USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > The story of Camp Chase; a history of the prison and its cemetery, together with other cemeteries where Confederate prisoners are buried, etc > Part 29
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On March 5 the Register said :
The great old ice bridge between this city and Johnson's Is- land commenced to move yesterday about half past two, and in about half an hour it seemed clear water as far as the eye could penetrate. The ice over the bay the past winter has been thicker and stronger than has been known for many years, whilst the length of time it has remained has never been exceeded in the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
April 11, 1865.
There was a salute of two hundred guns fired at Johnson's Island yesterday in honor of the surrender of Lee and his army. The old thirty-two-pound Parrott's jarred every house in the city, rattling the window panes like an earthquake.
While the Federal forces were having a jubilee that the long and desperate war was nearing the end, the faithful men who had waited with weary patience the day of exchange that did not come were listening with sorrowing hearts to the roaring guns and the cheers. A number of their own men who had ap- plied for the amnesty oath ran up a flag of the United States over Block Number One, where were fifty or sixty Confederate officers. "This," said the Register, "called forth the impotent wrath of the other class of tenants of the 'Bull Pen.' A large crowd of offi- cers and men stood on the parapet to hear what defeated malice could say when plunged into such humiliating depths of disaster. · The amnesty men sent back replies equal in force and wit to the shots from the other side."
The man who is artist enough to get in on the winning side of any great controversy is not confined to any particular locality.
April 15, 1865.
There is gloom in Sandusky to-day.
This brief sentence told the story. The North had won the great struggle, but lost the man who would have made the bitter days in the South less bitter. The sounds of rejoicing suddenly ceased, and there was moaning and weeping in the North. Well
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would the South have wept with us could they have known the reconstruction days-days that could not have been had the warm-hearted Lincoln lived. How the soldiers of the North loved him! There were many reasons why they should. If ever a sleepy boy on picket was sentenced to death for the crime of going to sleep, and was saved because some heart-broken moth- er pleaded for his life, it was Lincoln that saved him. The stern. implacable Stanton, the mighty but stony-hearted War Secretary. signed every death warrant-eagerly, it seemed-but there was one higher than Stanton, and rarely indeed did the mother appeal in vain.
Frank B. Carpenter, the artist, in a book published some twenty- five years ago, relates a story of Lincoln worthy of being often told, and it is given in this connection :
A young lad, the last one left to an old mother. had fallen asleep one night on guard. He had marched and fought, and was worn out when placed on duty. They found the poor boy asleep and reported him, and it was the old story-a death sentence. Then just before the time for his legalized murder the story came to an old woman at Lancaster, Pa. There was no time for her to sit and bemoan his fate. Thad Stevens was the Congress- man from his district, and out of her scant means she took enough money to go to Washington. There was little time to lose, and Stevens was soon found.
"You have no idea, madam, how busy a man Mr. Lincoln is." said the Congressman. "It will be almost impossible to see him."
"O, but, Mr. Stevens, he wouldn't refuse to see me if he knew that they were going to kill my only boy."
The Congressman and the sorrowing woman were soon wait- ing at the White House. The doorkeeper knew Stevens well. and took his card to the President, though there were many waiting. At once the President asked what he could do for the Congressman from Lancaster.
"Mr. President," said Stevens sadly, "I could not refuse a poor old woman from my district who is here to see you. Her only son" ---
"Sentenced to be shot, I suppose?" broke in the President.
"Yes; sentenced to be shot-he is a mere boy. Two older brothers were killed in battle." replied Stevens.
"Bring her in," said Mr. Lincoln; "I'll give her a moment." When he looked up, there stood before him a spare woman some fifty years of age. Her dress was plain, and her queer little bonnet had crape upon it. He saw that her lips were trembling.
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and in her faded eyes there was an appeal so pathetic that he felt a lump rising in his throat. Finally she spoke, "O, Mr. Lin- coln, you'll give me back my little boy," and then she shook with sobs and could say no more.
"Mr. Stevens tells me that you have given two boys to your .country that were killed in battle."
"Yes, I did; and it seems to me you ought to let me have one."
"You shall have this one," he was saying to himself, but the mother did not hear what the great man murmured. He turned " to his desk and wrote hurriedly, rang for a messenger, and a pardon was telegraphed to the front where the boy was awaiting death.
When Mr. Stevens informed her that her son had been saved, she stood for a moment looking at him; and the tall, ungainly- looking man seemed a god, since he had saved her boy. Then she sought to kneel before him, and had he permitted she would have kissed his feet. He spoke to her very gently, saying that he was very busy and she must go.
"I haven't thanked you," she said brokenly, as Mr. Stevens led her to the door. But the President had seen her thanks in the faded eyes that lighted up when they told her her boy was saved.
He was the best man in the world to the poor old woman. He was now dead, and the North was in tears.
The Register said editorially on April 17:
Colonel Hill, we understand, has given orders to the guard to shoot down the first Rebel who exults over the death of Pres- ident Lincoln.
Under the same date Colonel Hill replied, the reply being cred- itable to the honor and the humanity of the man :
Mr. Editor: The article in your paper [ referring to the above] is entirely incorrect, and places me in a position indefensible. In no possible view of the case could I be allowed to forget that the men in my hands are unarmed prisoners, whom it is as much. my duty to protect as to retain. If I supposed that any one of them had an actual agency in the assassination, cer- tainly neither the duty nor the privilege would be mine, on my own motion, to shoot him or punish him in any way. Much less could I order men to shoot those whom I could not suspect as having any agency in the assassination; and from the first I felt sure the prisoners would generally disapprove the act. In justice to the prisoners, let me say right here that before I had indicated my purpose to any of them, as far as I could see, every one who heard the news, of the more than two thousand
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two hundred officers before me, appeared to be depressed and sorrowful over what had occurred. They seemed to realize it as a terrible calamity to them as well as us.
Many of the prisoners had money. The commandant of the post keeps the prisoners' money on deposit at the First National Bank of Sandusky, and the balance there yesterday was $23,- 444.87.
In the reminiscences of Camp Chase, the reader will recall the story of Capt. W. H. Herbert, of Sandusky, Ohio, who was a prisoner there in 1862. In conversation with the gentleman in September, 1904, he mentioned a poem that the Confederate Vet- eran published in January, 1901, and which was written by Col. C. W. Frazier, a friend of Mrs. Herbert, then Miss Elizabeth Davis Lea. The copy furnished the author was copied by the lady from the original written on Johnson's Island while Colonel Frazier, of Memphis, was a prisoner there :
THE CAPTIVE ON LAKE ERIE.
A captive on a lake-girt isle Looks on the waters sadly, His thoughts on one whose blessed smile Would welcome him so gladly ; But that beneath a Northern sky- A sky to him so dreary --- He's doomed to pine and vainly sigh. Away out on Lake Erie.
The winds that waft to others bliss . But mock him with their tone; The lips are pale they stoop to kiss With yearning for his home. The waves that dash upon the beach Keep ceaseless watch and weary; They chant of joys beyond the reach Of him who looks on Erie.
They bear to him his mother's tone, His sister's mournful song, Until he longs to be alone Far from that captive throng ; And when he lays him down to sleep, With aching heart and weary, The winds and waves his vigils keep, Dear dreamer on Lake Erie.
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But all who love him pray to God To bless his precious life With patience to endure the rod, With faith to close the strife, And look beyond the dreary morn To brighter days and better, When native winds shall fan his brow, And only fond arms fetter.
On June 21 the Sandusky Register said.
Several carloads of Confederates left last evening on the Cleve land and Toledo train, and quite a large number awaited the early train on the C., H., and D. road.
No further mention was made of the prisoners on the Island There were a number kept for a time who were not prisoners of war, but men charged with various offenses that only time would settle.
The Confederate Veteran of July, 1900, says : -
A few years ago Col. Robert Alexander, of Texas, who was making a tour of the lakes, stopped off at Sandusky and went over to Johnson's Island to see the spot where so many of his former comrades in arms had been confined.
As he passed slowly through the cemetery reading the names upon the headstones, he was seen to suddenly lift his hat and fall upon his knees beside one of the low green mounds. There were tears in his eyes as he bent his head over the grave, and they trickled down his furrowed cheeks and fell upon the green sward beneath which rested all that was mortal of one who had been very dear to him and for whose mysterious loss he had been inconsolable. Colonel and Mrs. Alexander were childless. They had years before the war taken as their own the orphaned son of a sister of Mrs. Alexander. The war came on, the boy enlisted, was captured, and died in a Northern prison. Colonel Alexander never knew what his fate had been until he visited Johnson's Island. Inscribed upon the headstone were the words : "James E. Peel, Captain Eighth Arkansas Infantry ; aged twenty- four years."
The same article states :
The cemetery where two thousand two hundred and sixty Con- federates are buried attracts the most attention. In 1886, when, through the influence of Gov. J. B. Foraker and his adjutant gen- eral, Gen. H. A. Axline, an appropriation was obtained from the United States government to inclose Camp Chase, there was suffi- cient to build not only the wall at Camp Chase, but to build the
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iron fence around this cemetery and put in order the last resting place of those buried there, who are dear to the South.
Whatever of differences may exist politically toward this dis- tinguished son of Ohio, the South will not forget his great heart in this initial work in preserving the graves of those who died in prison and far from their loved ones.
The view of the cemetery on Johnson's Isalnd (see page 191) was taken September 24, 1904, by Mr. J. T. Gamble, and is a very realistic and natural picture of the cemetery. The reader can form some idea of the quiet beauty of the place.
There lives in Sandusky a gentleman who had been a prisoner at Camp Chase, Capt. William H. Herbert, and the author wrote to him about the condition of the cemetery there. He replied that the cemetery is kept in good condition, and every year he accom- panies the Union veterans to their decoration services, and then they take the boat for the Island and put flowers on every Con- federate grave and a wreath on each headstone.
Whatever may be done at other Northern cemeteries where lie the Southern prisoners of war, it is with pleasure I record that in this State the Blue (growing gray) and the Gray (growing grayer) go side by side and put flowers on the graves of the men who battled for the South.
When his story began there were flowers everywhere. The chill of autumn is now at hand, and the blooms are fading. It was a beautiful September day, however, when I visited John- son's Island to see the resting place of the dead and view the old forts and walk over the ground where the prisoners once restless- ly paced. I was accompanied by Mr. J. T. Gamble, who had his photographic equipment with him to show the reader what the Island looks like to-day. As Shakespeare said of sleep, "It knits up the raveled sleave of care," and time wears away the angles of the redoubt and levels the frowning breastworks. At present there is little of the Johnson's Island of forty years ago. Two hundred and six Southern soldiers-150 known and 56 un- known-sleep there under the hickory trees. Hawthorn bushes. with their flaming scarlet berries, here and there bend over the graves ; but most of the trees in the cemetery are young shellbark hickories with leaves turning yellow and falling with the nuts, bedecking the low mounds as though it were a gala day.
The deep wood lying back of the cemetery is composed almost
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entirely of second-growth hickory. The visitor to the Island is prone to sit on the veranda of the pavilion and watch the scene upon the bay until he wearies of its quiet beauty. Then he strolls over into the cemetery and on into the woods, and goes to gath- . ering the waiting nuts.
Cedar Point, three miles across Sandusky Bay, has become quite a summer resort, and Johnson's Island, with its infinitely greater natural attractions, has simply raised its crop of corn and hay, and sleepily dozed through succeeding summers, until this last summer.
The improvements are but beginning, and in a year or two they will doubtless be asking the South to come and visit and loll in the shade where the murmurs of the waters are answered by the whispers of the leaves.
One of the little circulars issued by the Johnson's Island people reads: "When you are in Sandusky don't fail to visit the his- torical Johnson's Island, and the famous forts and magazines, and where the Confederate officers are buried."
The visitors to the Island are principally young people, who dance awhile or swing, and then go down into the woods near where these Southern men are so quietly lying and talk of life and love until, perchance, the white headstones that the govern- ment placed in the little inclosure reminds them that there is awaiting them somewhere something strange and chill, some- thing that inevitably follows the dancing and the laughing and the loving.
The Island is truly a beautiful spot. The trees, lovely in their afternoon dress of yellow and scarlet, and with here and there patches of green, lure the visitor with their ripened charms more readily than the sirens of the laughing lake.
As the vague autumn sun sank that evening behind the forest of gayly turbaned hickories we sailed away regretfully from the "Quick and the Dead."
WM. H. KNAUSS AND FAMILY.
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…
KATHARINE ELIZABETH GAMBLE.
WILLIAM HIRAM PLETCHER.
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MRS. WILLIAM H. KNAUSS.
WILLIAM H. KNAUSS.
MRS. JOHN T. GAMBLE
MRS. ORLAND W. PLETCHER.
Daughters of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Knauss.
JOHN T. GAMBLE.
ORLAND W. PLETCHER.
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LARGE MEMORIAL ART GLASS WINDOW IN HALL OF RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM H. KNAUSS.
The battle represents War. The clasping of hands of the Blue and the Gray over the cannon and the dove building its nest in the mouth of the cannon represent Peace. The figure or portrait is that of the author's daughter, who, a short time before she died, said to her father: "Those who are opposing and condemning you for your good work don't appreciate the satisfaction and pleasure you are giving to the loved kindred of the dead Confederates, so don't give up your good work." A friend who saw the window writes: "This memorial window is a most fitting tribute to the memory of the loyal, beautiful daughter of Col. Knauss."
EMBLEMS PRESENTED BY COL. BENNETT H. YOUNG, OF LOUISVILLE, KY., TO THE EX-SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OF FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO, MAY 30, 1898.
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THE FLORAL PIECE FROM THE SOUTH TO THE NORTH AT THE MONUMENT OF EX-SOLDIERS AND SAILORS' ASSOCIATION OF FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO, MAY 30, 1898.
APPENDIX.
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APPENDIX.
ANTIETAM NATIONAL CEMETERY. -
THE charter of the Antietam National Cemetery granted by the Leg- islature of Maryland at the January session of 1864, and amended and re- enacted at the January session of 1865, provides for the purchase, inclos- ing, and ornamenting of ten acres of land-a part of the battlefield of Antietam-as a burial and final resting place for the soldiers who fell in the battle of Antietam. This battle of Antietam was called by the Con- federates Sharpsburg.
It sets forth the duty of the Trustees of the respective States who may join the corporation to remove the remains of all the soldiers who fell in that battle and have them properly interred in the aforementioned grounds, and "the remains of the soldiers of the Confederate army to be buried in a part of the grounds separate from those of the Union army."
The charter also provides that the grounds shall be devoted in per- petuity as a burial place for the dead of said battle, and to remain the property of the State of Maryland in fee simple, in trust for all the States which may participate in the work by their appropriations.
For the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of the charter, the Legislature made two appropriations amounting to fifteen thousand dollars, which has been paid to the trustees, and it has been expended on the work.
Additional appropriations have from time to time been made by other States-namely, New York, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minne- sota, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan. Vermont, West Virginia, and Massachusetts-which States are represented by trustees appointed by their respective Governors, and who, with those representing Maryland, constitute the corporation.
The Federal dead to the number of nearly five thousand having been removed to the cemetery. Mr. Boullt, of Maryland, at a meeting of the trustees held on the 7th of December, 1867. called attention to the fourth section of the charter of the Association, which makes it the duty of the Trustees to remove the remains of the Confederate soldiers who fell in the battle of Antistam, and he requested that some action be taken to carry into effect the provisions of the charter in this behalf; upon which subject John Jay, Esq .. Trustee for New York, read the following com- munication from Governor Fenton, which was ordered to be entered among the proceedings of the Board :
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STATE OF NEW YORK, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ALBANY, December 3d, 1867.
Dear Sir: In regard to the payment of the balance of $4,000 still re- maining unpaid of the ten thousand dollars appropriated by this State, I beg leave to remark that since my note to you of the 23d October, direct- ing the Commissioner to pay the money in his discretion, my attention . has been drawn to the question of the right to have the Confederate dead buried in the Antietam Cemetery, and that I regard the matter as entitled to the gravest attention.
The appropriation of ten thousand dollars was made by our Legislature in these words: "For a contribution to the fund for a National Cemetery at Antietam, to be paid on the certificate of the Governor to the person authorized to receive the same." There is nothing in the legislation of this State that either restricts or enlarges the purpose of the appropriation.
It is simply declared to be a contribution to the fund for a National Cemetery at Antietam. We are remitted to the original act establishing the cemetery passed by the State of Maryland. That act, passed March 23d, 1865, recites in the preamble that under a former act passed March 10, 1864. and thereby repealed. the Governor of that State had made pur- chase of a suitable lot of ground situated on or near the battlefield of Antietam, in Washington County, for the burial and last resting place of the remains of the soldiers who fell in that action.
The second section of the act provides that said lot of ground pur- chased by the Governor, as set forth in the foregoing preamble, remain in the State of Maryland in fee simple, in trust for all the States that shall participate as hereinafter provided, and said lot of ground shall be devoted in perpetuity for the purpose of the burial and final resting places of the remains of the soldiers who fell in the battle of Antietam. or at other points north of the Potomac River during the invasion of Lee in the summer and fall of 1862, or died thereafter in consequence of wounds received in said battle, or during said invasion.
The third section names four Trustees from the State of Maryland, who. with one Trustee from each of the other States to be appointed by the Governor of their respective States, are created a body politic, under the name of the Antietam National Cemetery, to whom shall be conveyed the ground referred to.
The fourth section intrusts the care and management of the ground referred to solely to said Trustees, and it then declares: "And it shall be their duty out of the funds that may come into their hands, by State appropriation or otherwise, to remove the remains of all the soldiers referred to in the second section of this act, and to have them properly interred in the aforementioned ground. The remains of the soldiers of the Confederate army to be buried in a part of the grounds separate from those of the Union army. Also to lay out and inclose said grounds with a good, substantial stone wall not less than four feet high, or with an iron fence as said Trustees may think best, and to ornament, divide, and arrange into suitable plots and burial lots, establish carriage ways, ave- nues, and footways, erect buildings and a monument or monuments and suitable marks to designate the graves, and generally to do all things in their judgment necessary and proper to be done to adapt the ground to the uses for which it has been purchased and set apart."
From this extract it is clear that the use for which the ground was purchased and for which power was given to the Trustees, and appro- priations were made by the State of Maryland, was as a burial ground for all who fell on either side, with the single provision: "That the remains of the soldiers of the Confederate army be buried in a part of the grounds separate from those of the Union army."
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It is also clear that the same duty rests upon the Board in respect to each of the two classes of fallen soldiers, and that they are instructed to appropriate one part of the cemetery grounds for the dead of one army, and a separate part for the burial of the dead of the other.
It appears from the second annual report of the President of the Board to the Trustees, dated June 5, 1867, that up to that time the United States Burial Corps, under the superintendence of Lieut. John W. Sherer, had removed to the cemetery and buried therein 3,580 dead from nineteen States (including Maryland and Delaware), and also from the regular army, of whom 2,462 had been identified and 1.118 were interred as un- known. The total number of burials have since been increased, as I learn, to 4,695. I am also advised that no provision has been made by the Trustees for a separate plot in the cemetery to be devoted to the burial of the Confederate dead, and that no Confederate dead have been buried therein to the knowledge of the Board.
It is true that all the burials have been made by order of the Washing- ton authorities, and at the expense of the government; but it does not appear that the Board has drawn the attention of the authorities to the fact that the act contemplated the interment of the Confederate as well as the Union dead, or that they have invoked the assistance of the govern- ment in executing this part of their trust.
To this it may be replied that by the eighth section of the act it is provided that "the expenses incident to the removal of the dead, inclos- ing or ornamenting the cemetery, and all the work connected therewith and its future maintenance, shall be apportioned among the States con- necting themselves with the corporation, according to their population as indicated by their representation in the House of Representatives of the United States; and that, inasmuch as the States recently in rebellion had not connected themselves with the corporation nor assumed their share of the necessary expenses, the Board is under no obligation to devote any part of the funds received from the States which furnished no soldiers to the Confederate army for the burial of the dead of that army.
A partial answer to this would be that the States of Maryland and West Virginia have joined the association and contributed to its funds, and that, as many of the Confederates who fell at Antietam and during Lee's first invasion came from the States, they (especially Maryland) have a just right to demand that a separate part of the cemetery shall be appropriated to that class, and that the Board shall take the same steps toward accomplishing this part of their trust as they have done to fulfill that relating to the Union soldiers.
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