Research
can be addictive. The more you learn, the more you want to know. Such was the
case for Your Loyal Blogger during the research that resulted in my
recently-published book, That Bloody
Hill: Hilliard’s Legion at Chickamauga.
Answers to questions generated more
questions. The decision to generate a roster of the Legion’s members, for
example, helped answer questions about who these soldiers were. It also stalled
the completion of the book by several years. Different sources had different
spellings of soldiers’ names. Did the different spellings represent the same
soldier or two different men? It was hard to know and each name deserved the
same amount of consideration.
It was that need to know that led Mrs.
Leeway and I to Johnson’s Island, a small clump of dirt about 150 yards off the
coast of Sandusky, Ohio. The island was the home to a Civil War prison camp for
Confederates and there is a small cemetery there for prisoners who did not
survive the war. Unable to find a list of the interred online, we made the
90-minute trip from our home last fall to find the island and walk the rows of
gravestones, hoping to find a member of the Legion.
That is how we found Captain N.T.
Barnes of the 10th Confederate Cavalry. His marker sits along one of
the last rows we checked. He was a member of Hilliard’s Legion when the Legion
was founded in 1862 in Alabama. Barnes was a member of the Legion’s Fifth
Battalion, which was a cavalry battalion. Soon after the Legion was created,
the Fifth Battalion was split off from its original organization and merged
with a Georgia regiment to become the 10th Confederate Cavalry.
Barnes enlisted as a Lieutenant and
was promoted to Captain May 16, 1862. His luck turned on July 30, 1863 when he
was captured near Big Hill, Kentucky. He was eventually transferred through two
holding camps before he arrived at Johnson’s Island on August 4, 1863. Health
is an uncertain thing in prison camps and Johnson’s Island sits in the cold
waters of Lake Erie. Barnes died January 10, 1864.
Born in Georgia, Barnes moved to
Alabama before the coming of the war. He married Francis Lee Dent January 24,
1856 in Chambers, Alabama and they farmed. The Barnes farmed on about 60 acres
of land whose cash value was listed at $300. They had farm machinery valued at
$35. They owned three horses, six milch cows, 35 sheep and seven swine. The
total value of the livestock came to $650. The farm produced wheat, rye, Indian
corn and cotton.
Cards on the table, Your Loyal Blogger
has been unable to track down the census forms for 1860 that detail slave
ownership. Barnes may or may not have been a slave holder.
The Barnes appear to have had six
children. The notes are a little complicated by the fact that two sets of
daughters may have had the same first names.
Finding Barnes’ marker on Johnson
Island in north-central Ohio was a neat experience. It was a testimony to the
idea that you can’t find something if you decide not to look for it. We had
already found the graves of many Legion soldiers, several in the cemetery for
another Ohio POW camp, this one in Columbus. A Legion soldier rests at
Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, several are buried at the site of a
former home for aging former Confederates in Alabama. Others dot small and
large cemeteries across the country.
The key point here is that Civil War
history can be found just about anywhere and I hope we keep looking as a
society. We aren’t done learning yet, so keep your eyes open. You never know
who might be around the next corner.
Thanks for reading.
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