USA > New York > Schoharie County > Military records of Schoharie County veterans of four wars > Part 29
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John Ray.
Schoharie - Laborer; single ; age 21; enlisted September 2, 1863 ; killed at Plaquemine, La., while on picket duty.
James Kilmer.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 16; enlisted September 2, 1863 ; killed at English Bend, La., while on picket duty.
Jacob H. Teabout.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 21; enlisted September 2, 1863 ; died from injury of the knee, at New Orleans, June 30, 1864. " The Roll of Honor places him in the Fourteenth Rhode Island Cavalry.
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
TWENTIETH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
COMPANY D.
Jacob Charlton, Sergeant.
Middleburg - Farmer ; married ; age 23 ; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; did regular service without disability, until discharged at New Orleans, La., October 7, 1865 ; Middleburg, N. Y.
ยท COMPANY E.
Tobias Lane.
Cobleskill - Coachman ; single ; age 26 ; enlisted January 4, 1864; discharged at New Orleans, October 8, 1865 ; died at Cobleskill, N. Y., January 13, 1889. Daughter, Mary Joana Lane.
COMPANY E.
Peter Lawyer.
Middleburg - Laborer; married ; age 25 ; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; did regular service until discharged at New Orleans, October 7, 1865 ; died June 5, 1889, leaving children, Evaline, Charles D., Catharine M., James C., Fannie.
COMPANY F. -
Henry Hamilton.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 23 ; enlisted December 22, 1863 ; joined his regiment at Riker's Island, and served at New Orleans ; contracted chills and fever ; discharged with his regiment at New Orleans, October 7, 1865 ; Central Bridge, N. Y .; laborer ; mar- ried. Children, William, Abram, Wallace, Marcus, Ada, John, Am- brose F.
COMPANY H.
John Woodworth.
Schoharie - Laborer ; enlisted November, 1863; killed in Loui- siana during a skirmish at the close of the war.
George Teabout.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; enlisted November, 1863 ; resides at Coxsackie, N. Y. ; married; laborer. Children, Jacob H., Annie E., Pierce, Hezekiah, Morse, Lucia, Helen.
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
Benjamin Tulley.
Middlebury - Laborer; single ; age 38; date of enlistment not known ; contracted diarrhea in the service; treated in hospital ; re- joined his regiment and served until discharged, October 7, 1865 ; Middleburg, N. Y.
COMPANY I.
Charles Murphey.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 18 ; enlisted January 12, 1864 ; served the greater part of his term on detail as orderly at head- quarters ; discharged at New Orleans July 7, 1865 ; Syracuse, N. Y .; laborer ; married. One child, Martha A.
George Burhans.
Middleburg - Laborer ; married ; age 20; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; was injured by a fall while on a steamer en route for Milli- ken's Bend, and died from the effects soon afterward.
Jeremiah Zant.
Middleburg - Laborer ; married ; age 20 ; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; contracted typhoid fever ; treated at David's Island and dis- charged from that place ; Middleburg, N. Y .; citizen ; married. Chil- dren, Sarah, Frank, Flora, Freddie.
Thomas Larkins.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 18; enlisted January 14, 1863 ; contracted chills and fever ; treated in hospital at New Orleans ; dis- charged with his regiment, October 7, 1865; Sehoharie, N. Y .; la- borer ; married. Children, Lizzie, Caroline, Adam, Henry, Mabel, Eva, Wesley, Bessie, Maud.
William Teabout.
Schoharie - Age 22 ; enlisted September, 1863.
William Smoke.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 30 ; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; company not known ; did regular service throughout his term ; dis- charged October 7, 1865 ; married afterward ; died at Central Bridge, N. Y., in 1887, leaving two children.
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
COMPANY NOT KNOWN.
Henry Dewitt.
Middleburg - Laborer ; single ; age 20; no dates ; served regu- larly until discharged with his regiment at New Orleans, October 7, 1865 : married after the war, and died since.
Jacob Fosburg.
Middleburg - Laborer ; single ; age 20; no dates ; discharged at New Orleans, October 7, 1865 ; married after the war ; died since.
TWENTY-SIXTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
The services of this regiment were principally confined to opera- tions along the coast of South Carolina ; it was attached to what was called the Coast Division or the Department of South Carolina ; it was engaged in the battle of Honey Hill, S. C., where it suffered con- siderable loss ; no mention is made of many colored regiments in "Fox's Losses."
COMPANY C.
William W. Thompson.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married ; age 49 ; enlisted January, 1863 ; contracted chills and fever during his service; contracted rheuma- tism ; discharged August 28, 1865; Schoharie, N. Y .; laborer ; married. Children, Nancy C., George, Isaac, Henry.
Lysander Thompson, Son of William.
Schoharie - Laborer; single ; age 18; enlisted with his father ; lost second finger of right hand by accidental gunshot at Fort Duane, N. C .; killed by gunshot in right side at Johns Island, July, 1864 ; buried at that place.
Zachariah Keyser.
Middleburg - Farmer single ; age 17 ; enlisted March 12, 1863 ; served regularly until discharged with his regiment ; participated in the battle of Honey Hill.
David Cain.
Middleburg - Laborer ; married ; served at the battle of Honey Hill; discharged with his regiment; died at Middleburg, N. Y .; leaving a widow and one son, George.
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
Abram Keyser.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married ; age 26; enlisted January 11, 1864; contracted rupture at the Supply Docks at Beaufort, S. C .; discharged with his regiment, Angust 28, 1865; Cobleskill, N. Y .; laborer ; married. Children, John, George, Edward.
Lorenzo Sternberg.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married; age 35; enlisted March, 1863; discharged at the end of the war, and died in 1883, leaving a widow and children, George S., Charles, William.
John Van Slyke.
Middleburg - Laborer ; married ; age 28 ; enlisted February 12, 1864; wounded by gunshot in hip at Honey Hill, S. C. ; discharged from hospital, September 9, 1865 ; married ; laborer. Children.
Daniel Vroman.
Enlisted December, 1863; lost little finger of right hand by gun- shot at Honey Hill, S. C .; discharged August 28, 1865 ; missing.
William H. Sternberg.
Schoharie - Laborer; age 32 ; enlisted September 16, 1864; dis- charged September 1, 1865 .- M.
Luther Hubbard.
Middleburg - Laborer; single; age 24; enlisted January 5, 1864 ; discharged September 9, 1865. - M.
COMPANY F.
Richard H. Hoyt.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married ; age 37 ; enlisted as a musician, December, 1863 ; contracted chills and fever ; contracted rupture at Supply Docks, Beaufort, S. C .; discharged with his regiment ; Schoharie, N. Y .; laborer ; widower. Children, Christina, Richard J., Georgianna, Mary R.
William Ray.
Died in South Carolina, July 16, 1865.
Samuel Hoyt.
Middleburg - Laborer; married ; age 35; enlisted as a musician,
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
December, 1863; discharged with his regiment ; resides in Connec- ticut ; widower ; laborer. One child, Nancy.
COMPANY I. Cornelius De Will.
Died in South Carolina, March 30, 1865.
COMPANY G.
Josiah Smoke.
Enlisted in 1864; discharged August 28, 1865; Richmondville, N. Y .; laborer; married.
COMPANY I. Andrew Cain.
Schoharie - Laborer; single; age 24; enlisted December 31, 1863 ; took part in the engagements of Honey Hill and Graham's Neck; discharged September 10, 1865.
COMPANY UNKNOWN.
John Becker.
Middleburg - Single; did regular service and discharged at end of term ; married afterward; died in 1868.
Jacob Van Dyke.
Schoharie - Age 34; enlisted in January, 1864; discharged for disability in April, 1865.
THIRTY-FIRST UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
This regiment was organized in April, 1864, and was attached to Ferrero's Division of the Ninth Corps. Suffered its heaviest loss at the Petersburg Mine explosion.
Richard Teabout.
Schoharie - Laborer; single ; age 19; enlisted February 24, 1864; wounded in the knee; last heard from at hospital at Fortress Monroe.
COMPANY I. James Sayers.
Schoharie - Farmer; single ; age 18; unable to give date of en-
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
listment ; wounded "before Petersburg," by gunshot in right arm above the elbow ; treated in hospital at City Point for three months; rejoined his regiment, served for six weeks, then taken sick and sent to City Point ; rejoined his regiment two months later ; slightly wounded at the Weldon railroad ; served until discharged at the close of the war ; Schoharie, N. Y .; married. One child, Nancy.
TWENTY-NINTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
Attached to the same division as the Thirty-first.
George Ingold. Schoharie - Laborer; single; age 18 ; enlisted January 25, 1864.
RHODE ISLAND HEAVY ARTILLERY, COLORED TROOPS.
COMPANY E.
Adam Larkins.
Schoharie - Laborer; single; age 24; enlisted September, 1863; contracted lung trouble and was discharged about six months previous to expiration of his term ; died November 15, 1865.
THIRD VIRGINIA CAVALRY.
COMPANY I.
George Snyder.
Schoharie- Entered the army as waiter for Colonel Mix, and continued in that capacity until the death of that officer, June 15, 1864; he then enlisted in the above company and regiment ; did service before Petersburg, and afterward was detailed as guard over commissary stores at Norfolk, Va .; remaining on such duty until dis- charged in November, 1865 ; Schoharie, N. Y .; married.
ORGANIZATION NOT KNOWN.
Solomon Jackson.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married; enlisted January 26; 1864 ; died at Beaufort, S. C .; think he was a member of the Twenty-sixth Colored Troops, Company H; died of dysentery preceded by chills and fever.
Harrison Vroman.
Schoharie - Horseman ; single ; age 19; enlisted October 2,
376
SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
1863 ; contracted varicose veins in the service ; discharged October 2, 1865 ; Sloansville, N. Y .; laborer ; married. Children, Henry, Harry, Emma, Thomas, Susan, Ada, Frank, Mary, Jessie.
Christopher Lawyer.
Schoharie - Laborer ; married ; age 26; date of enlistment not known ; supposed to have belonged to the Twenty-sixth Colored Troops ; contracted asthma in the service, from which he died, Oc- tober 1, 1887, leaving a widow.
Lorenzo Thompson.
Schoharie - Laborer ; single ; age 17 ; son of William Thompson ; enlisted in United States Army ; contracted typhoid fever in the Black Hills, Dakota, and died October, 1867, about one month after the expiration of his term.
THIRTY-EIGHTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
Attached to Paine's Division, Eighteenth Corps.
COMPANY E.
Thomas Smoke.
Esperance - Laborer ; single: age 19; enlisted March, 1864; joined his regiment after the battle of Deep Bottom, near Dutch Gap ; detailed as dispatch-bearer, and continued on such duty until discharged in February, 1867 ; Central Bridge, N. Y .; laborer ; mar- ried. Children, Danforth, Mary A., Charles H., Cordelia, Meta, Nancy, Sarah, Herbert, Stanton.
Anthony J. Houghtaling.
Middleburg -- Laborer ; married ; age 33; enlisted as cook in Company L, Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery, August 10, 1864 ; discharged August 26, 1865 ; Schoharie, N. Y .; citizen ; mar- ried. Son, William.
COMPANY AND REGIMENT NOT KNOWN.
Charles Shafer.
Cobleskill -- Served after the war on the Texan frontier, and dicd afterward in South Carolina.
According to the foregoing records, forty-eight colored men served from Schoharie county. As far as can be learned eighteen were
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
married, twenty-eight served full term, four were discharged for disability, nine died in the service, of disease, four were killed, nine have died since the war, and twenty-one are known to be living.
PRISON REPORT.
I offer no apology in presenting this " prison report." I consider it as much a part of my duty to record the evidences of moral de- pravity, malignity and hatred existing in the hearts of the leaders of secession and rebellion, as I do to memorize the names and services of brave men who gave their lives and service to defend and protect the inalienable rights " of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ;" and I give it as a lesson from the history of a so-called enlightened people, which teaches, from proof in evidence, that an unholy war was waged, and a monstrous erime committed by the leaders of the Southern Rebellion - a crime so great as to be beyond the right of man to condone or excuse.
Some of the readers of this report may have visited museums, where the various instruments of torture, or the models of the Ro- man Inquisition were exhibited, and were horrified with the ideas of consummate cruelty and pain which those inventions so forcibly suggested. They are the outcome of an oligarchy which had grown dominant and unscrupulous under a self-assumed title of Vice-Re- gency of Heaven. Briefly, they were the instruments of torture by which Satan proposed to humiliate or destroy all opposition to his rule over mankind. They are looked upon with loathing and re- membered with reluctance.
The so-called savage meets the intruder upon his domain with the war ery, " spare not, " and slays his vietim outright, in what he rea- ,sonably presumes to be self-defense. His home and native land have been his for all time, his life has been one of continual warfare to maintain possession of it, and the extermination of his enemies, his only guaranty of safety. He is the "savage" which civilization abhors. Cheat him, rob him, invade his home, and stir up his thirst for blood, and yet he is the peer of the so-styled civilized man who profits by the consequences, and escapes the blow which falls npon the inno- cent. The adventurer found him confiding and friendly, but drove or cheated him from his home. In the far east the agents and emissaries of a monarchial power appeared like a seourge of locusts, and the savage was either subjugated to their rule or driven from his native
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
soil, his family forever scattered, and his wife and children given over to the ravisher. Time and distance, in this life, seem long in many cases, but eternity will bridge the span between gilded thrones, affluence and worldly honors, and the poor, despoiled victims of op- pression, avarice and hatred in an instant, and down into hell the devil will go. Underlying the biography of the human family from its birth to the present time, we trace the agency of the devil. When its operations are revealed openly and without a pretense to disguise, civilization becomes horrified at once ; but when dressed in the tog- gery of fashion ; clothed in graceful language, chanted with an ac- companiment of high sounding moral logic; and further sustained by the law of the land, it becomes a " sweet morsel under the tongue."
Ambition in both the civilized and savage mind is always followed by a desire to subjugate. when supplemented by avarice. The in- tents and purposes of the untutored are not long hidden from us, but to understand the motives and desires of the enlightened demon we must prolong the study, and with more care, and often become a helpless prisoner in his power, and at his disposal. War is a faithful interpreter of the passions and ambitions of those who engage in it, and the methods practiced by the opposing powers are the indices by which we may safely determine which side is fighting for good against evil. Righteousness is always tempered with mercy. Victory gained at the expense of moral principles is always followed by a revengeful persecution of the fallen victim. Whatever excuse for justification in inciting a rebellion in Heaven, does not appear, clearly, but doubtless the devil posed as a martyr and reformer as he does to this day. Knowing both good and evil, it is patent that he should picture his opposers in all the hideous wickedness of his own character, while proclaiming from the house-top, behold how great and good am I.
Allow me to give a descriptive title to the attributes and charac- teristics of human depravity, when it becomes exalted, which I borrow from the diary of poor Jimmey Bailey,- one of the many thousand victims of the fiendish hatred of Jeff Davis and his ad- mirers - " the same old thing." It was "the same old thing" which incited the red man of America to massacre and scalp the helpless mother and babe, and which prompted the Tory to out- herod the savage by exceeding him in barbarity toward his neighbor. It was " the same old thing" which packed helpless prisoners in noisome dungeons, beneath the hatches of the Jersey Prison Ship, to
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
die by untold suffering. It was "the same old thing" which in- spired the arch fiend of secession to destroy, by methods which rivaled those of the Inquisition, helpless prisoners who came into his power. It was " the same old thing" which inspired this same old Jeff to publish his audacity, in his dotage, by denying his instrumentality in the crimes perpetrated under his sanction and orders, and charg- ing the crime to those whom he hated and defied. And it was "the same old thing" which opened the pages of that professed exponent of morality and civilization, - the North American Review - to re- ceive and promulgate the venom of hypocrisy, that the crimes of this chief of traitors might be condoned on earth. It was no mercy when this man was permitted to live. As mercy and charity were strangers to him, he should have been taught, by the bullet or rope, that it was the greatest measure of forbearance to permit one coward to die and atone for the lives of thousands of brave and honorable men. This hero! chieftain ! and statesman ! of the South, in his dy- ing days, said that the men confined in his prisons received all the food that the resources of his government could spare, and that the responsibility of their deaths and sufferings rested upon their own government. It is " the same old thing," and it becomes only chil- dren to argue with Satan. He does not say that his terms for ex- change of prisoners involved the rights of equality and self-respect on the part of the Union government. He does not say that cloth- ing and necessaries of life sent by the Union government, and by friends and relatives, to men confined in his death-pens, were di- verted and appropriated to the use of their jailers and enemies, after an agreement that they would be delivered to those for whom they were intended. He does not say that the character, preparation and system of delivery of the pittance of food furnished his prisoners, was such as to insure the greatest amount of suffering, and the highest death-rate. He does not say that his prison discipline was so inhuman in its administration that none but "home guards " of his soldiery could be trusted with its enforcement. He does not say that his prisoners were deliberately shot for extending a defenseless hand an arm's length beyond the " dead line," to secure a sip of less polluted water. He does not say that after being robbed by their captors of such clothing as would cover their nakedness, these help- less men were denied the privilege of securing from the surround. ing country sufficient wood to shelter them from heat and cold, and to cook their beggarly ration of corn and cob. He does not say that thousands of Union men were shot and maltreated for showing
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
less resistance to their captors, than he, when he was overtaken in his motherly hood and water-proof, or when he rebelled against the handeuffs at Fortress Monroe. He does not say that while thou- sands of men, good, trne and incorruptible, were dying for want of the least of the necessaries of life, he was carefully saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold, stolen from a government which had honored him in office and military training, that he might escape from a country which he had been chief and foremost in trying to destroy, and live in affluence in a foreign land.
It was a cruel blow to the supremacy of truth and justice and christianity when Jeff Davis was permitted to live and enjoy the luxuries of life while the wail of heartbroken mothers and widows throughout the northland was heard in the cries of "Oh where is my boy." " Oh that I knew that he was killed, and did not die in prison." " Oh if I could only have fed him."
The few sketches following have been given after much persua- sion. The fearful experiences of these men have left them loth to speak of their prison life.
DIARY OF JAMES BAILEY.
This diary was kept by Bailey in one of the small pocket editions so commonly used by the boys in the army. After he became aware that he could not live to see his home and friends, he requested a fellow prisoner to preserve his diary, and in case he survived him, to send it to his parents at Gilboa. The comrade survived, reached his home at Albany, and when sufficiently recovered from the ef- feets of his imprisonment, made the journey to Gilboa, and placed the prison diary of James Bailey into the hand of his mother. The little leather-covered book with a needle attached to the pocket, and the seareely legible words recorded from day to day, are all that " came back from the war" to the father and mother of James Bailey.
Aug. 25th, 1864. Taken prisoner at Reams Station, near Peters- burg by Mahone's Brigade, Brigadier-General Wilcox's Division, A. P. Hill's Corps. Marched to Petersburg, guarded by a regiment of North Carolinans. Remained there over night, then marched to the station, took the cars for Richmond. Stayed there over night, then marched out just across the street into an old tobacco ware- house, from there sent to Belle Island.
Aug. 31st. A prisoner of war on Belle Island. Our day for muster for pay in camp, but such is not our fate.
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WAR OF THE REBELLION.
The United States government owes me six months' pay and an installment of fifty dollars.
Sept. 1st. A prisoner of war on Belle Island. No signs of being paroled or exchanged.
Sept. 2d. A bright sunny day on Belle Island. Nothing new re- lating to our present situation.
Sept. 4th. Still on Belle Island. Weather hot and sultry, some prospects of rain.
Sept. 5th. No rain has yet fallen. The weather has been very un- comfortable for us, being exposed without shade or shelter.
Sept. 6th. Rained the night previous, which made things very uncomfortable for us. Continues cloudy and misty till night, then tents given to us.
Sept. 7th. Morning finds us in the same old position, the weather fine.
Sept. 8th. Out again to be numbered. A hot day. Nothing but camp rumors to cheer us up.
Sept. 9th. Again turned out to be numbered. Remained out till dark. About midnight, a large fire in Richmond.
Sept. 10th. Still a prisoner on Belle Island. All turned out to be counted and to have camp regulated, the weather hot and sultry.
Sept. 11th. Remained in close quarters through the day. No material change in the weather or rations.
Sept. 12th. All out again to be numbered, and told off in squads.
Sept. 13th. Finds all here yet, the most in good health.
Sept. 14th. In camp all day. All kinds of rumors afloat, amounting to nothing. Some heavy firing in the direction of the " Burg."
Sept. 15th. Enjoying ourselves in the best manner possible for us while here. Weather fair.
Sept. 16th. Every thing the same in camp. No sign of deliverance.
Sept. 17th. Out to be counted and have the camp policed. Day fair and pleasant.
Sept. 18th. Turned out to be counted, came back before noon. The weather has every appearance of rain. Some cannonading toward Petersburg, results not known to us.
Sept. 19th. Again out to be counted, nothing new for us.
Sept. 20th. Ont again in the morning, nothing new in camp to- day, no signs of being released.
Sept. 21st. Yet on the island. Turned out to be counted.
Sept. 22d. As usual out to be counted, did not remain out long.
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SCHOHARIE COUNTY VETERANS.
Weather some cooler to-day. Did not feel able to walk much. Can- nonading in front of Petersburg, nothing known of its results.
Sept. 23d. Out in the morning to be counted. Some rain in the forenoon, appetite some better to day.
Sept. 24th. Turned out to be counted. Weather rainy and bad to be ont. Heavy firing toward Petersburg.
Sept. 25th. A beautiful Sabbath day on Belle Island. The men mostly in good spirits. We were out again to be counted in the morning.
Sept. 26th. Out in this morning to be counted, rained all day.
Sept. 27th. Out again to be counted. Weather fair, some heavy firing in the direction of Petersburg.
Sept. 28th. Still a prisoner on Belle Island. Weather fair in the morning. Turned out just at night to be counted, rained at night.
Sept. 29th. All out to be counted. Heavy fighting down the river.
Sept. 30th. Still on the Island a prisoner. All ont to be counted. Some signs of rain. The rest of the prisoners came from Libby prison.
Oct. 1st. Morning dawns cold and chilly. The prisoners out to be counted. Commences to rain, continues all day. Heavy fighting on the river.
2d. The Sabbath, a beautiful day after the rain of yesterday. All out to be counted, returned to camp. But little excitement in camp to-day and night leaves every thing quiet.
3d. Morning all taken out to be counted. The weather rainy. Some more prisoners sent on the island from Libby.
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