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.]