The Grave of Judith Henry
On
July 21, 1861 the eighty
four year old, invalid Judith Henry lay in her bed, as the battle began around
Pittsylvania, her childhood home.
Shells
from Union artillery began to fall around the widow’s house, “Spring Hill”.
Mrs. Henry’s two sons, shocked to find Union
troops on their doorstep, decided to move their mother to safety.
Mrs. Henry was unwilling to leave, but after
several shells struck the house, the terrified woman gave in.
The two sons placed the old woman on a
mattress and carried her out of the house, intending to carry her to the
Reverend Compton’s house, about a mile away.
The small party was soon caught in the open in the midst of a furious
battle.
Terrified and hysterical, the
old woman begged to be taken back to her own home.
The three Henrys returned to the house, and
Mrs. Henry was returned to bed.
She was
only there a short time before a shell burst in the room where she lay.
She was struck by seven shell fragments and
lived for several agonizing hours, dying about nightfall.
Rosa Stokes, a young slave who had been
caring for the old lady was wounded by the same shell that killed Mrs. Henry.
At nearby
Folly Castle
plantation, Betty Leachman put her five small children under a large sideboard
where they stayed huddled all day.
The
house was struck by cannon balls several times.
Early on the morning after the battle, young Mr. Henry made his was to
Folly Castle
and asked Betty and her sister-in-law to return with him, to prepare Mrs.
Henry’s body for burial.
They went with
him, cutting across fields strewn with dead soldiers.
Portici
The Lewis family
of
“
Portici” found themselves at the center of
the battle.
Confederate officers
notified the Lewis family that a battle was imminent and that their house would
be exposed to fire.
They evacuated,
taking everything they could with them, but left valuable and heavy furniture
behind.
The furniture was stored in a
small room in an angle of the house, and the room securely nailed shut.
The only shot that struck the house during
the battle struck this room and destroyed all of the furniture.
Furniture was a trifling matter however.
Fannie Lewis was in her ninth month of
pregnancy and went into labor as they began to evacuate the house.
Servants found a nearby ravine and dug a
small earthen hollow into the bank.
They
covered this with greens.
It was here
that Fannie Lewis delivered her first baby, John Beauregard Lewis.
After the battle,
Portici became
a grisly field hospital.
The wounded,
dead, and dying covered every floor in the house.
There were two piles of amputated legs, feet,
hands and arms, all thrown together.
At
a distance they looked like piles of corn.
Many of the feet still had boots on them.
Wounded men lay on tables while surgeons
carved away like farmers in butchering season.
The Hard Hand of War
After an
interlude of little over a year, the horrors of war again returned to
Manassas in August, 1862
with the Second Battle of Manassas.
After the second battle,
Manassas
faded into obscurity.
Times were now
very hard for the
civilian population.
There were no real horses left, only those that were battle scarred,
lame or blind.
Women were forced to run
farms with the help only of old people and children.
To make matters worse, the farmers ran short
of tools and implements, for it was impossible to replace the metal parts of
plows, wagons, hoes and scythes.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment