him of heroic size, in full dress military uniform, which sur- mounts a Confederate monument in the City of Paducah, Kentucky. They have also marked the spot where he was killed near Edward's Station, Hinds County, Mississippi, by a huge granite boulder upon which is placed a bronze tablet with the following inscription:
Lloyd Tilghman Brigadier General C. S. A. Commanding First Brigade Loring's Division Killed here the afternoon of May 16, 1863, near the close of the Battle of Champion's Hill.
PURSER SAMUEL HAMBLETON 1777-1851
The recent death of Col. Samuel Hambleton, the lawyer and politician, has revived by a very natural and necessary association in the minds of many of the older citizens of this county the fading remembrance of that excellent and admirable gentleman of the same name and lineage -Purser Samuel Hambleton, of Perry Cabin. Rural economists
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who look beyond the immediate present justly lament the forest denuda- tion of our country and the consequent accompanying impoverishment of the fields by solar desiccation or pluvial denudation. So moral economists may with equal justness lament the thoughtless wasteful- ness that suffers the memories of its worthy citizens to fall beneath the ceaseless strokes of time like the monarchs of the woods before the axe of the lumberman, inducing an atmosphere of aridity in which pri- vate and public virtues wither and a soil of sterility which refuses to produce the fruits of generous endeavor because those elements that nourish them to perfection are not supplied-washed away, as it were, into the sea of oblivion. Scarcely more than a generation has passed since the death of the subject of this memoir, and yet the impress of his merits and virtues, vivid and strong as it was upon all minds that received the reflection of their brightness has, like a sun picture, almost faded and will soon be entirely effaced if perchance it should not be re- newed in the mental camera. An attempt is here made to revive and perhaps render indelible the impression made by Mr. Hambleton upon one who in his youth esteemed it a privilege, as it was his pride, to enjoy in some degree his esteem and confidence, and who now cherishes his venerable memory as a solace in the darkening days of declining years.
Samuel Hambleton, long known as Samuel Hambleton, Senior, as distinguishing him from his nephew of the same name, was born at Martingham on St. Michaels river in this county, the original seat of his most respectable family, upon the 29th of March, 1777. If ante- natal influence be acknowledged as having any potency in affecting sub- sequent character, it may be noted that as his birth was at a time of great patriotic exaltation in his State his life afforded instances of patri- otic devotion. He was the second son among a large number of brothers and sisters, children of William Hambleton and Nancy Needles, his wife. He was a lineal descendant in the fourth generation from William Hambleton, a native of Scotland, who came to Maryland and settled upon St. Michaels river as early, at least, as the organization of this county. The following account of the founder of the family is from the hand of Mr. Samuel Hambleton himself and copied from the original record.
At what time my paternal ancestor arrived in this country is uncer- tain. I have heard my father say that he came from Scotland when young; married and left one son; returned to Scotland for the purpose of settling some business and there died soon after. Among my father's
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papers I find a copy of a will made I presume by that son.1 It is dated March 6th, 1675, his name being William and his wife's Sarah. In that he mentions his children, John, Edward, Samuel, Philemon, Mary, Frances and William. To the first six he bequeaths 1300 acres of land lying on Chester river, to wit: to John 200 acres; to Edward 300; to Samuel 300; to Philemon 300; to Mary 100, and to Frances 100 acres; and to John and William his dwelling plantation, called Martingham, and to his wife Sarah and children all his personal estate. By the records of Talbot county he appears to have been a Justice of the Peace and Judge of the County Court.2
It would be useless to pursue the genealogy of the family as detailed in this manuscript. Let it suffice to say that from William, the son of the founder, came Philemon who inherited from an elder brother named William, dying without progeny, the Martingham estate; and from Philemon came another William who was the father of the subject of this memoir, also of Edward Needles Hambleton, of William Hamble- ton, of Emmerson's Point; of John Needles Hambleton-all men of prominence in this community-and of seven daughters, some of whom were women of strong or beautiful character. Young Hambleton received such education as the indifferent schools of the neighborhood afforded but, in the language of another,
during his passage through the successive stages of his career, by the energies of a strong and vigorous mind and by regular and well directed culture and study, the deficiencies and disadvantages of youth were overcome, and few of those who knew him in the middle and latter por- tion of his life as the elegant and accomplished gentleman and man of extensive reading and attainments would have known that he had these early difficulties to surmount.
Being one of a large family that might be expected to share the pater- nal estate, by no means a large one, he early in life left his home to seek his fortune. After serving an apprenticeship as merchant's clerk, he embarked in trade in Georgetown, District of Columbia. He is said
1 It is hardly doubtful that Mr. Hambleton's father was wrong. The William H. who made the will of 1675 was in all probability the immigrant. He had held offices of trust up to this date, after which his name disappears wholly from the record. Doubtless he died soon after making his will. There could hardly have been a William H. in this county so soon after the settlement of the Province as to have a son born here and old enough in 1663 to be High Sheriff of Talbot, and in 1666 a Justice of the Peace or Judge: yet it is possible.
2 He was also High Sheriff and a member of the lower house of Burgesses, but for a more particular account of this William H. see memoir of Col. Samuel Ham- bleton, the lawyer.
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to have had such success in business as admirable qualifications like his for the management of commercial affairs must always secure. But this success was not such as to satisfy him for deprivations which a life of confinement in a small town subjected him, so he determined to enter the civil service of the United States, and acting upon this he secured an appointment to a place in one of the departments at Wash- ington as clerk, with a reasonable expectation of advancement under the system of permanency of tenure and promotion for long service and merit. He held his position, however, but a short time, for an opportunity offering he solicited a place in the navy which he was for- tunate enough to obtain and the government wise enough to bestow.
He was appointed Purser by the Hon. Robert Smith, the Secretary of the Navy during the presidency of Mr. Jefferson, on the 5th of December, 1806, and was immediately ordered to New Orleans to act as paymaster of the fleet of gunboats at that station, then recently established. Up to this time according to his own statement, the captains of ships and the commandants of stations acted as their own paymasters. Here he remained until 1811 when he was relieved at his own request. While here he performed duties of various kinds other than those of purser, such as Navy Agent, Judge-Advocate and Prize Agent-that is, agent for seizures under the non-intercourse and other laws restrictive of commerce then in force. In July, 1812, he was ordered to Newport, Rhode Island, a station then under the charge of Command- ant Oliver Hazard Perry, subsequently so greatly distinguished in our naval history. Here commenced that intimacy and close friendship between this office and Mr. Hambleton which continued until the death of the former. He remained at Newport until March, 1813, when being ordered to Lake Erie he had the satisfaction of being again under the command and in friendly association with Captain Perry, who had been authorized to complete the building and equipment of the fleet then in formation for the protection of the northern frontier. After many difficulties overcome and exasperating delays the fitting out of the lake squadron was completed, and it sailed out to meet the enemy and won that notable victory that has made the name of the great sailor forever illustrious and conferred lasting honor upon the service to which he belonged. This is not the place to describe this memorable naval battle, but it is proper to say that Mr. Hambleton was a voluntary participant in the labors and dangers of the action and is therefore entitled to a measure of the renown that was won. He was assigned to duty upon the flag-ship Lawrence, and though belonging to
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the class of non-combatants he was at his own request assigned to active duty.3 He was placed in charge of two guns which he fought until they were disabled, though he was severely hurt. Not until the gallant ship which had received the concentrated fire of the enemy's fleet had struck her colors after her commander had transferred his flag to the Niagara, did he seek the surgeon's attention to his wounded shoulder.4
In a private journal which Mr. Hambleton kept for many years he has given a very full account of this fight, as well as of many events which occurred before and after the battle of much historic importance. Of his own part in the engagement he writes with characteristic modesty, but of the part taken by some participants he writes with severity. This journal has been frequently quoted by biographers and historians. In the controversy that sprang up soon after the battle of Lake Erie between Captains Perry and Elliot with reference to a charge that was made against the latter that he had shown unwillingness or hesitancy to bring his ship into the fight, Mr. Hambleton took sides with Captain Perry and justified the imputation cast upon Captain Elliot, but he
3 It is stated that the battle flag-a blue ground, with this motto in white letters, "Don't give up the Ship" was prepared by Mr. Hambleton before leaving Erie .- Mackenzie's Life of Perry.
4 The following extracts from Mackenzie's Life of Perry are sufficiently interest- ing to merit insertion, particularly as most of the facts related were drawn from the Journal of Mr. Hambleton himself: "Perry gave Mr. Hambleton, who stood near him in charge of the after guns, directions how to act with regard to his pri- vate affairs in the event of his death. He leaded his public papers in readiness to be thrown overboard and destroyed his private ones. 'It appeared,' says Mr. Hambleton, 'to go hard with him to part with his wife's letters.'"-Vol. 1, p. 231. "Meanwhile Perry continued to keep up a fire from his single remaining cannonade, though to man it he was obliged to send requests to the surgeon to spare him an-
other hand. *
* Several wounded crawled upon deck to lend a feeble aid.
* * At length the commander's own aid with that of the Purser, Mr. Hamble- ton, and the Chaplain, Mr. Breese, was necessary to fire the sole remaining gun, and it, too, was at last disabled."-Vol. 1, p. 239. "Mr. Samuel Hambleton, Purser of the Lawrence, who had preferred a post of danger on deck to the usual station of his grade in charge of passing powder below, had received a severe wound in the shoulder by which it was completely shattered, while working by the side of his noble commander like a common sailor at the last gun. For want of space in the ward-room, Hambleton was laid on the same mattress with Brooks, face to face with his dying messmate and friend. * * Never before had Hamble- ton been so impressed with his surpassing beauty. * * He inquired with earnest solicitude how the battle went. * * While he was yet speaking in a failing tone, Hambleton's attention was diverted by the favorable news from deck. * * * and when he turned to communicate it to Brooks, his spirit had depart- ed."-Vol. 1, p. 249.
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