They Have Left Us Here to Die

The Civil War Prison Diary of Sgt. Lyle G. Adair, 111th U.S. Colored Infantry

Glenn Robins

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781612779867
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la guerre de Sécession

The chronicle of a Union soldier's seven months in captivity

Besides the risks of death or wounding in combat, the average Civil War soldier faced the constant threat of being captured by the enemy. It is estimated that one out of every seven soldiers was taken captive—more than 194, 000 of them from Union regiments—and held in prison camps infamous for breeding disease and death.

Sgt. Lyle G. Adair of the 111th United States Colored Troops joined the thousands of Union prisoners when part of his regiment tasked with guarding the rail lines between Tennessee and northern Alabama was captured by Confederate cavalrymen. Adair, who had first enlisted in the 81st Ohio Volunteer Infantry at the age of seventeen and later became a recruiting agent in the 111th, spent the remainder of the war being shuffled from camp to camp as a prisoner of war. By the war's end, he had been incarcerated in five different Confederate camps: Cahaba, Camp Lawton, Blackshear, Thomasville, and Andersonville.

" They Have Left Us Here to Die " is an edited and annotated version of the diary Sergeant Adair kept of his seven months as a prisoner of war. The diary provides vivid descriptions of each of the five camps as well as insightful observations about the culture of captivity. Adair notes with disdain the decision of some Union prisoners to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy in exchange for their freedom and covers the mock presidential election of 1864 held at Camp Lawton, where he and his fellow inmates were forced to cast votes for either Lincoln or McClellan. But most significantly, Adair reflects on the breakdown of the prisoner exchange system between the North and South, especially the roles played by the Lincoln administration and the Northern home front. As a white soldier serving with African Americans, Adair also makes revealing observations about the influence of race on the experience of captivity.

Complete with numerous annotations comparing Adair's accounts with other diaries, memoirs, and official reports, " They Have Left Us Here to Die " provides a platform for delving deeper into the culture of captivity and the Civil War soldier experience.

" 'They Have Left Us Here to Die' touches on the important themes of combat motivation, race, the end of slavery, the experience of captivity, and the competing stories of how the war was remembered. And it does so in the hands of an able storyteller who brings Lyle Adair's story to life." – Scott Reynolds Nelson, Legum Professor of History, College of William & Mary

CHAPTER 1

The Unknown Soldier

LYLE ADAIR WAS BORN to Benjamin and Nancy Templin Adair on April 11, 1843, in Vigo County, Indiana. Sometime prior to 1860, Adair moved to Boone County, which had been organized by the State of Indiana in 1830 from territory that “had been acquired from the Indians by the Federal government in a treaty made at St. Mary’s, Ohio, in 1818.” There Adair lived in Sugar Creek Township, in the northwest corner of the county. Its “rich and undulating” lands and “the remarkable fertility of the soil in this flat district” produced bountiful crop yields. “One of the most beautiful stretches of water in the Hoosier state,” Sugar Creek coursed through the county. The rural midwestern community possessed sawmills, carding mills, steam flouring mills as well as a variety of churches, among them Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian. There was also a small group of Quakers in the township’s Sugar Plains community.¹

The 1860 federal census listed Adair as a resident of the Lyons House Hotel. James S. Adair, presumably a relative, was the hotel’s landlord. The thirty-five-year-old James and his wife and young children lived in the hotel with twelve other tenants, a group that included several carpenters, a miller, a saddler, several merchants, and even a professor of music. Lyle Adair and one other resident reported farming as their occupation. Although little is known about Adair as a farmer, one friend, Arden P. Middleton, who “was well acquainted” with Adair and “lived on an adjacent farm,” described him as “an able bodyed young man,” and James Wilson considered Adair to be of “steady habits and good moral character.”²

The Indiana teenager began his military career on August 30, 1861, when he enlisted as a sergeant in Company C of the 81st Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). No doubt, the financial incentive of the bounty system enticed a large number of young men to answer the call to arms during the early stages of the war. In the North, Congress passed a law in May 1861 that permitted the federal government to offer a bounty, or payment, to military volunteers “of up to $300.” State and local governments could also contribute to the “bounty pool.” Recruitment was a pressing issue throughout the summer of 1861 with President Abraham Lincoln receiving congressional approval to enlist as many as 500,000 volunteers.³ Perhaps monetary rewards offered during the summer rush to expand the Union military tempted Adair, who apparently had not achieved any type of meaningful material success. And the young bachelor had lost his father in March 1854 and did not seem to have any binding familial obligations. Yet, Adair’s diary contains numerous references to his love of country and expressions of unwavering patriotism. These values clearly played an essential role in sustaining him during his seven months in captivity and may have been his motivation for enlisting.

The 81st Ohio formed at Greenfield under the command of Capt. Robert N. Adams. According to regimental historian Maj. W. H. Chamberlin, the 81st Ohio was “an organization, which, perhaps, is unlike that of any other regiment sent into the field from Ohio. It is an adopted child of the State, not one of the manor born.” In August 1861, the 20th Ohio was mustered out after having fulfilled its initial three-month commitment. The unit was not reconstituted, “as was the case with most of the other three months’ regiments of Ohio.” However, several officers of the 20th Ohio determined to form an “independent regiment, without the aid of the State,” and intended to muster “singly, or in squads, or companies” with Gen. John C. Fremont, whose headquarters were in St. Louis, Missouri.⁴ The group adopted the name Morton’s Independent Rifle Regiment, but “by some bad management … one full company … was actually taken possession of by Col. Crafts J. Wright, of Cincinnati, who was also organizing an independent regiment.” Additional companies were in danger of being siphoned off. As a result, “State pride fortunately intervened” and the 81st Ohio was commissioned by the authority of the governor of Ohio and its legislative members.⁵

During the winter months of 1861–62, Adair’s Company C and the 81st Ohio spent a great deal of time in northern Missouri as part of the Department of Missouri. Their mission involved “scouting, arresting accomplices and principals in the work of destroying the railroad, and in restoring peace and quiet to the whole country round about.”⁶ Chamberlin recalled nothing exceptional about these military tasks, nor did Corp. Charles Wright, a member of Adair’s Company C. February of 1862 was, however, an interesting time in the military life of Lyle Adair as he was “reduced to the ranks” on the fifth day of the month. Unfortunately, Adair’s service records do not provide an explanation for his demotion to private.⁷

The lack of excitement in military activities was offset by “a thrilling episode” that occurred after the 81st Ohio took possession of Fulton, Missouri, in early 1862. “We heard a voice in our rear,” Corporal Wright recalled, “and a moment later a young colored boy about eighteen years old dashed into our ranks exclaiming, Save me boys! Save me! Old Master is after me, and he will kill me!” The slaveholder and one associate brazenly entered the Union lines and demanded the return of his runaway slave. The slave had embedded himself with the ranks of Company C, which forced the slaveholder to approach the company’s captain for assistance. Capt. Robert N. Adams refused to comply. Then one of the officers of Company C delivered a “sword-stroke” that sent the mounted slaveholder “into the bushes.” Still undeterred, the slaveholder made one final appeal to a superior officer, Lt. Col. John A. Turley. Despite the slave’s plea for protection, and the “click, click, of a dozen muskets,” Turley, who claimed he lacked the authority to offer safe haven to the fugitive, ordered the would-be-contraband back to his owner. According to Wright, after Turley departed, several members of his company approached the slaveholder and informed him, “We’re going into camp not far from here, will be around here for some time, and if we ever hear tell of your abusing this boy we’ll come and burn every d--d thing you’ve got!” On another occasion during a camp “grumble” concerning inadequate rations and chilly weather, Wright advised a comrade, “Maybe you had better go over and join the fellows on the other side and become satisfied.” After a moment of reflection, the grumbler replied, “When you write to your friends in Oxford tell them that I am just as black an abolitionist as you are.”⁸

The men of the 81st Ohio could have developed their antislavery views prior to their enlistment. Ohio produced notable abolitionists, such as Levi Coffin and John Rankin, and the Buckeye State served as a major route on the Underground Railroad. Ohio was also the scene of one of the nation’s most publicized runaway slave rescue cases. In the Oberlin-Wellington rescue case, state and federal officials and courts clashed over the legal interpretation of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. One rally in Cleveland drew more than 10,000 people, and some demonstrations resulted in mob violence.⁹ Another possible explanation was that the men of the 81st Ohio had been influenced by the Fremont Proclamation. Gen. John C. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, commanded the Union’s Western Department during the summer of 1861 and oversaw operations in the hotly contested border state of Missouri. From late July to late September, Fremont “lost nearly half of Missouri.” Facing logistical problems, supply and troop shortages, and “the increasing boldness of guerrillas,” Fremont made a bold decision. On August 30 the political general “placed Missouri under martial law, proclaimed the death penalty for guerrillas captured behind Union lines, and confiscated the property and freed the slaves of all Confederate sympathizers.” For his actions, Fremont received praise from abolitionists and a significant number of Republicans. President Abraham Lincoln, however, fearing defections among slaveholding Unionists in all border states, ordered Fremont to amend the proclamation to conform with the First Confiscation Act passed by Congress on August 6, 1861. This legislation allowed for the seizure of “slaves, used in the military aid of the rebellion.” As historian James McPherson has explained, the First Confiscation Act “applied to only a handful of slaves then within reach of Union forces, and it did not specifically emancipate them.” Fremont’s declaration greatly exceeded the army’s legislative authority as defined by the First Confiscation Act, and when Fremont ignored Lincoln’s demand, the president relieved the controversial general of his command.¹⁰

The anecdotes from the regimental histories of the 81st Ohio seem to confirm the findings of historian Chandra Manning, who maintains that slavery occupied a central position in “the Union soldiers’ understanding of the war.” According to Manning, the “commitment to emancipation was created by and during the war itself.” The development of emancipationist views evolved as Northern soldiers encountered slaves and Southern society for the first time. These interactions convinced many Union soldiers that slavery was a national, not exclusively Southern, sin, one that they, by force of arms, could “erase and atone” for. The Fremont Proclamation resonated and inspired those who had come to accept this sacred mission of national cleansing. Emancipation, however, did not guarantee equality, and as Manning suggests, “white Union troops strove to separate slavery from the more complicated issues of black rights and racial equality, embracing abolition while evading hard questions about what the nation owed the former slaves.”¹¹ Manning’s work challenges earlier studies by such historians as James McPherson and Reid Mitchell, who examined the ideological and cultural convictions of Civil War soldiers and determined that, for the majority of Northern fighters, the abolition of slavery was not a primary war aim. “While restoration of the Union was the main goal for which they fought,” McPherson contends, “they became convinced that this goal was unattainable without striking against slavery.” Moreover, “the attitudes of a good many soldiers on this matter were more pragmatic than altruistic.” Similarly, Mitchell argues that “hatred of slaveholders did not necessarily imply love for the slave.” In fact, “most Union soldiers … did not support emancipation.”¹² Based on the relatively few instances in which Adair mentioned race in his diary, one would have to assume that the Hoosier was not a doctrinaire abolitionist.

In March 1862, the 81st Ohio moved to St. Louis and was assigned to the Second Brigade, Second Division of the Army of the Tennessee. This new assignment placed the unit on the front lines of some key battles in the Western Theater for most of 1862. At Shiloh, generally viewed as the first major battle of the war where many raw volunteers saw the elephant for the first time,¹³ the 81st Ohio played an important role in stabilizing the federal lines after the initial Confederate attack. Late on the morning of April 6, the first day of the battle, the 81st was part of a mile-and-a-half-long “makeshift perimeter” established at Pittsburg Landing after the collapse of the Union right flank. Repositioned for the afternoon, the 81st participated in “one of the final delaying actions on the Federal left” at Cloud Field. The next day the 81st advanced as part of the federal counterattack that eventually forced the Confederate Army to withdraw from the field of battle.¹⁴ The first man of Company C to fall on the battlefield at Shiloh was none other than Capt. Robert Adams, who on the first day “was struck in the head by a grape-shot and died instantly.”¹⁵

In the realm of what-if history, Shiloh could be viewed as the Confederacy’s best opportunity for military success in the Western Theater and could have possibly altered the outcome of the war. But the certainty of the Union victory abetted the federal thrust into the crucial Mississippi Valley. In the fall of 1862, the 81st Ohio helped repel the Confederate offensive against the Union-held town of Corinth, Mississippi. On both October 3 and 4, the 81st defended a position around Battery Powell, one of two points of concentration that largely determined the outcome of the battle in favor of the Union.¹⁶ The regiment lost eleven men; forty-four were wounded, and three were listed as missing. Among those numbers, Adair’s Company C had no deaths, six wounded, and one missing, Amos Swartz “never since heard from.”¹⁷ This Union victory prevented a Confederate advance into West Tennessee and ended any possibility of a concerted Southern effort in the liberation of Kentucky.¹⁸

The 81st Ohio wintered at Pulaski, Tennessee. “The winter of 1863–4 was a severe one,” Corporal Wright recalled. “The citizens of Pulaski stated that it was the coldest they had known for many years, consequently picket-duty was severe around the encampments.”¹⁹ There were a few minor cases of frostbite but “no serious ones.” Warmth may have been in short supply, but the subject of reenlisting radiated throughout the regiment. The War Department had recently issued orders regarding the reorganization of veteran forces. Specifically, “troops who had less than a year to serve under their existing enlistment, and who had served at ...