We have suffered everything but death: Travails of a Shiloh P.O.W.

By the time John Baker of Battery B, 1st Michigan Light Artillery was exchanged more than six months after being captured at the Battle of Shiloh, the artilleryman had traveled through seven of the eleven states of the Confederacy, and lost his brother to typhoid fever at Cahaba, Alabama.

“We have suffered everything but death and that has stared us in the face,” he wrote to the editors of the Hillsdale Standard. “There has been 270 men who have died since our captivity began. We have been without clothing and have been obliged to live upon corn meal and bacon. I have never seen any meat but what was rotten, and no one but God can tell what we have suffered.”

John Baker’s travelogue of Confederate captivity was compiled from a pair of letters he wrote to his hometown newspaper the Hillsdale Standard in 1862.

 

During his six months of captivity, John Baker never received any new clothing and as time passed, his uniform became more ragged. That said, a common activity for prisoners of war was to "skirmish" with the lice that tended to congregate in the seams of their clothing as depicted above in Alonzo Cooper's book In and Out of Rebel Prisons. The technique was to turn your shirt inside out and look for the critters along the seams. Once you found one, you popped it between your thumb nails, the louse often making a slight popping sound as it burst which led to soldiers calling it "skirmishing." Unfortunately, this "skirmishing" was a common activity for most soldiers in the field. The only solution was frequent boiling and washing of your uniform which could be done while in camp but proved very difficult to keep up with in the field or on campaign. 

          Last Sunday, April 6, 1862, the enemy attacked us at Pittsburg Landing with a force three times the number of ours. They attacked us at daybreak and our battery was called into the field about 8 o’clock. We responded promptly and fought all day without flinching. At 5 p.m., the infantry fell back into the woods and left our battery to take the fire of the enemy. We fought until we could do no more; then we were surrounded and cut off from retreat.

          Our loss in the battery was 10 men wounded (some fatally I fear) and 20 horses. Some of our men had four horses shot from under them. Our battery was ordered out as skirmishers when we found ourselves between the fire of the enemy and our army, but we saved a battery which had been left in the morning and brought off some 20 horses. While there the balls whistled about us in every direction and one grazed my neck, the sudden friction creating a smart for a long time. Neither George nor I suffered serious injury. Thanks to a kind Providence for the protection of my brother and myself on the battlefield.

          After being taken prisoners on April 6th, the next day we were marched 20 miles through mud knee deep and that night we were put into cattle cars [at Corinth] under guard for the night. On Tuesday the 8th we were taken to Memphis and it was Wednesday morning before we got something to ear, the first we had eaten since Sunday morning. It consisted of hard crackers and fat pork.

          We left Memphis the following Sunday April 13th for Mobile, Alabama and arrived there on the 16th. We stayed in Mobile until the 20th then left on a boat for Cahaba, Alabama where we arrived on the 22nd.

Cahaba prisoner of war camp was located at the confluence of the Cahaba and Alabama River near Selma and housed Federal prisoners of war as early as May of 1862. John Baker's brother George died here of typhoid fever on May 6, 1862, just a few days before the prisoners were sent on to Montgomery, Alabama then Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

          My brother George Baker died on the 6th of May with typhoid fever. He was out of his head all of the time talking of his friends that he had left behind him. I was also sick at the time with typhus. We left Cahaba on May 8, 1862, and arrived at Montgomery the next day. There I found Lieutenant Arnett, just after Lieutenant Bloss was shot by the guard. We left Montgomery on May 24th and arrived at Chattanooga, Tennessee on the 26th. Then we traveled to Bridgeport, Alabama on the 28th and left for Belfound Landing, arriving on the 31st. We were refused by General [Ormsby M.] Mitchel and returned to Macon, Georgia on June 18, 1862.

          We remained at Macon all summer and left for our lines again on October 9th, traveling through the capital of South Carolina [Columbia], through Augusta, Georgia, then through Raleigh, North Carolina, and arrived at Richmond, Virginia on October 17th. We marched 25 miles to Aiken’s Landing on the 19th where we were exchanged. On the 20th we arrived at Fortress Monroe, then Washington, D.C. on the 21st and got to Portsmouth Grove on November 2nd.

We have suffered everything but death and that has stared us in the face. There has been 270 men who have died since our captivity began. We have been without clothing and have been obliged to live upon corn meal and bacon. I have never seen any meat but what was rotten, and no one but God can tell what we have suffered.

Sources:

Letters from Private John H. Baker, Battery B, 1st Michigan Light Artillery, Hillsdale Standard (Michigan), May 20, 1862, pg. 2, and November 18, 1862, pg. 3

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my ...
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more