S - One Family’s SACRIFICE

 The Chitwood Family

Nancy (1815-1887) and John H Chitwood (1810-1864) of Scott County, Tennessee, had 14 children together. Nancy was my 2nd Grand Aunt. 

John enlisted in Company G of the 2nd Infantry Regiment in October 1861.

On November 6, 1863, during the Battle of Rogersville, John and three of his sons were captured in Rogersville, Tennessee. In their unit, five enlisted soldiers lost their lives, one was injured, 20 officers were captured, and 474 enlisted soldiers were taken as prisoners.

Rogersville was founded by Davy Crockett's grandparents in 1775. During the Civil War in November 1863, the town was the site of a battle between Federal forces who had encamped just outside the town and Confederate troops who invaded. Brigadier General William E. Jones led the Confederate forces, who were able to surprise the Union forces and pursue them across the Holston River into Greene County. The Confederates held the town for the remainder of the war.

During the Civil War, the majority of Union soldiers who were captured were taken to Andersonville, a prison located in Georgia. This prison, which was officially named Camp Sumter, was the largest prison in the South for Union soldiers who had been captured. Unfortunately, the conditions at Andersonville were very unhealthy, and as a result, many of the prisoners died. In total, around 13,000 Union prisoners lost their lives at Andersonville. After the war, the commander of the prison, Captain Henry Wirz (1823-65), was tried, convicted, and executed for committing war crimes.

John D. Chitwood, aged 54, passed away on April 24, 1864, while imprisoned in Andersonville. He was laid to rest at Andersonville Historical Site in Georgia.

Nancy and John had a son named Henry Chitwood (1836-1864), who served in Company G, 2nd Tennessee Infantry, during the Civil War. Henry enlisted on January 8th, 1862 at the age of 25. He fought in the Battle of Rogersville and was eventually taken as a prisoner of war. However, he was later released in a prisoner exchange and sent to Jarvis Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Unfortunately, he passed away in the hospital on July 28th, 1864 due to dysentery.

Daniel M. Chitwood enlisted in Scott County, Tennessee in 1861, and died at the age of 26 on March 19, 1864 at Bell Island Confederate Prison, Richmond  Virginia where he is buried. 

James Harrison Chitwood, born in 1841, joined the Tennessee 2nd Infantry on October 1, 1861. He participated in the Battle of Rogersville and was captured as a prisoner of war. Tragically, he passed away on February 14, 1864, while incarcerated at Bell Island Confederate Prison in Richmond, Virginia. At the time of his death, James was only 23 years old.

During the Civil War, Bell island was used as a prison for Union soldiers. From 1862 to 1865, around 30,000 POWs were held on the island. Unfortunately, as many as 1,000 prisoners died during their captivity, although accounts of the death rate vary. The South claimed that the death rate was low, while the North maintained that it was very high.

In 1864, Peter DeWitt, an Assistant Surgeon at Jarvis Hospital in Baltimore, treated a group of prisoners who had been released from the Belle Isle Prisoner of War camp. He noted that the "great majority" of patients had certain conditions.

"in a semi-state of nudity...laboring under such diseases as chronic diarrhea, phthisis pulmonalis, scurvy, frost bites, general debility caused by starvation, neglect, and exposure. Many of them had partially lost their reason, forgetting even the date of their capture and everything connected with their antecedent history. They resemble, in many respect, patients laboring under cretinism. They were filthy in the extreme, covered in vermin - nearly all were extremely emaciated; so much so that they had to be cared for even like infants"

Andersonville Prison was liberated by the Union Army in May 1865

In fairness, it is worth noting that a Union-run prison for Confederate POWs named "Camp Douglas" was often referred to as "The North's Andersonville." It was the largest Union POW camp. Initially, the Union Army used the camp as a training and organizational facility for volunteer regiments in 1861. However, it became a prisoner-of-war camp in early 1862. The camp was notorious for its abysmal living conditions, which caused a death rate of approximately 15%. Out of the 26,060 prisoners interned over the four years, approximately 4,000 died due to starvation, execution, or exposure.

 "War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible."

-Abraham Lincoln, 16 June 1864, speech at Philadelphia.