Battle of the Crater: Park historian Emmanuel Dabney thinks you should know about these 5 men, three of whom fought with the USCT and two who wore gray

John Elder's painting of the Crater emphasizes the Confederate perspective 

The Battle of the Crater, which occurred 162 years ago today, wasn’t just a significant defeat for Union forces trying to break Confederate siege lines at Petersburg, Va. The debacle is remembered as much for the massacre of scores of U.S. Colored Troops who were surrendering.

Federal soldiers set off a mine on July 30, 1864, under a position held by South Carolinians. Troops rushed into the giant breach but became targets when they massed in an area with little room to maneuver. 

Among them were USCT units who had been encouraged by their white officers to use "Fort Pillow! No Quarter!" as their battle cry. Instead, they received “no quarter” from Rebels.

Petersburg National Battlefield this summer offers daily ranger programming that includes an 11 a.m. tour of the Crater.

I asked Emmanuel Dabney (right), chief of resource management at the park, to name a few soldiers whose actions or memories stand out from fighting at the Crater. He mentioned these five men:

Pvt. Peter Churchwell, 23^rd USCT

Churchwell had the unfortunate distinction of being returned to slavery after his capture at the Crater. He had escaped from Orange County, Va., in 1862. He worked in Washington, D.C., before he enlisted in the 23rd US Colored Troops.

After his capture at the Crater, Churchwell was put to work for several days burying the dead before he was sent to Danville, Va., according to the National Park Service. (At left, USCT soldier in action, Library of Congress)

Churchwell testified later in his life, “I was kept there until Major Reuben Gordon, my old Master, heard I was in prison, and he came there and claimed me as his slave [and] sold me to a Mr. Shedrick Lee, a slave dealer at Richmond, Va., and he sold me to Luke Powell a slave dealer who took me to Wilmington N.C. [and] I was there 8 days working in a shoe shop of Geo. French’s store, [and] then sold to Patrick Murphy who took me on his farm near Raleigh N.C., and worked at making boot [and] shoes for him, [and] he sold them.”

Churchwell escaped in early 1865 and fled to Wilmington, N.C., which had fallen to the Union troops. He lived in Washington, D.C., in his later years, according to the park.

Capt. Robert K. Beecham, 23^rd USCT

Like many other officers, Beecham served in white units early in the Civil War before they were assigned to lead USCT regiments.

Dabney describes the officer’s 1902 memoirs, “As If It Were Glory: Robert Beecham's Civil War from the Iron Brigade to the Black Regiments,” as “amazing.” (Photo, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society, Unique ID W0139K4) 

Beecham was captured at Gettysburg and then exchanged before joining the 23^rd USCT. He was wounded and captured at the Crater and served eight months in captivity before he escaped and found his way to freedom just before war’s end.

The soldier wrote in this recollections: “The Afro-American came forward cheerfully and volunteered his strength, his brawn, his heart’s blood to save the honor of the flag that to him and his race had been the symbol of every dishonor.”

Pvt. Abraham Tuckson, 23^rd USCT

Abraham Tuckson, who escaped from slavery in Virginia in 1862, was killed at the Crater. His remains were never identified, said Dabney. Hester Tuckson, his widow and mother of their children, was left to remember her departed husband.

In 2011, Eric Mink with the NPS wrote about the couple, who were enslaved in Spotsylvania County.

Abraham, after he fled from enslaver Dr. John R. Taylor, returned to the plantation to retrieve what he felt was rightfully his, including clothing.

“Abraham’s confrontation with Dr. Taylor is an example of a former slave embracing his freedom and sense of independence,” Mink wrote. ”We also learn about a woman whose husband left to fight to maintain his freedom and secure hers, but she remained on the plantation and managed to keep the rest of her family together.”

 

Col. John Cheves Haskell, Confederate artillery battalion

Dabney said the officer commanded an artillery battalion and has a vivid account of stopping at least some of the massacre of surrendered USCTs at the Crater. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Haskell and several other Confederate officers tried to stem the slaughter, but they had little success.

“Our men, who were always made wild by having negroes sent against them … were utterly frenzied with rage. Nothing in the war could have exceeded the horrors that followed. No quarter was given, and for what seemed a long time, fearful butchery was carried on,” Haskell wrote years later in his memoirs.

William A. Day, 49^th North Carolina Infantry

Like Col. Haskell, Day recalled the fury Confederate defenders heaped on the USCT troops, Dabney says. The Black soldiers brought their own anger into the battle, seeking retribution for the massacre at Fort Pillow of African-American troops.

“(Confederates) dashed up to the brink of the ditch, halted a moment as if mapping out their work, fired a rolling volley into the ditch filled with Yankees, the most of them being negroes, at this feet; then turning the butts of their guns, they sprang into the ditch among them,” Day wrote in “Confederate Veteran” magazine.

“The slaughter was terrible. The soldiers were excited, they were reckless; they burst the negroes’ skulls with the butts of their guns like eggshells. The officers tried to prevent it, but they were powerless. It was ‘No quarter for the Rebels’ that morning, and it is no quarter for them now. The fight was soon ended.”

Yankee cavalry torched Sope Creek paper mill above Atlanta. Now a nonprofit aims to preserve the stone wall of ruins in federal park along the Chattahoochee River

Ruins: Chattahoochee National Park Conservancy, map from NPS, marker by David Seibert, HMdb.org

In the days before Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s army made a pivotal crossing of the Chattahoochee River -- inching ever closer to Atlanta – mounted soldiers fanned out, intent on destroying anything of value to the Confederate cause.

Of particular interest were water-powered mills that mostly produced textiles. But one mill east of Marietta, Ga., along Sope (sometimes spelled Soap) Creek, was a bit unusual. It made newsprint for newspapers, writing sheets and cartridge paper used for Rebel weapons, among other goods. It apparently was known as a “rag mill," due to the paper being made from linen rags and old cotton. 

On July 5, 1864, elements of the famous Wilder’s (Lightning Brigade) put the torch to the Marietta Paper Mill, which got its start in the late 1850s. While the mill was rebuilt after the Civil War, it became defunct in 1902. (Photo below: Nearby pulp mill in 1907)

In recent years, the paper mill site has been a favorite trail stop for millions who flock to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.

Time and nature, of course, have taken a toll on the ruins. Unchecked and invasive vegetation have spread throughout the stones, placing pressure on its delicate walls. That’s about to change, according to an announcement this week. The nonprofit Chattahoochee National Park Conservancy and the National Park Service are partnering on an ambitious restoration project.

“For more than 170 years, these iconic stone ruins have stood as a reminder of Georgia's industrial past and the pivotal role the Chattahoochee River played in shaping our region,” the conservancy said. “After decades of exposure to the elements and encroaching invasive vegetation, the site is ready for critical preservation work.”

The first phase will remove invasive species, improve access for preservation specialists and document existing conditions.

In 2027, phase two will bring in experienced historic preservation specialists to stabilize and restore the remaining stone masonry. “Rather than reconstructing the ruins, the work will focus on protecting and preserving the existing structure while maintaining its historic integrity,” the conservancy said.

Did Phillips Legion founder tweak his nose at Yankees?

Col. John T. Wilder’s brigade gained fame in 1863 for its performance at Chickamauga, protecting the army’s flank and then launching a counterattack. For the Atlanta Campaign, regiments were transferred to the cavalry corps.

On July 5, 1864, the 17^th Indiana Mounted Infantry and 72^nd Indiana Mounted Infantry heading for the mills in Roswell found the Sope Creek paper mill, which was partially owned by William R. Phillips (left).

David Evans, in his book “Sherman’s Horsemen,” wrote about the raid, and quoted from an earlier book on Georgia places and personalities.

“An ardent secessionist, at the outbreak of the war Phillips had raised a regiment of infantry, cavalry and artillery known as Phillips’ Legion,” Evans wrote. “The loss of an eye had forced him to retired from active duty in 1862 but had done nothing to lessen his hatred of Yankees. Watching from the south side of the Chattahoochee when Maj. (Jacob) Vail and his men arrived on July 5, he sent them a message which declared, ‘The mill belonged to a man who had fought them from the beginning of the war, and who could continue to fight them to the bitter end; that he had been taught to hate them as enemies to him and his, and that he would die hating them; that he did not ask any favor from them; and they might burn to their heart’s content.’”

“It is uncertain whether Vail received the message, but his Hoosiers put the paper mill and neighboring flour mills and machine shops to the torch,” Evans added.

Wartime and postwar images of 17th Indiana drummer boy Johnny Butler ("Souvenir," a regimental history)

The National Park Service said at the time the site was rumored to have been printing Confederate currency and bonds, but the claim has never been substantiated.

Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, cautions the Phillips quotation may be apocryphal.

Crawford in a “Georgia Outdoors” segment produced several years ago for Georgia Public Broadcasting, talked about Sherman’s strategy.

“One of his objectives was to destroy any industry that might be of use to the Confederate government. Now in many cases, he would leave a flour mill, because he was uncertain how long his own troops would be here, and if they were here for a prolonged period of time, they might need flour,” Crawford said on the episode about mills. “And so he didn’t destroy every flour mill. But a paper mill or anything that was essentially superfluous to his efforts, but yet might aid the Confederacy, was fair game.”

Howls of protest: Women mill workers were taken north

The destruction of property, whether business or personal, was burned into the memories of Georgians. Of particular outrage was the fate of hundreds who worked at mills around Atlanta.

After a large Douglas County mill was torched by Union cavalry in July 1864, nearly 100 residents, mostly female workers and their children, were sent north by train -- under protest -- to spend the rest of the war. Many took an oath of allegiance to the United States. 

Don Scarbrough at New Manchester mill site in 2017 (Picket photo)

They shared the same fate as a much larger group of 500 people connected to destroyed mills in Roswell, just north of Atlanta.

From the Northern perspective, the workers were American citizens in open rebellion – a policy that outraged Southerners.

Crawford said the Sope Creek paper mill suspended operations before the cavalry arrived, so no workers were present to be taken into custody.

Researcher and historian Brad Quinlin said he recalled a 2014 event to commemorate the 600 mill workers being marched in Marietta before they were put on trains.

“We had a gentleman join us and said his gr-grandmother was one of those mill workers from Sope Creek Mill. It was fun to have him with us for the day and march with us to the square. He did not have much information on his gr-grandmother and her journey after she was shipped out of Marietta,” Quinlin wrote in an email.

Very few of those shipped north ever made it back to Georgia.

Remembering the Sultana disaster: This 14-foot model greeted Arkansas museum visitors for years. It was one of two made for a film about Civil War tragedy

The old Sultana museum (Picket photo), Gene Salecker with model and a still from film abouit the disaster

About 25 years ago, an Ohio documentary maker who was passionate about the steamboat Sultana tragedy put his dreams into production, filming scenes in a river, swimming pool and a recreated ship’s cabin, among other locations.

The late Tom Koba’s production apparently never enjoyed widespread distribution, but he did leave behind two models of the Sultana. The actual vessel exploded and caught fire in April 1865, killing about 1,200 people. Hundreds of Federal soldiers, many recently freed from Confederate prisons, including Andersonville and Cahaba, were on their way home.

Sultana author Gene Salecker worked from the remains of those boats to create new models, one of which was the star at the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Ark., before the museum closed two months ago as a larger, permanent venue is built a few blocks away.

A giant version of the doomed vessel will be the centerpiece of the new museum. “People will be able to actually walk up onto the recreated deck and see our actual 1842 steamboat engine (right) and a display on the fateful boilers, as well as other featured displays,” said Salecker, who has purchased numerous artifacts for the museum over the years.

Museum executive director Jeff Kollath said Salecker’s model, which was disassembled recently, will be placed in the main area, too. Salecker will put it back together in October, a month ahead of the museum’s grand opening.

“People can see pictures or drawings of the Sultana, but can only imagine what it really looked like,” said Norman Shaw, a founder of the Sultana Association of Descendants and Friends. “With Gene's large model, they can examine one up close. Also get an idea (of) how it operated.”

History is fortunate a photograph of the overloaded Sultana, taken shortly before the disaster, survives.

Blue tape in the gym shows shape of new Sultana model (Gene Salecker)

Sultana author Jerry Potter said Salecker’s model “is an incredible tool to give people an understanding of the layout of the Sultana. Gene has done an amazing job of restoring it. Now, it is going to its final home.”

I asked Salecker to talk about the Sultana models and how they have been used. His responses have been edited and ordered for brevity and context.

Q. Did you build the model? If so, when did you build it and why?

I built the existing model during the summers of 2013 and 2014 while I was still teaching and had the summers off. However, the foundation of the model came from someone else.

The 14-foot model (actually, two of them) were the brainchild of Tom Koba, of Berlin Heights, Ohio. Tom was an independent filmmaker who had worked with the state of Ohio on a couple of Civil War documentaries

I met Tom at the Ohio Civil War Show in Mansfield after my 1996 book was published. Tom bought a copy and was instantly hooked on the story. He would come to the show each year and pick my brain, hoping one day to make a documentary on the Sultana.

Scenes from filming in 2000, of survivors and fiery water (Courtesy Gene Salecker)

I believe Tom began his film in about 2000. He lived on a large farm and actually built a full-scale main saloon, boiler and coal bin area, some of the decking, etc. At one point, he rented out a public pool and at night, he put up some fake deck pieces, lit them on fire and had people rushing from the burning "boat" and jumping into the water. He hired professional stunt people to set themselves on fire and jump into the water, and a professional makeup person to put "burns" and "scalds" on many of the people. He also used local re-enactors as some of the ex-POWs.

Tom hired a couple of retired gentlemen to build him the two 14-foot models. One was to be detailed and the paddlewheels could move by radio control. He planned to run this on a river near his farm and take shots of the crowded boat going up the river. The second boat was not as well detailed and was meant to be exploded and burned.

Original Sultana model several years after film production (Gene Salecker)

At one of the Sultana Association reunions, Tom came and showed a few of us the finished "rushes." He was getting ready to edit the scenes when he unexpectedly died in 2007 at age 61.

In about 2012, I got a phone call from (his companion and business partner) asking me if I wanted the two 14-foot models. They had sat on her mother's front lawn, covered by a blue tarp .. . near Lake Erie. I rented a U-Haul truck and went and brought the two models back to my house in River Grove, Ill.

(The Picket contacted the business partner and will update this if she responds to questions about the project.)

In the summer of 2013, I moved the best model into my shed and began stripping off the old paint and mold and preparing it the way the Sultana had actually looked. It took me two summers and a lot of work but I completed the first model and brought it down to Marion for the grand opening of the interim museum in April 2015 (photo above).

Q. What materials are primarily used? How much of the original models were used?

A. I primarily used cedar and balsa wood. I also used chairs, spittoons, door handles, buckets, barrels, etc. from scale dollhouses.

Model that greeted museum visitors for 11 years awaits reassembly in new venue (Gene Salecker)

As for how much of Tom's original models I used, (it was) the hulls (Tom had them painted black and I had to strip, sand and paint them white.) I used the decking. I used all the slats in the railings and the upright railing posts. I used much of the paddlewheel housings but had to cut and redesign them. I used all of the stairs leading into the Texas cabins. I used his stage planks. In other words, to honor Tom, I used as much of the original model as I could but much of it needed a lot of modification. I would say I used about 60% of what was not too damaged by the elements.

Q. How did you/the builder come up with the specs and design?

A. All of the information about the Sultana (size, number of boilers, etc.) came from the January and February 1863 Cincinnati newspapers, which were reporting on the building of the Sultana. In 1979, I was working as a draftsman and drew up blueprints of the boat. No steamboat was built by blueprints so there were no existing prints for the Sultana. When someone wanted a new boat built, he went to the boat builder, gave him the measurements he wanted and etc., and the boat builder went to work. Steamboats were pretty standard.

Click on this 1865 panorama of St. Louise to see Sultana at center-right (credit below)

I used the information on the Sultana for specifics, and for the genera overall design of a steamboat, I referred to “The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopoedium” by Alan L. Bates, a retired steamboat engineer. Bates wrote his book, which is almost entirely of line drawings of parts of the steamboat, with "a nod to the modeler." When I was finished with my blueprints, I sent them to Alan L. Bates himself to check them over and he returned them with some comments and corrections. Those were what I used and referred to in building the 14-foot model.

(Photo above: Courtesy Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library at the University of Missouri-St. Louis)

Q. Tell me about the second model you built.

A. I used the best of the two (Koba) models to build the one that was displayed in the Interim museum. A few years later, I used the second model to build an "after the explosion" model which has only been put on display once -- at the 2021 kickoff of the fundraising for the new museum. I had to make an exact duplicate of the first model and then strategically wreck it.

I tried to use as much of Tom's original model in the second one (above, courtesy Gene Salecker), also. However, since I had picked the best pieces from both models when I made the first one, there weren’t much undamaged pieces left. Of course, I used the hull and some of the decking but most of it had to be handmade to an exact match of the first model. That was the hard part -- being exactly like the first model except for the ruptured middle of the boat. The stern, the bow, the paddlewheel boxes, everything had to be exactly the same.

Fortunately, I took hundreds of photos as I worked on the first model so I used those as reference for the second model... and I made sure that I kept my measurements of everything.

(Editor's note: There is no room in the gallery for the  "after the explosion" version, which is in storage in Marion, Kollath told the Picket.)

Q. How has the model added to the story of the Sultana?

A. Melody Walker of the interim Sultana Disaster Museum used to say that the two things everybody photographs when they come to the museum is the many names on the Memorial Wall and the 14-foot steamboat model. People like to look at the model to get a better understanding of what the Sultana looked like. They can see how difficult it would have been for a soldier to leap from the top hurricane deck into the crowded water 25 feet below.

Photograph of the Sultana near Helen, Ark., a day before tragedy on the Mississippi (Library of Congress)

The model has added to the understanding of where the explosion came from (top, back end of the boilers in the center of the boat), and how the blast traveled upward at about a 45-degree angle, tearing everything before it, including the pilothouse. The model adds to the understanding of just what the ex-POWs and the others had to go through to reach the supposed safety of the water.

 As they say, a picture (or in this case, a model) is worth a thousand words. It is a great educational aide in helping to explain the tragedy of the Sultana.

Previous Sultana coverage:

• Documentary, events mark 150th anniversary

• Will victim's journal and Bible become part of collection?

• Descendants drop flowers in memory of the lost
• Model captures every detail of Sultana

• Disaster took lives of those who had endured so much
• Siblings recall learning of disaster

Battle of Peachtree Creek: Featherston's Mississippi brigade led the charge, suffered massive casualties as other units got lost or were delayed in the confusion

Gen. Featherston, park at center of fighting (Picket), brigade is fourth arrow from left (Georgia Battlefields Association)

Whether he was called “Old Sweat” because he was a seasoned veteran or for his tendency to perspire, Confederate Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Featherston was cool under fire.

From commanding the 17^th Mississippi Infantry to a brigade, Featherston performed ably at First and Second Manassas, Ball’s Bluff, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg and during the Atlanta Campaign.

“I know of no negative comments or vices or disputes concerning Featherston throughout his Confederate military service,” says Civil War historian Robert D. Jenkins, executive director of the Blue and Gray Education Society. He authored a book about the Battle of Peachtree Creek, where Featherston figured prominently.

Before Saturday, I had never heard of the general. I came across his name while reading markers at Tanyard Creek Park in Atlanta, the center of the failed Confederate attack at Peachtree Creek, which occurred on July 20, 1864. The Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile loop of trails, goes through the leafy park, which is situated in an upscale neighborhood in the Buckhead community.

The venue is popular with dog walkers, bicyclists and joggers. A creek, Tanyard Branch, runs north-south in what was the center of the Confederate assault on Union divisions waiting for them just below the east-west Peachtree Creek.

The Battle of Peachtree Creek saw Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s ill-fated debut as the head of the South’s Army of Tennessee. Hood had hoped to isolate and destroy Maj. Gen. George Thomas’ command before two other Federal armies could come to his help.

The men in gray began the assault mid-afternoon on July 20, 1864, and things got tough quickly. The hilly terrain and ravines made communication and coordination difficult. Confusion and late troop arrivals reigned.

Featherston’s Mississippi brigade, part of Loring’s division, led the charge over what is now called Collier Road and toward Peachtree Creek.

His troops broke through the Federal line near Collier Mill (Picket photo, above) and they fought against three times their number in hand-to-hand combat for some 20 minutes before having to retire, but continued to fight to contest possession of the ridge top until dark, Jenkins says.

His men stubbornly pressed assault at Peachtree Creek

“Featherston carried 1,230 men into Battle at Peach Tree Creek, and fought toe-to-toe with approximately 5,500 Federal soldiers of Ward’s division,” Jenkins wrote on The Atlanta Campaign History Discussion Group on Facebook after I submitted a query..

Marker at Tanyard Creek Park prominently mentions Featherston's role (Picket photo)

“(Featherston) would remark bitterly about the failure of the Tennessee division to his right and of Hardee’s corps for not supporting his breakthrough during that battle,” Jenkins, who lives in northwest Georgia, added.

The 43-year-old general’s regiments suffered the highest casualties at the battle of Peachtree Creek, and were among the highest casualties at Franklin, Tenn., later in 1864.

Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, is an expert on the fighting at Peachtree Creek and other Atlanta Campaign sites. (The battle used to be called Peach Tree, not Peachtree.)

The lack of coordination and prompt movement doomed the assault, the historian says.

One of many battle markers in the Collier Road area (Picket photo)

Hood and others didn’t get the three missing brigades from Stewart’s Corps (one each from French’s, Walthall’s, and Loring’s divisions) into position in time. 

“Likewise, Maney’s division didn’t fight well, Cleburne’s division was held back to exploit the hoped-for breakthrough, and Bate’s division got lost in the swampy ground around Clear Creek.” Crawford says.

“Consequently, the participating brigades form Walthall’s and Loring’s divisions and the entirety of Walker’s division did almost all the fighting. In that sense, the Confederates were outnumbered, but it wasn’t by design.”

Three large markers (in background) detail the fighting (PIcket photo)

The end of the day saw a Union victory, just two days before the Battle of Atlanta. Confederates suffered about 2,500 casualties in just a few hours.

Of Featherson, Crawford says: “At least his brigade followed through on the attack when several others never got there.”

Why he was transferred to fight in Western Theater

Featherston, a native of Tennessee, saw military service early in life, fighting against Creek Indians. He moved to Mississippi, becoming a lawyer and served two terms in Congress before the Civil War.

After fighting well in Virginia and being wounded in combat, Featherston wrote a letter to Gen. Robert E. Lee in fall 1862 requesting that he and his brigade be reassigned to Mississippi for the defense of the Magnolia State, which was under pressure by Grant, says Jenkins.

1964 state of Georgia map put out to mark Civil War centennial (Picket photo)

“Lee responded by telling Featherston that he could transfer, but Lee could not afford the loss of his troops from his army,” he says.

“Some have mistakenly assumed that Lee was getting rid of Featherston, but in fact, Featherston simply wanted to go where he thought he could do the most good in the defense of his home state.

His brigade went onto additional fame in Virginia with another commander, but it was Featherston who started that brigade on its course of reliability and combat effectiveness, Jenkins argues.

George Barnard's photo of temporary graves at Peachtree Creek (Library of Congress)

Jenkins says Featherston was dubbed “Old Sweat“ because of his exposed forehead.

“He had an early receding hairline/baldness. His forehead would wrinkle, and he would sweat easily when under stress or in hot weather.”

(Some Featherston histories spell the moniker “Old Swet.”)

Featherston’s brigade was one of only seven that was in good enough fighting condition to be used as part of a rear-guard defense during their retreat following the Confederate disaster at Nashville, Jenkins says.

After the war, Featherston returned to Holly Springs, Ms., and resumed his law practice. He died in 1891 at age 70.

READ MORE ABOUT PEACHTREE CREEK:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2021/07/three-men-clashed-at-peachtree-creek-on.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-atlanta-campaign-threw-thousands-of.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2014/05/peachtree-creek-2-charlie-crawfords.html

For whom the bell tolls: Pvt. John C. Pollitz lies beneath the Long Island church he dearly loved. His headstone and a bell he bought are reminders of sacrifice

Gravestone in crawlspace in 2018 (Trinity Episcopal Church); Pvt. John C. Pollitz after enlistment 

The memory of John Codman Pollitz -- a young private who died of disease in 1863 while serving with the 44th Massachusetts in North Carolina --  lives on at a Long Island, N.Y., church where his remains lie beneath the floor and his gravestone rests above.

For several years, the soldier’s headstone and a bell he purchased for Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn have greeted visitors entering the building.

Officials had hoped to place the stone in a cabinet or display on the wall, but its weight proved problematic..

“The headstone and bell are still in the same place and there are no plans to change this,” church property manager and Mike Callahan said this week when asked by the Picket for plans for a permanent location for the items.

I have been a bit fascinated with the story of Pollitz, the son of a German immigrant, since the first of three articles I wrote following the 2018 discovery of his headstone in the rear section of the elegant sanctuary.

New to me this week was discovery of a document indicating he applied to attend West Point before the war broke out and an 1862 photo of Pollitz, taken shortly after his enlistment. I credit ancestry.com and the American Civil War Research Database for the latter.

The church had long known Pollitz’s grave was incorporated within the current building during construction in 1906. There was no recorded specific location for the grave. That changed in summer 2018, when rotting wooden floor joists were removed and Pollitz’ headstone was exposed; it was lying flat in a crawlspace.

“My assumption was that the headstone was too high standing up for the crawlspace. I believe they simply laid it down on that same spot” during construction, Callahan said a few years ago.

While Pollitz -- who was a member of the church -- remains buried beneath the floor, the congregation had wanted his headstone to be displayed inside. The stone is propped in front of a bell, which likewise has a good story.

According to a 1914 New York Times article, a dying Pollitz asked comrades to ensure his body was sent to Roslyn, where it was to lie in the shadow of the belfry. “With his army pay he had bought a bell as a gift to the parish, and its arrival and his death were so close together that it was tolled for the first time at his funeral,” the article said.

The bell rests on a stand inside the church, an affixed plaque indicating the soldier’s grave lies beneath the church (Photo courtesy Trinity Episcopal Church). Another plaque on the floor calls Pollitz a "son and hero of this parish."

Fever stalked Federal troops in North Carolina

It’s believed that the young Pollitz was living in Boston and 18 when he joined up with the 44th Massachusetts, ostensibly in the summer or fall of 1862.

The regiment, which took part in skirmishes and sieges across North Carolina before it was mustered out in June 1863, was in New Bern for several months before transfer to Plymouth, N.C.

A history of the regiment detailed disease and illness that stalked the troops during campaigning and at their quarters. Pollitz, who served in Company F, died on Jan. 7, 1863, in New Bern. 

According to the “Record of the Service of the Fourth-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina, August 1862 to May 1863,” Pollitz and 13 other soldiers in the regiment died from cerebrospinal meningitis. A pension record I found online this week (below) mentions malarial typhoid fever.

The volume provides the following information for late 1862 and the first days of 1863 in New Bern.

“December 25, the first case of a new and alarming disease occurred in our regiment, proving fatal in a few days. The epidemic, which followed and extended to other regiments, was entirely outside the experience of any of the surgeons in the department. The fever was at first regarded as a virulent type of malarial disease. The autopsy in the case of Henry G. Kimball, of Andover, Company G, who died Jan. 1, 1863, made by the assistant-surgeon, showed the presence of inflammation in the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. The disease was afterwards recognized as cerebro-spinal meningitis, which is identical with the disease once known as spotted fever, occurring as an epidemic in Massachusetts between the years 1807 and 1816. The next death was that of John C. Pollitz, Boston, Company F, on January 7. Having been previously well, he came in from guard in the morning, was sent to the hospital, and died the same afternoon. This sudden fatality naturally produced much consternation in the regiment. Quinine rations were issued as a prophylactic measure, and Surgeon Ware was untiring in his efforts to determine the cause of the epidemic.”

Pollitz’ remains were sent north to Long Island and to the church, where he had briefly been a Sunday school superintendent.

“It is my understanding that he requested to be buried in the shadow of the belfry of the original chapel. They built the new church alongside the original chapel so I assume that is why they built over it,” said Callahan.

The bell was used during the 1863 Pollitz funeral (Trinity Episcopal Church)

Shortly after his burial, February 1, 1863, the bell was taken down and another put in its place. “John Pollitz’s bell was inverted, filled with dirt and flowers, and stood by his grave for many years,” a church newsletter states.

In 1914, the bell was moved and restored after church officials discovered the grave under that floor while investigating a break in the foundation walls, according to The Times.

Descendants group honors Civil War troops

Pollitz’s father was a businessman; a history of Roslyn indicated he emigrated from Northern Ireland. But an online search of ancestry-related pages shows Otto W. Pollitz was from Hamburg, Germany, and John’s mother was from Massachusetts. The young soldier is believed to have been born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Church members are unaware of any living descendants, though Pollitz had siblings.

Members of the SUVCW lead 2019 ceremony near plaque (Trinity Episcopal Church)

A 2019 ceremony at the church rededicated the gravesite. Eight members of Moses A. Baldwin Camp #544, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, participated 

According to Dennis Duffy, secretary for the camp, the younger Pollitz attended Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (now part of NYU) and had moved on to college in Massachusetts, where he enlisted with the 44^th Massachusetts.

"John did not have to go to war. There was no draft at the time and when the draft would come six months after John's death, his family could have afforded to pay a substitute under the rules then in effect," Duffy wrote in 2019 to other members of the SUVCW camp.

Since 2019, the camp has obtained more than 100 headstones for veterans in previously unmarked graves, Duffy said this week. The post on Saturday will dedicate several VA headstones for Civil War soldier graves at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale, N.Y.

"I did mention his story in a presentation I made to the North Shore (Long Island) Civil War Roundtable, Huntington, N.Y., last week and must admit the telling brought a tear to my eye," Duffy added.

(At right, the Rev. Margaret Peckham Clark with the Pollitz gravestone in the church crawlspace in 2018)

READ MORE ABOUT POLLITZ:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2022/05/headstone-of-union-soldier-buried.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/06/in-silent-camping-ground-of-dead-sons.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-civil-war-soldier-and-his-headstone.html