Surviving a Civil War Prison Camp

A couple years ago, I posted a blog entry about Edwin Chapman of the Ohio Voluntary Infantry, my great great great grandfather who fought in the Civil War and was imprisoned from June 1864 through the end of the war in April 1865. After his capture in Mississippi, he was transported to Camp Sumter near Andersonville, Georgia.

On a recent drive through Georgia, I decided to explore the site of the former prison, now preserved as a National Historic Site, National Cemetery, and Prisoner of War Museum.

Me, the author, with my mother, at Andersonville, 2015

The prison was constructed with slave labor and opened in February 1864 on a piece of land large enough to hold 10,000 men. It was expanded by 50% in June, but the prisoners kept arriving by the trainload in nearby Andersonville and were marched into the stockade. At its peak, 32,000 prisoners occupied the encampment, making it the fifth largest city in the Confederacy. The grounds quickly became overcrowded, and diseases ran rampant.

"As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. "Can this be hell?" "God protect us!" and all thought that He alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place. In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then." -Robert H. Kellogg, Sergeant Major in 16th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers,camp, May 2, 1864

Indeed, the conditions were deplorable with insufficient food supplies and a single tiny stream to serve as a source of water for drinking and cooking and also as a sink and a sewage system. Our visit to the museum included the viewing of a 28-minute video presentation about the prison, and we were saddened by the human suffering that took place here. Through good fortune and good genes, my forefather survived his incarceration. But nearly 13,000 of the 45,000 inhabitants of the Andersonville prison died there, primarily from dysentary and scurvy.

“Within the circumscribed area of the stockade the Federal prisoners were compelled to perform all the functions of life, cooking, washing, the calls of nature, exercise, and sleeping…[A] considerable breadth of land along the stream…was low and boggy, and was covered with the excrements of the men and thus rendered wholly uninhabitable…The pines and other small trees and shrubs…were in a short time cut down by the prisoners for firewood, and no shade tree was left in the entire enclosure of the stockade…[T]he Federals constructed for themselves small huts and caves and attempted to shield themselves from the rain and sun, and night damps and dew…The irregular arrangement of the huts and imperfect shelters was very unfavorable for the maintenance of a proper system of police." -Dr. Joseph Jones, Medical College of Georgia. (From his testimony at the trial of Captain Henry Wirz in John Ransom's Andersonville Diary by John Ransom, published by Berkley Books.)  

Many prisoners tried to escape by tunneling out, but almost all who made it were quickly recaptured. A fence row constructed 19 feet inside the perimeter of the stockade represented "the dead line." If a prisoner so much as touched the line, he was to be shot without warning by guards, typically boys and old men who were stationed in pigeon roosts atop the stockade. To make matters worse, a group of prisoners who called themselves "The Raiders" roamed the camp and used violence to steal anything of value from fellow inmates.

The Northeast corner of the camp has been replicated.

“[I] walk around camp every morning looking for acquaintances, the sick, &c. Can see a dozen most any morning laying around dead. A great many are terribly afflicted with diarrhea, and scurvy begins to take hold of some. Scurvy is a bad disease, and taken in connection with the former is sure death. Some have dropsy as well as scurvy, and the swollen limbs and body are sad to see.” -Brigade Quarter Master John L. Ransom, 9th Michigan Cavalry and prisoner at Andersonville. (From John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary by John Ransom, published by Berkley Books.)

“Can see the dead wagon loaded up with twenty or thirty bodies at a time, two lengths, just like four foot wood is loaded on to a wagon at the North, and away they go to the grave yard on a trot. Perhaps one or two will fall off and get run over. No attention paid to that; they are picked up on the road back after more. Was ever before in this world anything so terrible happening? Many entirely naked.” - John L. Ransom

The cemetery as it looked in 1864.

The war ended in April 1865, and and Edwin Chapman was freed along with his fellow survivors. Headstones in the cemetery numbering 1 through 12,853 mark the grave sites of those who were buried in shallow trenches. 

Andersonville National Cemetery, present day.

Edwin Chapman was just age 17 when he enlisted in the 72nd Ohio Voluntary Infantry in Fremont, Ohio in 1863. It's difficult to imagine the horror he experienced during the year and a half that ensued. Read more about Edwin's service in the Federal Army and his life after the war here, Edwin Chapman of the 72nd Ohio Infantry.

Corporal Edwin N. Chapman (1846-1913)

72nd OVI reunion, Dillon House in Fremont, 1908

Edwin Chapman of the 72nd Ohio Infantry

My 3rd great-grandfather was just 17 years of age when he was captured by the rebels in a Mississippi cornfield. As a prisoner of war for the final year of the conflict, his survival would be a testament to his determination and, I believe, his genetics.

Edwin N. Chapman, ca. 1863

Edwin Chapman was born September 12, 1846 in Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio. His parents were Buel D. Chapman and Fanny Northrop. Buel Chapman, born in 1815, relocated to Ohio from Massachusetts with his mother and some of his siblings. Fanny Northrop, born in New York, was the daughter of John Northrop, originally of Rhode Island; a DNA match connects us to a descendant of Fanny's sister Harriett, the wife of Abial Canfield. Follow the link at the end of this article to trace the Chapman line back to New England and to The Mayflower.

Thousands of New England families arrived in the Western Reserve beginning about 1800.

Chapman and Northrop ancestors migrated to north central Ohio in the early days of the state, settling near the town of Litchfield in Medina County. This part of Ohio, prior to her statehood, was organized as Connecticut's "Western Reserve." Much of the land served as payment to New Englanders who served in the Continental Army during America's Revolutionary War. The plots were often sold or passed along to ambitious heirs who were ready to go westward.

Buel Chapman and Fanny Northrop marriage record.

Buel and Fanny were married in 1841 in Medina County. The couple moved 65 miles west to Tiffin, and this is where all three of their children were born: Buel D. Chapman, Jr in 1842; Mary Frances Chapman in 1844; and Edwin in 1846.

At a young age, the three Chapman children were placed with foster families. Their mother Fanny had been admitted to the Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Columbus on February 15, 1849, escorted there by the Seneca County Sheriff, Eden Lease. According to the admission record, the condition which resulted in her hospitalization was "Ill treatment from her husband, probably, jealous, Hereditary", which had been ongoing for a year and a half. There is no record available for her discharge, but Fanny Chapman is enumerated as a patient there on the 1850 Census. The facility, which opened in 1838, was later renamed Columbus Hospital for the Insane and then Columbus State Hospital.

Fanny Chapman Admission 1849

Meanwhile, after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848, it seems that Buel Chapman joined the ranks of the tens of thousands of "forty-niners" who made the journey, either by land across country or perhaps by ship around Cape Horn, in hopes of striking it rich. The only clue to his whereabouts during these years is on California's first State Census in 1852. In Northern California's Siskiyou County, a "B.D. Chapman" is enumerated, white male, age 32, born in Massachusetts. Buel eventually acquired land and settled in the Sioux City, Iowa area, married for a second and third time (1866 and 1878) with a daughter born into each marriage. Buel Chapman died in 1880 in a Mondamin, Iowa saloon that he operated, chronic alcoholism determined to have been the culprit, leaving a widow and a one year old daughter.

Buel and Fanny Chapman's two older children, Buell Jr. and Mary Francis, were placed with the Milton Morral family on a farm west of Upper Sandusky in Wyandot County, Ohio. Edwin Chapman, at the age of 2, was bound to David and Sarah (Sweet) King in Tiffin. The Kings also had two children of their own, John Pearson King and Louisa King, about ages 12 and 14 respectively.

Mrs. King died in June of 1850, leaving David, a weaver by trade, to raise his two children and Edwin Chapman. Soon he had remarried to Sarah Robertson, widow of Nelson Yeakey who had died in 1848. Sarah had been married to Yeakey since 1841, but this marriage did not produce any children. Edwin Chapman was raised by the Kings and remained close to them into his adulthood.

Sarah Robertson King plays a very important role in the Chapman story. She had moved to Seneca County from Loudoun County, Virginia sometime around 1840 with her mother and some of her siblings. Her father was John T. Robertson, a Scottish immigrant who purchased land in 1822 from the U.S. Government, 480 acres in Liberty Township, ten miles north of Tiffin. Mr. Robertson died in Virginia in 1836, bequeathing the land in Ohio to his five daughters. Sarah was deeded the easternmost 80 acres of the plot, about three miles southeast of what would become the village of Bettsville. Much of the adjacent Robertson family land straddled a swath of exposed limestone, duly reported when Liberty Township was established and surveyed in 1832. This land, known to locals as "the ridge," would later be quarried by what would become Basic, Inc., the largest employer in the area and the lifeblood of the community for well over half a century.

In the north-eastern part of this township, is a tract of land about three miles in length, and three-fourths of a mile in width, remarkably stony. In some places, the lime-stone rock literally covers the ground. In others, it is not so thickly covered, and tolerable crops are raised. The lime-stone, by being exposed to the weather, becomes white, giving to the land a singular appearance. This tract is the more remarkable, as the county in general, is so very free from any thing of the kind. 

From the 1836 Will of John Robertson

The Civil War broke out in 1861, and many young Ohioans enlisted for military service. Soon after his 17th birthday, Edwin traveled to nearby Fremont on October 7, 1863 and enlisted in Company "C" of the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry with rank of Corporal. He may not have been aware that his brother Buell Chapman had enlisted three months earlier. Buell served in Company "F" of the Ohio 9th Cavalry Regiment, having mustered in at Fort Dennison near Cincinnati.

Regimental Colors of the 72nd Ohio Voluntary Infantry

After its formation in 1861 and into early 1862, the 72nd marched through western portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, and then into Mississippi.  It was involved in several important campaigns, including the Battle of Shiloh in southwestern Tennessee. By the time Edwin joined up with the 72nd, they were huddled up near Memphis, where they had been ordered until January 1864 to guard the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, the first railroad to link the Mississippi River with the Atlantic Ocean.

In the Spring of 1864, the 72nd received orders to join General Samuel Sturgis' expedition against Confederate troops led by Nathan Bedford Forrest in north Mississippi. There, at Brice's Cross Roads, the Union forces met a formidable foe, and just as the tide was turning in their favor, Sturgis' troops were ordered to retreat. Then when their ammunition dwindled, the men of the 72nd were forced to run for their lives. Only about one-third managed to escape, while the rest were destined to spend months in the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, formally known as Camp Sumter.

 
Edwin Chapman was one of more than two dozen men from the 72nd captured by the rebels on June 11, 1864 near Ripley, Mississippi.  He spent about ten months as a prisoner of war at Andersonville, enduring unimaginable horrors. The camp was known for its horrible conditions and disregard for human life. By July of 1864, nearly 30,000 prisoners of war were held there, with no sanitation or medical treatment, and very little food. Disease ran rampant, and about 13,000 men died at the camp during its existence, including no fewer than four of Edwin's mates captured alongside him near Ripley. For more about Edwin's prison camp experience, follow the link at the end of this article.

The camp was emancipated in May of 1865, and those who had survived were free. Edwin Chapman and the others from the 72nd officially mustered out of the Federal Army on September 11, 1865 at Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they boarded a steamship back to Ohio.

Monument to the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry at Vicksburg National Military Park

Buell Chapman, Edwin's brother, faced an even worse fate. He was hospitalized at a military post in Nashville after becoming ill with measles. His condition deteriorated, and he died on the 9th of June, 1864. Back in Wyandot County, his foster parents arranged for the relocation of Buell's interment from Nashville National Cemetery to Oak Hill Cemetery just south of Upper Sandusky, Ohio. A grand headstone marks Buell's gravesite in the Morral family plot next to Milton and Eleanor Morral, who raised Buell and Mary Francis. On the headstone, his first name is spelled incorrectly as "Bewel," but his biological parents are correctly identified as "B.D. & F" (Buel D. and Fanny).

Buell Chapman Gravesite near Upper Sandusky, Ohio
(photo by M & K Bramel)

Mary maintained contact with her brother Edwin throughout their lives even though she left Ohio as a young woman. In 1866, she married William Hollenshead, also a war veteran who was involved in several important campaigns during the conflict. The Hollensheads left Wyandot County in 1869 and settled for the next decade in the Des Moine, Iowa area near the town of St. Charles, Madison County. Mary had reconnected with her mother Fanny Chapman, and Fanny also relocated to Iowa, settling in the town of Indianola less than 20 miles from her daughter. In 1880, the Hollensheads relocated again to Norton County, Kansas, where they would live out the remainder of their lives, raising five children along the way. Mr. Hollenshead was involved in local government in Kansas and was an officer in the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). Fanny Chapman remained in Indianola, Iowa until her death in 1891. With the satisfaction of her debts and the settlement of her meager estate, her heirs Edwin and Mary each received an inheritance of twenty-five dollars and some change.

Fanny Chapman gravesite in Indianola, Iowa.

From Fannie Chapman probate documents 1891

After surviving the war, nineteen year-old Edwin Chapman settled into a more normal life back in Ohio. In 1866, he married Anna Elizabeth Burkett of Old Fort, Ohio. "Ed and Anna," as they were known, operated the farm owned by Edwin's foster parents, David and Sarah King after the Kings retired to nearby Fort Seneca. David King died in 1876, and when Sarah died in 1891, Edwin inherited the farm after buying out her relatives for the sum of $2,000 split between Sarah's step-grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews.

Excerpt from the Will of Sarah Robertson King, probated February, 1891.

Ed and Anna's first child, Eva, died during infancy in 1868. A son, Charles "Homer" Chapman was born in 1871 (my great great grandfather), followed by Edwin "Cornie" Chapman, Florence Myrtle "Mertie" Chapman, and Harrison Morton "Harry" Chapman. Diphtheria took the lives of Mertie and Cornie during the winter of 1892-93, Mertie at age 13 and Cornie at age 18. Harry Chapman enlisted for military service on July 14, 1917 and was severely wounded during combat duty in France and Belgium during World War I; he died in 1937 at the age of 49 after living for several years at a disabled soldiers' home in Dayton, Ohio. Homer Chapman married Nettie Flack, daughter of Jefferson Flack and Harriett Lott, in 1892, and they lived in a second house that was constructed on the Chapman homestead. Harriett Lott's grandfather Jeremiah Lott passed down some remarkable tales from his experiences in the American Revolution, and a link at the end of this article takes the reader to his story. Another link connects to stories of the Flack settlers of early Seneca County.

John T. Robertson’s original land entry was for the eastern half of section 11 and the southwestern quarter of section 12 in Liberty Township. The easternmost 80 acres became the Chapman farm.

The western portion of John Robertson's purchase was later quarried by Holran Stone Company and then Basic Refractories

Some first hand stories involving Ed and Anna Chapman have been preserved in the diary of Sarah Green Murray, wife of Jerome Murray. Her mother was Helah Robertson, wife of Valentine Green, and a sister of Edwin's foster mother Sarah Robertson King. Helah's portion of the Robertson homestead was adjacent to the Sarah King plot. So Ed and Anna were neighbors and best friends with the Murrays, sharing many memorable experiences. The Murrays were there when Ed and Anna lost two children to diphtheria. The children were buried at Pleasant Union Cemetery in Old Fort, where Ed served on the Cemetery Board. Ed decided to relocate his first child Eva's interment from the Crissa Cemetery near Maple Grove over to Pleasant Union to the family plot there, and he called on Jerome Murray for assistance. In an era when permits were not required for such a deed, the pair dug up the pine box, badly deteriorated after a quarter of a century underground. Ed drove the carriage for the bumpy five mile trip while Jerome held the casket together the best he could.

Ed and Anna Chapman family plot at Pleasant Union Cemetery

The operation of the Chapman farm was eventually turned over to Homer and Nettie when Ed and Anna retired to nearby Old Fort. Anna died in 1909 and Ed followed in 1913.

Edwin Chapman's farm in Liberty Township was passed to his son, Homer Chapman.

Across the road from the Chapman farm, Isaac Murray, son of Jerome and Sarah, built a farmhouse around 1910, on the land that I remember from my youth as the Stanley Miller farm. The remainder of the original Robertson purchase, the acreage to the west of the Chapman and Murray land including the Valentine and Helah Greene home, had been sold by the turn of the century. Cleveland businessman John Raymond Holran started a small stone quarry on "the ridge" for the construction of roads. The quarry was later acquired by Howard Parmelee Eells, also of Cleveland, for the mining of dolomite and the manufacture of refractories used in steel production. The unique quality of the dolomite here, coupled with the construction of two rail lines intersecting at Maple Grove, made this an ideal site for Eells' operation, which was turned over to his son H.P. Eells, Jr. The Dolomite Production Company became incorporated in 1931 under the name Basic Dolomite, Inc., and in 1941 the name was changed to Basic Refractories, Inc.

At her farmhouse on "the ridge," Helah (Robertson) Greene, seated right, with Jerome and Sarah (Greene) Murray, standing center, and other family including grandson Isaac Murray, standing second from right, ca.1890

Holran Stone Company, Maple Grove, Ohio

Basic, Inc., Maple Grove, Ohio

Homer and Nettie Chapman raised three children, Earl Edwin Chapman, Edna "Mertie" Chapman (my great grandmother), and John Webb Chapman.  All three children remained in or around Bettsville, Ohio for all of their lives with the exception of a five-year stint in Kansas around the turn of the century. Homer was drawn westward by the lure of free land and acquired a farm very near the Hollenshead homestead there, his aunt and her family. But by about 1905, the Chapman's had returned to Ohio. For more about the family's time in Kansas, and their Hollenshead cousins there, follow the link at the end of this article.

State Street in Bettsville 1907

Earl and his wife Mabel (Falvy) inherited the farm and it was later passed to their son, Gerald "Gig" Chapman. The farm and its two houses were rented for decades, with the houses eventually being razed. After Gerald Chapman's death in 2014, the farm was sold to Hank Heilman who had most recently rented the land.

At home on the farm - Top L to R: Nettie Flack Chapman, Harriett Lott Flack, Jefferson Flack, Charles Homer Chapman; Bottom L to R: Edna Mertie Chapman, John Webb Chapman, Earl Edwin Chapman, Harry Chapman. 

Homer (seated), Nettie, Earl, Edna, and John

Earl, Mable, and Gerald Chapman

Edwin Chapman obituary from 1913

My mother, Sharon Jeanette Bramel, down on the farm

Homer Chapman funeral 1941: Nettie with her daughter Edna,
granddaughter Winnie, and great granddaughter Sharon (my mother).

Read more about Edwin Chapman's experiences at Andersonville here: Surviving a Civil War Prison Camp

Read about the Hollenshead and Chapman families in Norton, Kansas here: The Kansas Years

Trace the Chapman ancestry back to Connecticut and Massachusetts here: Isaac Chapman Bible - A Legacy from His Mother

Delve into Jeremiah Lott's Revolutionary War tales here: Jeremiah Lott: Honored by Washington

Read about the Flack family and a troublesome feud here: Flack Family of Seneca County

Sources:

• Ohio, County Marriages, 1774-1993, Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2016.
• History of Seneca County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns, villages ... portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of the Northwest territory; history of Ohio; statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc, Michael A. Leeson, Warner, Beers, and Company, 1886.
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com, memorial page for SGT Bewel D. Chapman (30 Nov 1836–2 Jun 1864), Find a Grave Memorial no. 64408346, citing Oak Hill Cemetery, Upper Sandusky, Wyandot County, Ohio, USA ; Maintained by ProgBase (contributor 47278889).
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29945879/fannie-c-chapman : accessed 08 March 2022), memorial page for Fannie C Chapman (unknown–26 Feb 1891), Find a Grave Memorial ID 29945879, citing IOOF Cemetery, Indianola, Warren County, Iowa, USA ; Maintained by 46620252 (contributor 46620252) .
• The History of the Early Settlement of Norton County, Kansas, Francis Marion Lockard, Champion, 1894.
• Family photographs and stories contributed by B.Funkhouser, D.Martin, and L.Swickard
• Regimental Colors photograph, ohiosyesterdays.blogspot.com, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums - Manuscripts Division, Nan Card
• Edwin Chapman Death Notice, Fremont Daily Messenger, 31 March 1913
• "California State Census, 1852," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V4NX-JRB : 30 July 2017), B D Chapman, Siskiyou, California; citing p. 18, State Archives, Sacramento; FHL microfilm 909,233.
• Ohio History Connection, Columbus State Hospital (Ohio), Admission Books, State Archives Series 896, 1838-1868