Robison Family Endured Un-Civil War  - Part 2

MORE CIVIL WAR INCIVILITY IN BLOOMSBURG

After the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, the pundits (yes, they had them then too) all predicted the war would be a quick one; there would be one or two decisive battles that would allow one side or the other to deliver a knock-out blow to the other, and the other would then sue for peace and that would be that. Some pundits even still held out hope for a political settlement.

But as the war dragged on into its second year, it became clear that there would be no quick and easy conclusions, either militarily or politically. In Bloomsburg things seemed to be getting progressively worse too. The once sleepy, peaceful town where respectful political discourse had been the norm was changing. The new norm seemed to be bitter rhetoric and political brawling.

The state of affairs on the homefront is evident from the letters that continued to issue forth from the ink pens of the female members of Bloomsburg’s Robison family.

Fig. 1: Betsey Robison (Mother)

Even Independence Day celebrations that year (1862) were marred by partisan bickering. On July 4, Betsey Robison (Mother) wrote:

Yesterday there were great preparations made at Orangeville for a Union Celebration...They sent for Caleb Wright expecting him to make a National Fourth of July speech when he made a party and, to say the very least, disunion speech. You may be sure it created a great sensation...After he delivered his Secession sentiments, Revd Mr. John was called for. He got up and tis said such a scathing rebuke as he did give him...Tis said that if ever a fellow got his desserts in words, he Wright did. They say that he sat & looked like a killer sheep dog. Many wonder that he got off without some violence...I guess it would not be safe to show his secession face in this part of the country again...

Caleb Earl Wright, was a prominent lawyer from Wilkes-Barre, who had studied law under Danville’s John G. Montgomery. Wright had stumped for Montgomery during Montgomery’s successful bid for Congress in 1855. Both men were Democrats. Reverend D. C. John was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church from 1862 – 1863. Today the church is known as the Wesley United Methodist Church. Its “new” building on the corner of Market and Third Streets was completed in 1897 and replaced the previous brick church on the corner of W.Third and Murray Ave., built in 1857. 

Fig. 2: Caleb Wright

Betsey (Mother) concluded her July 4, 1862 letter with news regarding Danville’s “Iron Guards” (Company A, 35th Infantry Pennsylvania Volunteers), who had been among the Union Army’s first volunteers, having organized on April 22, 1961, just days after the firing on Ft. Sumter:

Tis said that there were bad news came to Danville yesterday quite a number from there that is among the killed wounded & missing. Oh my God, what mourning and lamentations in the land.
--Mother

The bad news that Betsey is referring to was probably news related to the Seven Days Battles near Richmond (June 25 – July 1, 1862). This series of battles was the culmination of General McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, a disastrous attempt to march up the Virginia peninsula to take the Confederate capital of Richmond. The 35th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers was involved in several serious skirmishes during that campaign. After Robert E. Lee’s forces counter attacked, McClellan skedaddled back down the peninsula with his 100,000-man army, which included the Iron Guards.

One of the most interesting and dramatic of the Civil War era letters contained in And So It Goes by Gertrude Johnston, is the one written in August of 1862 by Augusta (Gus) Robison, who at the time was age 25 and living at home in Bloomsburg. In the letter Gus describes a unionist/secessionist confrontation that resulted in a riot. The incident occurred shortly after bounties started being offered for enlistments.

One could get a $100 to $300 bounty -- a lot of money at the time -- for enlisting. Since a man got the money up front, even if he got killed on his first day, his family still got the money. This was very tempting to poor men who were out of jobs and had families to support. Bounties were given out by the federal government, the state, and even some counties and cities.

According to historian George Turner, who addressed the local bounty issue in a 1991 article in Carver magazine, Columbia County finally approved a bounty measure, but it was an anemic one. On July 26 a bounty of a $25 dollars was proposed at a public meeting and then upped to $50 at another public meeting two weeks later. But when the proposal was made before the county commissioners, they balked. They knew that a lot of local anti-Lincoln Democrats didn’t want their tax money used to finance the war. They even questioned the legality of using public funds for bounties.

Fig. 3: Augusta (Gus) Robison

Here’s part of the letter that Augusta Robison wrote during the local wrangling over bounty payments:

Bloom, Aug. 20th, 1862
There must have been great excitement here in regard to the bounty affair. They held an indignation meeting and it came very nearly to being a regular war meeting. They say that if it had not been ended when it was, there would have been a general fight. Frank Drinker told Tate that he had assured the volunteers of the bounty & he had not fulfilled the promise...Tate raised his cane to strike Frank when Matison caught it. He then attempted to strike with his fist when Uncle John stepped in between them. Uncle came very nearly getting in trouble himself with his sentiments. [This is the same Uncle John Robison known for his secesh leanings.]

Frank (Francis) Drinker was a 30 year-old bookkeeper for the Bloomsburg Iron Co., who later enlisted in the cavalry and fought at Murfeesboro and Gettysburg. The “Tate” mentioned would be Levi Tate, editor & proprietor of the rabidly anti-Lincoln Columbia Democrat. “Matison” is probably a misspelling. Augusta is probably referring to Andrew Madison, a 32 year-old bookkeeper who was living with the family of William Neal, part owner of Bloom Furnace.

Fig. 4: The old Columbia CountyCourthouse

While violence was averted at both meetings in the courthouse with the county commissioners that day, after the afternoon meeting, there was a sort of riot outside the courthouse that is covered by J. H. Battle in History of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania (1887). First, here’s how Augusta described the incident in her letter:

That same day some of the big boys attacked Bill Eyer with rotten eggs for his secession sentiments. The union men interfered and great excitement ensured. On Monday the boys and men, all, were taken up, and as our squires in town were too loyal, they had a ride in the country to appear before [Magistrate] Tom Vanderslice, who is a vile traitor. They have been bound over for assault and battery. Dr. Ramsey and others went out with them,…for the purpose of going bail…
Mr. Beckley and Mr. John (the Methodist minister) were among the number…John Girton swore that they choked Eyer and Eyer said they did not…I hope they will change the state of affairs soon for if they do not, the Secessionists will get the upper hand.

Now here’s how the Battle history book depicts the incident: “After the meeting, an altercation having taken place between a drunken man and a convalescent soldier, and the former having cheered for Jeff. Davis, he was pursued and maltreated by a mob. Some dozen or more republicans were arrested on a charge of riot, under a warrant issued by a justice of the peace of Hemlock township; the accused were taken there for a hearing and sentenced by the court to fine and imprisonment. No attempt was made to enforce the penalty, however, and the governor’s pardon put an end to the matter.”

The two versions of the story don’t quite match. There were three men named William Eyer in Columbia County at this time (including one in Rohrsburg and one in Jerseytown), but the most prominent one was the Lutheran minister for Bloomsburg, Catawissa, and Roaring Creek. He was a Democrat, but he was not a drunk. Augusta may have confused two separate incidents, or she may be referring to one of the other Bill Eyers. One of them may have indeed been a drunk. Or perhaps it is not Augusta, but rather history book editor J. H. Battle who has gotten the story all mixed up.
 
Eventually, under pressure from Republicans, on August 16, the county commissioners agreed that if a “responsible party or parties” put up money for a bond to protect them from liability, they would approve a fund that capped at $5000. So rather than providing a set amount for each volunteer, the $5000 would be apportioned among the county’s citizens who volunteered. Subsequently, due to this restrictive and less-than-generous bounty, many local would-be soldiers chose to travel to other cities and states to enlist where the bounty was higher.

In 1863 – ignoring a petition signed by 182 citizens of Mifflin Township -- the State legislature removed any bounty legality questions by enshrining in law the right of local governments to use public funds for enlistment bounties. End of discussion; end of problem for the unionists.



THE WAR INTENSIFIES

During the first years of the Civil War, Union victories were few and far between, and Northerners quickly got demoralized. Consequently, when a Union victory did finally occur, the exuberance was extreme. In one of her letters Robison family matriarch Betsey Barton Robison described Bloomsburg's celebration, probably following the news of Confederate General Beauregard’s withdrawal from the strategic railroad center of Corinth, Mississippi, a victory that came on the heels of the previous month’s Union victory at Shiloh. 

Fig. 5: Confederate General Beauregard

Bloomsburg June 5th, 1862
Pretty soon the bells all began to ring and every demonstration of joy. All over was hurrying to and fro. After a considerable time we heard that a dispatch had come that Beauregard was routed etc. etc. Amelia [youngest Robison daughter, age 18] came after a while and said well she could not get anybody to stand still long enough to give the particulars but as she heard it ten thousand of Beauregard's men were taken with fifteen thousand stand of arms. She must have the flag out at once. The cord was broke but finally she got it fastened on the brush handle and stuck it out the garret window...Well the drums are beating and all is excitement. The Choir meets tonight and also a trustee meeting of the Presbyterian Church, but we get no mail. But presume all can live on excitement one night. There is also prayer meeting in the Methodist Church. I tell you they sing and pray loud, for as a general thing they are Union all. They boast that they have not a traitor among them.
--Mother

Betsey should have waited for the particulars rather than rely on Amelia’s rumor mill. In actuality, almost no Confederate soldiers or arms were captured during the Siege of Corinth. Outnumbered two to one, Gen. Beauregard pulled off one of military history’s most clever withdrawals, putting his soldiers and artillery on train cars and sneaking them out during the night, right under the Yankees’ noses. Nevertheless, the Union Army took Corinth, and the non-battle was considered a big Union victory because of the town’s strategic importance.

Fig. 6:The Siege of Corinth

The Robison home was the second one down West Third Street from the Methodist Church, and family members were always complaining about how loud the Methodists were. But in this case, since the Methodists were singing and praying for the Union cause, it was apparently okay.

The Robisons were prominent members of the Presbyterian Church, which apparently couldn't brag about being union all and not having a traitor among them. In 1863, the Presbyterians seem to have purged an accused secessionist from their ranks. Betsey described the event obliquely in a gossipy letter:

That affair of Mr. Mans was not brought up before the Presbytry, only in private. Mr. Hudson told us what is was. Doubts of his Loyalty. It is to be called up at the next meeting of P. and I presume he is going to try to ward if off & so has gone as Chaplain in some of the Emergency Regiments. Mr. Mans was always a favorite of mine but if there are any doubts of his loyalty, I am done with him. Like Mr. Lightner said, "I would as soon come in contact with a man who had the itch, as a Copperhead", Or go without his dinner before he would buy meat of a Secesh butcher, or go without a coat before he would employ a Secesh Taylor.
--Mother

Just who this “Mr. Mans” was is a bit of a mystery. There were no men named Mans is this area at the time. But local historian (and Presbyterian) Bill Baillie points out that this man was probably “not a local Bloomsburg man but a Presbyterian minister in the Northumberland Presbytery, which then stretched from Berwick to beyond Williamsport and south to Lewisburg. The Presbytery consisted of a minister and a lay delegate from each of about 25 churches and met about three times a year for a day.” Baillie believes the most likely suspect is Rev. Phineas Man of Lewisburg, who is listed in 1860 Census records as a 61-year-old O. S. P. Clergyman. The O. S. P. stands for Old School Presbyterian, says Baillie, and explains: “the denomination in 1837 split into Old School and New School, and oddly enough, the census-takers often noted the distinction.”
 
Just who Mother meant by “Mr. Lightner” more easily sorted out -- Edwin N. Lightner served as minister at Christ’s Episcopalian Church in Danville from 1855 until 1870.  

[Fig. 7: TABLE – election results, 1864]

As the war dragged on and casualties mounted, anti-Lincoln, pro-peace sentiments got even stronger in Columbia County. Again, election results (this time the 1864 election) clearly show this. In the contest between stay-the-course Lincoln versus peace-now McClellan, the Democrat McClellan got 64.7 percent of the county’s votes, while Lincoln got only 35.3 percent. Lincoln won only four townships: Berwick, Bloom, Catawissa, and Scott. In Bloomsburg the count was 294 for Lincoln, 208 for McClellan.

The Press vs. The Pulpit

Most of the ministers in Bloomsburg took sides during the Civil War and obviously didn’t have much regard for the concept of the “separation of church and state.” As we see from the Robison letters, Presbyterian David Waller, Methodist D. C. John, Lutheran William Eyer, and Episcopalian Edwin Lightner were all in the thick of the public debate. But by far the most political of all was Reuben Wilson, who arrived from Milton in 1864 to take Rev. John’s place in the pulpit at Bloomsburg’s Methodist Episcopal Church. He was 36 years old, having entered the Methodist itinerant ministry in 1854. He arrived in town just in time to get involved in the contentious 1864 election that pitted Lincoln against General McClellan.

Fig. 8: The old Methodist church

Levi Tate, editor and proprietor of the Columbia Democrat accused Wilson of taking advantage of his position to spread partisan propaganda during the election, and he launched a vendetta against Wilson within the pages of his newspaper.

In the October 1, 1864, issue of the newspaper, Tate wrote: “We have a man in Bloomsburg whose calling is minister of the Gospel, [but] his business is electioneering for Abe Lincoln. In his ostensible pastoral visits instead of inquiring after the soul’s health, his solicitude is for the body’s politics…The obscene jester at Washington is his beau ideal of a man and a statesman, the blood of his fellow citizens the wine whereon he grows frantic—He prostitutes his holy calling to the dirty work of the Loyal League—He uses his official position to operate upon the minds of the members of his congregation, and with well feigned modesty and hypocritical piety seeks to accomplish his work.”

In the next week’s issue (Oct. 8, 1864) Tate complained that Wilson was standing on the corner of the Market Street square near Hartman’s store making pro-Lincoln speeches. “We were compelled to submit to an intolerable nuisance Monday night,” Tate wrote. “This loyal preacher has descended from the pulpit to the political arena…No attempt was made at anything that might be called argument; although he contended that the “abolition of slavery” was the great object of this war. The restoration of the Union did not appear to have been thought of. What appeared still more disgusting, if possible, than his sweeping railing accusations, was the pompous pride with which he brawled and blackguarded and calumniated.”

In the last paragraph of the article, Tate accused Wilson of laying off his Clerical robe to go “into the public streets to engage in angry political strife,” and he addressed a question to Wilson directly: “what estimate must the community—not afflicted as you evidently are, with ‘nigger-on-the-brain’ place upon your interest in their salvation?”

One has to wonder how each man felt when Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865. Tate’s side may have won the local  media campaign, but Wilson’s side won the military one. In 1866 both men moved on, Wilson to other itinerant pastoral assignments throughout Pennsylvania and Tate to a newspaper in Williamsport.

Robison Family Endures Un-Civil War - Part 3

The Industrious Ladies Do Their Bit

Judging from the letters that passed among the members of the Robison family during the Civil War, the women of Bloomsburg were eager to support the Union troops and stayed busy doing so. The following letter from Isabella (Bell) Robison, age 30, indicates that by December 1861, Bloomsburg's war relief efforts were already underway. And just as the town’s churches were the centers of its social life, they were also the centers of the relief efforts.

Dec. 2, 1861
We had a good union meeting here Thanksgiving day. All the Churches united except the Episcopal. The meeting was in our church [the Presbyterian], five ministers in the pulpit.
We are going to have a meeting this afternoon in the lecture room of the Presbyterian church for the purpose of raising a society for soldiers.

Fig. 1: Bloomsburg’s old Presbyterian Church, built in 1848, stood on the east side of Market St. near 3rd
where now stands the Yorks/Yost mansion. (Courtesy the Columbia County Historical & Genealogical Society)

Local war relief efforts were often tied to social events. Augusta (Gus) Robison, age 26, describes one such Bloomsburg event in a letter dated Aug. 18th 1862:

Dear Sister,
The festival came off and there was a perfect jam both Thursday and Friday evenings. The lions were Lieut. Rickets & Jim Chamberlain who are both here recruiting. The Lieut. was very attentive to us. I presume it was on account of Jane attending his brother…The festival was gotten up by the young girls of Alta Rupert’s age. They cleared one hundred and ninety dollars..[adjusted for inflation, that would be $4035 in today’s dollars].We expect to send a box of clothing to Falls Church [Virginia] today. Last week they sent edibles to them. Oh! Alice, our cakes were beautiful.
--Gus

The first lion mentioned was, of course, Robert Bruce Ricketts (1839–1918), whose conduct during the battle of Gettysburg would make him a bit of a hero (at least locally). Ricketts served nearly four years of the war with Battery F of the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, most of the time as its commander. He and his battery fought in the battles of Dranesville, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Auburn, Bristoe Station, Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Cold Harbor, Second Battle of Petersburg, and Deep Bottom. But Gettysburg was his greatest test. During the second day of the battle, his battery was positioned in a key spot on Cemetery Hill when two Confederate brigades charged up the hill. Ricketts and his men refused to abandon their canons and instead engaged in hand to hand combat with the Rebels until reinforcements arrived.

After the war Col. Ricketts settled in Wilkes-Barre and began buying vast tracts of heavily-wooded land on North Mountain in Luzerne, Sullivan, and Columbia counties. Along with other investors, he opened a saw mill and became a sort of lumber baron. A few years after his death in 1918, his heirs began selling pieces of his 80,000 acres to the state. The key 1,261 acres that included the falls and lower glen were sold to the state in 1942 and became the nucleus for Ricketts Glen State Park. More state acquisitions during the 1940s allowed the park to include Lake Jean and Ganoga Lake for a total of 13,050 acres.  

Fig. 2: Col. Robert Bruce Ricketts

Bruce Ricketts and his older brother William were raised in Orangeville and both were early volunteers to the Union Army. A former West Point cadet, William organized the first company of volunteers from this area (Company A, 35th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers). Made up of a lot of men from Danville (which was known for its iron industry), the company was called “The Iron Guards.” William was elected the company commander and given the rank of colonel.

While his company was encamped in the Washington, D.C. area in 1862, Ricketts had contracted typhoid fever. One of his nurses at that time was Augusta’s older sister Jane Robison Eliot (who spent most of the war serving as a nurse in various Washington D. C. hospitals). Col. William Ricketts had returned home to Orangeville and was being nursed there when he died of his disease on August 10, 1862. He is buried in nearby Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The second “lion” mentioned by Augusta was 22 year-old Jim Chamberlain, who on July 13, 1861, had volunteered for the Union Army as a private. He later became Adjutant for the 13th Regiment and finally Major of the 178th Regiment Drafted Militia. Before the war Chamberlain had been living in the home of his employer Isaiah McKelvy. A Presbyterian and a Republican, McKelvy owned a flour mill, canal boats, and a large store on the lot on the square where the First National Bank would later stand and where now stands the PNC Bank building.

Another Bloomsburg social event dedicated to the war efforts was mentioned by Augusta’s sister Bell Robison in one of her letters from later in the war (Sept. 29, 1862). It indicates the townspeople were using entertainment events as fundraisers:

The exhibition tonight is not the Glee Club as I said but a number of little girls are going to act dialogues and the proceeds are to be appropriated to the aid of the soldiers so I think we will go.

Fig. 3: Isabella (Bell) Robison

Life in Bloomsburg was, of course, not all fun and games. During the war Bell and her sisters and friends also spent a lot of time doing work for the benefit of soldier relief. One chore they did, for example, was to knit socks and mittens for the troops. Bell writes:

Bloomsburg 15th Nov. 1861
Julia Rupert and I have been very busy going around getting yarn, money, knitters, etc. etc. for the soldiers. The money we send to the factory and get yarn for 50 cts. per lb. As it is for the soldiers Sands lets us have it at the cost of the wool. I have knit one pr. [of socks] and will start another soon as I can. Mother has knit two prs. besides the four prs. she knit for the boys and is ready for another soon as we get the yarn. We intend to form a society, think the Ministers will give it out on Sunday in the different churches. The next thing we think of doing is to get up a box of hospital stores; think it can be gotten without much trouble.

Julia Rupert, age 36, was another member of the extended Robison family. She was the spinster daughter of Andrew Rupert, who had married Martha Robison after his wife (Julia’s mother) had died.

Meanwhile, on the front lines in Virginia, Boyd Robison had gotten soaked by freezing rain (this was in December) while on guard duty, had gotten a chill and developed a fever that took him two weeks to recover from. Anyway, while he was recovering, he got word that his sister was knitting him some mittens. In a letter home he gave the following practical advice to Bloomsburg's lady-knitters:

I feel the need of those mittens Augusta is knitting...By the by, if they have not the fore finger & the thumb separate from each other & from the rest they will be useless in handling a gun cartridge, etc.

Betsey Robison (age 62 when the war began) seems to have worked like a dog all during the war, caring for a large family, her ill husband William (age 72), and her sickly elderly sister. In one letter she mentioned that she gets up at 5 a.m. every day, and in another she commented: "Everything tells me I am growing old fast and believe tis nothing but want of rest." She seemed to get no relief herself, yet she found time to contribute to the relief of the soldiers, as she describes in the following letter:

Bloomsburg July 14, 1862
The cherries are all on the drying boards that I intend to dry. We have used cherries in every way, stewed, baked, canned & dried. We got 100 quarts from up town. Then we told them they might have all the rest & I should wonder if they got twice that many. Could I have afforded cans [jars] I would have canned all or nearly to send to the sick soldiers but dried ones will taste good, and they shall have a good portion of them. And I have made some current jelly...
-- Mother



THE ROBISON GIRLS SEE THE WAR CLOSE UP AND PERSONAL

When the Civil War began, eldest Robison daughter Jane, age 43, was living in Washington, D. C., doing various things to eke out a living and getting little help from her chronically under-employed husband. She had worked as a teacher and had attended business school. When the war broke out, she began working as a nurse in the various hospitals around the city (there were 56 of them in all). Many of the hospitals were mobile, moving from location to location, usually from government building to government building. One of Jane's hospitals was in the Patent Office, for example. She also occasionally worked out of some of the field hospitals that were set up on riverboats or in tents right at the battlefront.

Fig. 4: Jane Robison Eliot

In one of her letters home, Jane described a particularly difficult week in July of 1963:

Washington, D. C. 20 July/1863
I had been to two hospitals in the morning and as it was a very warm day I did too much and was sick the next day...The next I went to see what had become of my ambulance...As I was not able to go out, I came back worse than I went and was not able to go out for several days, in the mean time the battle of Gettysburg came off and if I had been well enough I would have gone up. Before I was able to do anything Gen. Meredith came here wounded and ...I sat by the bed and kept ice water to his head...He was struck in the side of the head by a piece of a shell which stunned him. His horse was killed at the same time falling on his right leg holding him down and when his horse made his last gasp he threw his head back striking Meredith in the left side mashing in two of his ribs and injuring him internally.
--Jane

Standing at 6 ft.-7-inches, Brigadier General Solomon Meredith of Indiana was often called “Long Sol.” He was a bit of a maverick, and many people said it was a blessing in disguise when the serious injuries he suffered at Gettysburg put him out of action for the rest of the war. 

Fig. 5: General Solomon Meredith

While Jane missed the battle of Gettysburg, her sister’s stepson Ario Pardee, Jr., did not. In fact, if you go to the battlefield today, you'll find a stone marker in the center of "Pardee Field" at the base of Culp's hill. The inscription on the marker reads: "At 5 A.M. the 147th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Lt. Col. Ario Pardee Jr.) was ordered to charge and carry the stone wall occupied by the enemy. This they did in handsome style, their firing causing heavy loss to the enemy who then abandoned the entire line of the stone wall."

Jane also missed the Second Battle of Manasses (aka, Second Battle of Bull Run). She had tried to get to the front lines but couldn't secure any sort of transportation. So she stayed in Washington awaiting the outcome of the battle. She feared that a defeat would mean she and her city would be overrun by the enemy, while victory would mean her hospital would be overrun by patients (actually, that would happen no matter which side won the battle). As she waited she expressed her feelings in the following letter:

Washington, D. C. 31st Aug. 1862
I am writing with a pencil on my lap because I am at one of the hospitals. I came to see if I can be of use and as the patients have not come yet, I can write a few lines.
...one of the Surgeons just came in and said that musketry could be heard distinctly, so they [the Confederates] may be near enough to have brought in McCalls Division. [General George McCall of the Pennsylvania Reserves] I tried very hard yesterday to get to the battlefield but finally had to give it up...All the convalescents were sent from the hospitals last night & today to make room for the wounded from Manasses. Most people think that tomorrow will be the decisive day. I am afraid our green troops are being mowed down like grass. I do not feel any apprehension about the city or myself. In fact I think if we cannot hold the city we ought to lose it. There seems to be mismanagement somewhere. --Jane

Fig. 6: A ward in the Carver General Hospital, Washington, D.C. (Image courtesy the National Archives)

In 1864, after having apparently grown bored of knitting socks in Bloomsburg, Bell Robison (who was still unmarried at the advanced age of 33) joined her sister Jane in Washington to also work as a nurse. Besides serving in the city hospitals, Bell would also work aboard a number of hospital boats -- steamboats set up as mobile hospitals -- and she worked out of tents on the battlefront. Here follows a series of three letters detailing her experiences on both land and water during Grant’s Overland Campaign against Lee. The first battle of the campaign was the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7), which took place just to the west of Fredericksburg, VA, and it was followed by the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8-21), which took place just south of Fredericksburg.

Fig. 7: A Union Navy hospital ship like the one on which Bell worked. (Courtesy United States Naval Historical Center)

Steamer Keys Port 11 May/1864
I am on my way to Fredericksburg, Va., or at least we started for there but have just been asked (Hal and I) to go on the Hospital Streamer Connecticut and assist in taking care of the wounded as they are brought to Washington. This boat brought a load of wounded and there were two loads of wounded at the wharf when we came down. Seven boat loads have gone to Washington...Last night I had no quarters. Lodged with the surgeons but didn't sleep at all. -- Bell

Fig. 8: Interior of hospital ship/steamboat.

After writing that letter, Bell apparently got a last-minute change of assignment, because she seems to have spent the rest of the day and the next working out of tents near the battlefront.

Belle Plain 12th May/1864
We are within about ten miles of Fredericksburg, hear the cannonading very distinctly...I got completely drenched yesterday, was dressing wounds and was obliged to keep the wet clothes on all night. Had damp straw to lie on, my water proof hood on my head, and my blanket shawl and an army blanket that Dr. C. insisted on me taking; had his overcoat and a gum blanket for himself. So I was fixed 10 times better than many of the soldiers...
I went to work soon as I arrived yesterday. Dressed some terrible wounds, was afraid to undertake at first but now I don't hesitate at all...I dressed one wound this morning that had maggots in it, though I think that could have been avoided by keeping it well wet which is very necessary. The wounded are being taken away and the well ones coming to go to the front. Last night the Guerrillas captured twenty of our ambulance teams. Took 40 horses and the drivers and left the ambulances stand with the wounded in them...
I forgot to say that last evening about 1500 wounded of the 5th Corps arrived here and as there was no place to put them were obliged to remain in the ambulances...
The cry from Fredericksburg is for lint and bandages, men dying for want of having their wounds dressed. Two thousand it is said will die from mortification...I hear there is an ambulance train two miles long and ready to come in.
I washed my face this morning, the first time since I came off the boat. -- Bell

During the campaign an average of 2000 wounded soldiers per day were coming off the battlefields. The Battle of the Wilderness alone had resulted in about 12,000 wounded men. Another 13,416 men were wounded during the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse.

Fig. 9: An ambulance crew during a training exercise.

Nine days would pass before Bell could find enough free time to write again. There was still plenty work to do caring for the wounded, but Bell also took up another task – writing fallen soldiers’ names on pieces of board that served as grave markers.


Fredericksburg Va 21st May 1864
I worked too hard today and my feet are so sore I can scarcely stand on them...
Oh how much I've wished I had supplies to have given every soldier I see who asks for something to eat. They would give almost anything for some soft bread or decent crackers. We have been obliged to feed hard tack most of the time and it does go so hard for our severely wounded men. I dislike it, and I am well. Have been obliged to live on it most of the time myself.
Today I went to one of the burying grounds to look after three I had board markers for...While I was there they [the gravediggers] were covering three and there were 17 lying in a row to be buried. Two were those I had boards marked for. And only two were in boxes. All just rolled in their blankets and some of them not even covered. It is sad, sad to see such sights. -- Bell

As nurses to the soldiers, Bell and Jane would see many more sad sights before the war’s end.

###

Fig. 10: The burying of the dead at Fredericksburg, VA, after the Wilderness campaign, May 1864. (Image
courtesy the National Archives)

Robison Family Endures Un-Civil War -- Part 4

Bad Times, Bad News About the Boys

During the Civil War few American families were untouched by death and the Robisons of Bloomsburg were no exception. Throughout the war family matriarch Betsey Barton Robison worried and prayed over her youngest son Isaiah, who at age 22 had volunteered for the Union Army almost as soon as the war began. In her letters to her daughters, Betsey was constantly complaining that she'd gotten no letters from Isaiah -- a letter being a welcome sign that he was still alive.

Fig. 1: Isaiah Robison

Betsey expressed her feelings in a letter written to her daughter Anna Robison Pardee, who lived in Hazleton:

June 9, 1864

I do feel so anxious about Isaiah now. Have you heard from Ario [Anna’s stepson Ario Pardee, Jr., a Union officer] since those last dreadful battles?

Yesterday morning the Harrisburg Telegraph (so I was told) had an account of a most desperate battle out there that our forces had made dreadful havoc with the Rebs. But we must have lost too, and who they are, we don't know.

I always was hopeful but still hope almost fails some times; about the War never, I have never doubted for one moment but that we would succeed. I believed our cause was just and that god of battles would give us the victory. But how many of our noble brave men must be the sacrifice God only knows.

The Methodist minister here [Reuben Wilson] believes that everyone slain in battle in defense of our Glorious Government is a Martyr and the South is guilty of murder for every one killed. But if I could believe all that, it does not take the anxiety away about Isaiah etc. etc.

--Mother

Participating in Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, Isaiah Robison (age 24) was killed while leading his company (he was a first lieutenant) during the Battle of Peach Tree Creek near Atlanta on July 20, 1864.

It took over a week for the news about Isaiah to get to Bloomsburg. The family had heard news that the battle had been fierce and costly, and they'd heard rumors regarding Isaiah. They agonized for days waiting for definitive news. Even after they got the news, they refused to believe it, hoping it was a mistake and that he was simply missing or captured.

Bell Robison was at home in Bloomsburg at the time, and she described in a letter to her sister Jane how she learned the sad news:

Bloomsburg 30th July 1864

Imagine my feelings when the omnibus stopped at our door yesterday and Mother and Gus got out. We never knew a word of the sad intelligence till they came, as there had been no Phila papers [newspapers] received here the day before.
Father and Millie [youngest sister Amelia, age 20] were both up town, the latter doing errands for me and neither heard till they came home. I cannot realize it and still hope that it is not so, though I fear it is. We would like you to send us a couple of Inquirers of the 28th. We would like to see the account...
There were several things I wanted to write. Can't recall them at all.
--Bell

In Washington, D. C., Jane Robison Eliot got the news about her brother Isaiah and immediately went to see her brother Boyd, who was stationed near Washington at the time. She wrote in a letter to her sister Anna:

Boyd came in soon after I got back but had heard nothing of it. Poor fellow, how badly he felt. He seemed to think if it had been him instead of Isaiah, it would have been less matter. While he was here some letters and a paper [newspaper] came for him. The paper was from Bloom and had a letter from Isaiah dated 9th [letters from boys at the front were often printed in the local newspapers], how full of life he seemed when he wrote.

I have not written since I heard, hoping there was some mistake and that he was safe...I had still hoped against hope that something would be heard favorable. But alas it is gone. Poor boy, better to die instantly that to linger as some do. [as a nurse, Jane saw plenty of lingering death] I cannot bear to think of it. If I was a man I would be in the field.

--Jane

Meanwhile, back in Bloomsburg, Betsey was having a hard time coming to grips with the death of her son, made worse, in her mind, by the fact that the family had no body to bury. She envisioned her son's body decaying on a lonely battlefield in a far away state.

Oh could he have been buried here, what a consolation it would be to decorate his grave with flowers, he who fell in defense of his country, had endured so many perils, suffered so much, and now to be thrown to the ground uncared for. Oh I can't think of it. Oh dear it seems so hard to realize. But I dare not dwell upon it. But all is sad.

--Mother

Eventually, Mother's prayer for the return of Isaiah's body was answered. His body was recovered from the battlefield and shipped back to Bloomsburg. His grave is in the Old Rosemont cemetery, where undoubtedly, Mother dutifully decorated it with flowers for many years.

Fig. 2: Isaiah Robison’s tombstone in Old Rosemont Cemetery.

Betsey's woes were soon compounded when word came that her other son Boyd was missing. It was presumed that he had been captured by Confederate guerrillas, but it took a long time for that to be confirmed.

Nov 18th 1864
Oh if he is alive and can outlive the cruelty of such Barbarians it will be a mercy. I can't give up the thought but we must see him again. But I dare not think of it. Oh if Prayers will avail, he has them in his behalf and may God in his mercy grant them. But I can't trust myself to think of my two dear boys -- but one is at rest. --Mother

Eventually, the family got word that Boyd had indeed been captured and was being held at Libby Prison in Richmond. Then Betsey had to worry that he would starve to death, which was highly likely. Libby was notorious for its poor sanitation and overcrowding, and for its mortality rate. A terrible place, it was later overshadowed by Andersonville Prison in Georgia. With the exception of the Nazi extermination camps of WWII, few wartime prison camps have matched the atrocities of Andersonville. Since Boyd was actually a civilian at this time, working for in the Union Army’s Commissary department, he may have gotten him slightly better treatment than the ordinary soldiers got at Libby Prison. In any event, he survived a five-month ordeal there and was released during the prisoner exchange at the end of the war. And so at least one of Betsey's prayers was answered.

Fig. 3: Libby Prison in Richmond, VA. (Image courtesy the National Archives)

Back in the early days of the war Betsey Barton Robison had another prayer that she expressed in one of her letters (March 1. 1862): "God grant that this will be the last war in our glorious country," she wrote. This prayer of Betsey’s was not answered in time to stop “the war to end all wars” 52 years later and remains unanswered to this day.


EPILOGUE

Ario Pardee, Jr., fought in many of the major the battles of the Civil War, including: Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Antietam, Gettysburg, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Ringold, and Atlanta. He had experienced many near misses, including having his horse shot out from under him during the battle of Antietam.

Just before war’s end he was promoted to Brigadier General, largely in recognition of his heroic conduct at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the same battle in which Isaiah was killed.

Fig. 4: Brigadier General Ario Pardee, Jr.

James Boyd Robison had been severely wounded in the hand during his first tour of duty and had been invalided out of service. He complained in a letter that his hand wound left him practically a cripple. ("For purpose of labor my finger is just as useless as if it were cut off.") Yet, in June 1863, when the South threatened to invade the North, Boyd re-enlisted for another term and eventually attained the rank of Captain. After serving out this term, he signed up as a civilian clerk under Capt. J. T. Gibner in the Commissary department, who was with Gen. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. Boyd was serving in this capacity when he was captured by Confederate guerrillas.

J. Boyd Robison

After the war J. Boyd Robison returned to Mercer, PA, where he was elected district attorney. (He had been studying law before the war, and during a lull in his military service during the war, he had managed to pass the bar.) In 1867 he moved his law practice to Bloomsburg and became of one of the town's most prominent citizens. He served a term as United States Commissioner and three terms as Bloomsburg's solicitor. He was also a notary public. Boyd was active in politics (both the Republican and Greenback parties) running for state legislature once and Congress twice. In 1873, he married teacher Jane Breece of Bloomsburg, and together they had seven children. At the time of his death in 1909 he was living in Espy and is buried in the Creveling cemetery. Isabella (Bell) Robison finally married in 1869 and had a son by her husband Nathaniel Campbell. She died unexpectedly in 1873, and her son was raised by her sister Emily. Jane Robison Eliot died in 1885. Augusta Robison never married and died in 1892. During the war patriarch William Robison was age 72, retired, and suffering from skin cancer. He finally succumbed to cancer in 1866. Betsey Barton Robison died in 1877. Husband and wife are buried in plots next to their martyred son Isaiah in the Old Rosemont cemetery. In the First Presbyterian Church, there is a memorial window dedicated to William and Betsey.

Fig. 6: This memorial window in the First Presbyterian Church, Bloomsburg, is dedicated to William and Betsey Robison.

The letters written by members of the Robison and Pardee families from 1848 to 1865 are contained in the book And So It Goes (Business Service Company; Harrisburg, PA; 1971). A copy of the book can be found on the shelves of the Columbia County Historical & Genealogical Society on the second floor of the Bloomsburg Public Library. Its author Gertrude Keller Johnston was a granddaughter of Ario Pardee, Jr. She died in 1984 and her grave is in Hazleton’s Vine Street Cemetery, which had been founded with land donated by the senior Ario Pardee, her great grandfather.

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[NOTE: Special thanks to George Turner for his help with this series of articles.]