Romulus Tolbert's Civil War capture at Campbellton Georgia to prison at Cahaba to the Sultana Disaster

Owl Rock Church (Atlanta, Georgia)

Owl Rock Church, still the same as it was in 1865. 

Historic Marker at Owl Rock Church

The Owl Rock at Owl Rock Church

Road to Campbellton where Rom was Captured

Bend in the road where I think Rom got captured (it would be somewhere near here and the other side).

Along the Old Campbellton Road close to where Rom was captured

Chattahoochee River runs all along the Old Campbellton Road so Rom was captured along the river.

Reports from Uriah W. Oblinger, Williamson D. Ward 

and Joshua D. Breyfogle diaries on what happened at Campbellton on September 10, 186 4

Thanks to David Evans for providing this information, in correspondence with David Woodbury.

 The Williamson D. Ward diary is on microfilm at the Indiana Historical Society Library and might be available on interlibrary loan.  The Uriah W. Oblinger diary comes from the Nebraska State Historical Society.  Another source, the Joshua D. Breyfogle diary at Dartmouth, mentions the Confederates were disguised in Yankee uniforms, which does a lot to explain how this well-appointed force was overwhelmed.

Private Uriah W. Oblinger of the 8th Indiana Cavalry noted in his diary:

Saturday Sept 10th 1864

Everything looks like a well organized Camp; detail sent out for beef cattle under charge of a lieut. of 2nd K.Y. Cav'l. they were attacked by rebs near Camelton [Campbellton] Ga. they kill six Yan[s] Haines among the killed.

Sunday Sept 11th 1864

Lewis Noel sent in charge of detail with ambulances to bring in our men killed yesterday near Camelton Ga Fran Haines body with 5 others brought in by Noel & buried with military honors in the Grave yard at Owl rock Church G. 

Private Williamson D. Ward, also of the 8th Indiana Cavalry, noted in his diary:

September 10"  A detail from our regiment Sent out after cattle were surprised by a company of rebel scouts and were  nearly all killed or captured.  Two of our company are missing.

September 11"  With Sorrow do I write these lines to night.  The foragers which were Sent out yesterday were ambushed by a company of rebel scouts and Seven of the number were brought in to camp to day all beat, bruised, and mangled in a horrible manner.  Henry B. Coulter of our company had the top of his head cut off as though it had been done with an ax.  Frank Haynes Our dear friend and comrade was shot through the head.  Geo T. Slackford was shot in the head.  He belonged to the 10th Ohio Cavalry.  Abraham Clear of Co. C 8th Ind. Markas [Marcus] Knowles, Frank Sherman and James Taylor of Co. H. 8th Ind.  Frank Sherman had six holes shot through him.  W. M. Thompson was along but being out in the bushes he hid and made his escape to camp.  Eli Boring was wounded and taken prisoner.  Our regiment vows vengeance on all such monsters as the 8th Texas cavalry or any one else who will perpetrate such an atrocious deed as this on our soldiers.

Records show these dead were subsequently reburied in the Marietta National Cemetery.  At least one of the captured troopers was taken the Confederate prison camp at Florence, South Carolina. 

************

All I have is a very poor photocopy of that page from the Breyfogle diary.  As nearly as I can tell, it says:

Saturday 10 [September]

Another fine morning Our Brigade are putting up tents as the wars going to stop sometime.  Still building Breast works.  A Number of our Regt & Brigade were out foraging and were pounced upon by the Rebs and nearly all captured about fifty four are gone.  one of Our [illegible] Con [probably William J. Conn] was captured, there is a large party gone in pursuit.

Sunday 11 [September]

A fine morning about one Hundred men have gone in chase of the Rebs this morning at day Break and they found a Sad Sight.  Seven of our men found murdered by the Texan rangers Dressed in our Uniform they were brought in will be buried to night.  Woe woe to the murderers and their friends that are taken in Our Dress.

Romulus Tolbert and James T. Taylor

Romulus Tolbert is wounded at Campbellton and take prisoner.
James T. Taylor is killed at Campbellton and now rests in the
Marietta National Cemetary with the others killed that day.

James T. Taylor at Marietta National Cemetery

Rom's account of what happened to him at Campbellton,  in his words, from his request for pension:

First page of Rom's Civil War pension record.
Note that the 39th Indiana became mounted and became the 8th Indiana Cavalry.

Cahaba  approximately November 1, 1864 to approximately March 15, 1865

 Castle Morgan,  Cahaba Confederate Prison, Cahaba Alabama

Confluence of the Cahaba River and the Alabama River 

The raised area is what is left of the bricks that make up the perimeter of the warehouse that was Cahaba Prison

Remants of bricks that are the  perimeter of the warehouse

The marker is where the door to the warehouse was and the warehouse
 extended to the treeline along the back of the picture

Standing in the far end of the cook yard looking toward the warehouse

This is all the space they had and at one time held 3,000 soldiers

This church was beside the prison so the prisoners would have been able to look up and see the church.
I wonder what they thought,  looking up at the church as they would have.

Rom was at Cahaba during the flood of March 1, 1865 that lasted several days.
Some had to stand in up to 4 feet of water for several days.  Then they were released in groups and Rom was sent to Jackson, Mississippi and then walked to Camp Fisk.


JOURNEY FROM CAHABA TO CAMP FISK OUTSIDE VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI FOR PAROLE

This is a remnant of the Old Bridgeport Road.  The prisoners would have taken a road like this,  quite likely some took this one,  on their walk from Jackson, Mississippi to Camp Fisk.

This is the current railroad bridge over the Big Black River. The prisoners probably crossed the river somewhere near the old bridge ruins in the right background (that bridge was destroyed by the time they were there and they crossed on a temporary pontoon bridge).

CAMP FISK

4 Mile Bridge at Camp Fisk

Camp Fisk in 1865

Camp Fisk was here.

And Camp Fisk was here.

Camp Fisk was here - the tree line is where the stream that was the perimeter of Camp Fisk is.

Here  is the stream that was along one side of Camp Fisk - prisoners bathed in this stream 149 years ago.

VICKSBURG

Going Home

Mississippi River at Vicksburg on April 27, 2014 - 149 years after the Sultana Disaster

Vicksburg Railroad Depot near wharf on Mississippi River where the Sultana would have departed.  Soldiers would have left Camp Fisk and been delivered to the Vicksburg Railroad Depot and walked to the wharf to get in  line to board the Sultana.  

April 27, 2014 River Boat docked near the location that the Sultana would have left from.   Since the Mississippi River changed course in 1876 the location is now on the Yazoo Canal.  But it still gives you the feel of what is was like at the time.  This is not the same kind of river boat as the Sultana and I am not sure about the size,  but the coincidence of timing (the intersection of me and this boat and the significance of the day) brought back the ghosts of the past.  If past is prologue then I am there with it.  

The Sultana Mural at the Vicksburg waterfront.  I touched it and for the first time I could really believe that this happened and I could think of Rom there.  Just a boy, on his way home, with a dream of his future, looking forward to something in particular that is lost to time,  like all of the passengers were. Maybe 2300, Maybe 2600 flesh and blood individuals: some nameless and some lost to time and some part of the river.

The Sultana at Helena Arkansas.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Sultana,  this is a real picture of the Sultana at the wharf in Helena.  I have looked at this picture many times and wondered where Rom was.  I have wondered if I was looking at him.  I wondered if I could reach out and touch the picture and go through time and know him and wished I could.  This is real.  The Sultana Disaster really happened.  But this moment in time,  this moment at Helena,  is still a happy, hopeful moment. They have no idea what is going to happen to them.

All I know about Romulus Tolbert's experience after the explosion of the Sultana is that he told his son, Rolland (who relayed the story to his grandson, Homer Elliott) that he survived because he could swim.  He was in Adam's Hospital in Memphis and the notation for him was "chilled".  He was released on April 29th and discharged at Camp Chase in Ohio on June 19, 1865.  I presume that he went home to Saluda,  Indiana in Jefferson County Indiana as soon as he got released on April 29th and could get home.


In April 2015 I will finish the journey I started 25 years ago when I first found out about the Sultana in Rom's military and pension records and where there was a form that said he had perished on the Sultana,  but I knew that he had not.  I will be on the river in the spot where the Sultana boilers exploded or the Memphis waterfront where they came ashore after the ordeal  and I will think of all of them, all the named and nameless, and I will think of Rom.  


Maybe it will be 2 am on April 27, maybe there will be a light rain and the river will be flooded a mile beyond it's banks up into the tops of trees,  maybe it will be still in the moonlight with swirling eddies and fast currents and time will swirl and stop.  Uncountable stars will be blazing reflections that come and go in the currents and dreams will flicker and die like the final embers of that evening.  It was so.  And it endures.  

Why I did this

Because I love them

I wanted to go back for all of the nameless and unremembered of these boys who got lost to time, the ones who became part of the river and or an unmarked grave and never made it home. The very loved and unnamed dear friends and comrades of the survivors whose names do not come down through time.  I have felt that this was important to the survivors,  I have felt that it was important to  Rom and because I am part of Rom,  I do this for him.  And because he is  part of me, I do this for myself.  There were so many defining moments for all the soldiers who survived the civil war on both sides.  War itself, prison, various deprivations,  the constant threat of dying any moment,  lots of things that I can not know because I did not live them,  and in this instance, for some,  the Sultana.  And there were more defining moments later for the survivors.  The moments we know,  like marriage and the births of children and career choices and location changes to acquire land.   Some had nightmares and PTSD and others carried on as they had learned to do.  So many had life altering wounds that left them disabled and unable to do the work which they did before they left for the war or which they had dreamed of doing when they returned. But they carried on:  life happened and those of us that are survivor descendants of this Sultana tragedy are the recipients of those lives having carried on.

War and returning are the same for the veterans of today, for the veterans of the current wars and the veterans of all wars of the past.  My salute to all of them, living and dead. 

For those reading this who do not know me,  Romulus Tolbert (1843 - 1920)  is my great grandfather, his son,  Edmund Burke Tolbert (1877 - 1947) , is my grandfather and Ed's son, 
 James Edmund Tolbert (1920 - 2010) is my father.  

Here is the little bit that I know about Rom after he returned from the civil war and the Sultana experience:  went home to Saluda,  shows up next in Claremont, Richland County Illinois and has a store in Olney.  Marries Sophronia Eldridge in Illinois in 1873.  He knows her from Saluda,  where the Eldridge family grows up near the Tolbert family.  Stella Tolbert is born in 1874.  Somewhere in there they move back to Jefferson County, Indiana and Rom is a farmer around Chelsea which is by Saluda where he was born. Edmund is born in 1877, Rolland in 1880, Laura in 1883 and Ambrose in 1887.  He is 3/4 disabled from his Campbellton wounds and has a hard time getting pension, if he actually does get it (unsure, though there is a file),  but farms anyway the best he can.  All his children attend college because education was important to him.  He has a stroke or strokes around 1916 and  he dies in 1920.  There it is,  his live in an abbreviated version,  half baked by someone who didn't know him and wasn't there,  years later.  

I shall leave you with a picture of Rom's life.   

Romulus Tolbert and family in front of their house on their farm.