p s� ' INDIANA MILITARY HISTORY JOURNAL INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume 9 Number 2 May, 1984 F521_146_VOL9_N02 Indiana Militan· Histvry Journal is published by the Military History Section of the Indiana Historical Society, 315 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis 46202. Editorial offices for the Journal are at the Department of History, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907. Gunther E. Rothenberg is editor; Kevin Reid editorial assistant. All contributions should be sent to this address. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with The University of Chicago A Manual (!f Style (13th edition). The Indiana Historical Society, the Military History Section, and the editor disclaim responsibility for statements of fact or opinions made by contributors. The Indiana Military History Journal serves as the organ of the Military History Section and carries news of the Section as well as articles, documents, pictures, and book reviews relating to Indiana's military past, the military history of the Old Northwest, and the activities of Hoosiers in the armed forces of the United States in war and peace. In addition, the Journal will carry articles on military history topics in general which impacted on the state or region. It is hoped that the Journal will increase the reader's appreciation of the military heritage of the state and the nation. Military History Section Board of Directors Mr. Wayne Sanford, Chairman Mr. Thomas B. Williams III 8718 Old Town Lane Drive 3203 Dogwood Lane Indianapolis 46260 Carmel 46032 Col. Jerry L. Sargent (Ret.), Vice-Chairman Col. William Scott (Ret.) 334 Grovewood Place 6433 Hoover Rd., Apt. A Beech Grove, IN 46107 Indianapolis 46260 Dr. Gunther E. Rothenberg, editor Lt. Col. James R. H. Spears Department of History 4327 Kenmore Road Purdue University Indianapolis 46226 West Lafayette, IN 47906 Cpt. William J. Watt Dr. George W. Geib 2240 Rome Drive Apt. B 4737 Cornelius Avenue Indianapolis 46208 Indianapolis 46208 Mr. Ralph Dimmett 1306 Cruft St. Indianapolis 46203 The Journal is sent to members of the Indiana Historical Society who participate in the Military History Section. All the material in this Journal is copyrighted. Cop yright, 1984, Indiana Historical Society. Cover: Pvt. Horace Porter Goff. First Gas Regiment, U.S. Army (1918). READER'S COMMENTS The editor of the Journal welcomes comments, letters, and inquiries from the membership. Thistime two members of long standing have written. Mr. Arville L. Funk points out that actually there were three, and not two, Secretariesof State from Indiana and that this third man, John Milton Hay, born in Salem, Oct.8, 1830, not only served as a diplomat, but also had a military career. In 1861, President Lincoln took the young Hoosier with him to Washington as a private secretary and soon thereafter appointed him his personal aide-de­ camp with the rank of assistant adjutant general in the Union Army. Except for a short second­ ment to the army, reaching the rank of Brevet Colonel, Hay remained with Lincoln throughout the war years. More information on this important figure can be found in the Hoosier Scrapbook, compiled by Mr. Funk . Another longtime member, Mrs. George F. Martin of Newburgh, writes that she has been puzzled fo r some time by a tombstone in Ta os, New Mexico. Here, in front of Kit Carson's grave, is a stone with the inscription "George W. Holden, Co. K, 84 Indiana Infantry." Thenumber indicates an Indiana volunteer regimentof the Civil War periodand the proximity of the two graves might mean burial at approximately the same time. Kit Carson was buried in 1868. However, no Indiana troops fo ught during the Civil War in New Mexico and any in­ fo rmation on Mr. Holden, or his unit, would be of great interest. 3 A DEATH AT POINT LOOKOUT By George P. Clark* If it is true, as Abraham Lincoln once said,that "We cannot escapehistory", it is no less true that history can sometimes escape us. Thisthought comes readily to mind as one stands today upon the southernmost tip of Point Lookout, Maryland, and observes the relentless attack of the surging waters upon the narrow strip of land that here divides the Chesapeake Bay from the mouth of the Potomac River. Despite the interpretive efforts of the Maryland Forest and Park Service, many of those fishing, picnicing or camping at the Point may be unaware that this spit of land is much narrower than it was a century and more ago when it was the site of a great Civil War hospital, military base and prisoner-of-war camp. Thecharacter of theseinstallations can be appreciated by studying descriptions in Park Service pamphlets available on the scene, or by examining Edwin W. Beitzell'sdetailed study, Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, which is on sale at Park Headquarters.' George Everett's contemporary panoramic map of Point Lookout, now in the Library of Congress and reproduced on the dust jacket of Beitzell's book, offers an impressive birds-eyeview of the central hospital complex which radiates its wards near the very tip of the peninsula as well as the military camps and installations crowding the spit to the north. The daily life of the garrison, hospital patients and Confederate POWs alike can be glimpsed through the many artifacts of camp life found throughout the grounds and now on display at the park museum. But all the historic buildings are long since gone, their remains hidden under the waters of bay and river. Nothing, however, more powerfullyrecalls what transpired on the peninsula during the war years than the testimony of men who were here. One may read, for example, in Beitzell the diary of Charles Warren Hutt, a prisoner here in 1864, as well as the accounts of several of his comrades, and learn what it meant to be confined by the Yankees on this muddy, fever­ ridden point. And entering the park at Scotland, one may read on the imposing monument to the Confederate dead the names of over three thousand young men who succumbed at the camp to the common destroyers of prisoners on both sides-disease,infected wounds, malnutrition, exposure and neglect. , The fate of the thousands of Union wounded who were delivered to Hammond General Hospital (situated south of the prisoner stockades and between them and the light­ house on the extreme tip) was scarcely more endurable, for only a fortunate few emerged alive and whole from the military hospitals, north or south. The all-too-brief experience of one Northern soldier, a wounded cavalryman named Joseph Adkinson who died at Hammond Hospital may be read in the following letters which he wrote home as well as in the official,yet sensitive, correspondence of the hospital chaplain, D. D. McKee.2 Joseph Adkinson was born and brought up on a farm near Moorfield in Switzerland County, Indiana. With Sam and Irvin, Joseph was the third son of Francis and Eliza Adkinson to volunteer for Federal service. According to the family bible, he had worked on the farm and taught in common school. He was "of a kind, sunny disposition and a general favorite." On March10, 1863, Adkinson enlisted at Vevay, the county seat, in Company A, Third Calvalry, Forty-fifth Regiment, U.S. Volunteers.J From Vevay the young soldier rode his horse fifteenmiles down the broad Ohio to Madison, a designated collection point for the Third Cavalry, five companies of which had been organized there in 1861. Thence the group pro­ ceeded to Indianapolis, where on March 26, Pvt. Joseph M. Adkinson was entered upon the Muster Roll for three years of service to the United States of America. He was twenty-two years of age, according to the record, fivefeet seven inches tall, with black hair and eyes, and a dark complexion. Thereafter, Pvt. Adkinson soldiered in countless battles and skirmishes from Gettysburg (where the Third Cavalry was among the first units to oppose A.P. Hill's III Corps as it poured down the Chambersburg Pike in the opening rounds of the first day's battle) to Richmond, where in February and March, 1864, he took part in General Kilpatrick's un- 4 DEAT H AT POINT LOOKOUT 5 successful raid against the city. The Third Cavalry returned to Richmond two months later as a part of Sheridan's forces probing the city's outer defenses, and it was at Yellow Tavern, just north of the city, that Joseph Adkinson's soldiering came to an end. On May II, while fighting as a dismounted trooper, he was brought down by a bullet which passed through both his thighs. It was on that day, and in the same engagement, that the famous Rebel cavalry leader, J.E.B. Stuart, was mortally wounded. One cannot adequately imagine what suffering the young soldier must have under­ gone as he was transported by jolting ambulance wagon to the nearest evacuation point on the James and put aboard ship for the passage across twenty or more miles of water to the hospital wharf at Point Lookout; it must have been an agonizing five day journey. Little comfort is to be derived from the U.S. Commission's "Directions to Amry Surgeons on the Field of Battle", according to which "Simple gun-shot wounds required nothing more, for the first two or three days, than the application of a piece of wet or oiled linen, fastened on with a strip of sticking­ plaster, or, if possible, kept constantly wet with cold water."4 Tourniquets, according to the same manual, were seldom necessary. But the wet linen on Joseph's wound covered a partially severed artery. The first of the six letters that follow takes up the young cavalryman's story as he lies in a ward bed at Hammond Hospital and writes a brave letter to his father, back home in Indiana.