09/17/2015 Musings of a history buff
Grandpa’s journey Part 1
By Ellis Knox
In 1863 my great-grandfather, Amos Ellis, was administrator/principal of the Livingston, Texas public schools. In May of 1863 one of my great-uncles, Gabriel Barfield, was grazed by a Union minie ball on his backside.
My other great-uncle who was also there at the Battle of Chancellorsville wrote home about it and set my great-grandmother Ellis on her ear. She demanded my great-grandfather go and fetch them home.
No amount of explaining to her about army regulations, about desertion or that they would not come home anyway, made any difference to her. He had to go get them and bring them home.
Much to his chagrin, Amos Ellis had no choice but to go. He managed to put her off until the end of the school year, but after that he could no longer avoid it.
This story was told to me by my mother, Vera Ellis Knox, and later retold to me and embellished by one of my mother’s first cousins, Mrs. Holly Youngblood Ricks. The basic story I will convey to you now, I have no idea if it is true. It may only be family legend, but I like to think it’s true.
Also about this time, General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces were moving up the Mississippi River to attack Vicksburg. Also as part of the Vicksburg campaign, Col. Benjamin Grierson’s cavalry attacked the railroad junction at Newton, MS, on April 24, 1863.
Col Grierson’s cavalry arrived in Baton Rouge May 3. Dodging all the military units running around at the time must have been quite a feat. There were no state issued IDs at that time and capture by either side could have meant execution as a spy.
However, it is possible my grandfather made the trip. Sir Arthur Fremantle, a British officer who crossed into Texas via Brownsville so not to officially run the Union blockade of Southern ports and offend President Lincoln, made this same trek.
It also would not have bode well for a British officer if he had been captured on a blockade runner. He was the unofficial representative of Queen Victoria, who the Confederacy had petitioned for official recognition and aid. Fremantle was here to examine the situation for her.
He kept a diary of his travels across Texas and the South that he later published, “Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863.” An extremely good read, especially his impressions of Texas and Texans of the time.
The story goes that after school let out for the summer sometime in May, my grandfather packed up a horse and traveled across Louisiana. Somehow he got across the Mississippi, managed to evade the Union forces swarming all over New Orleans and central Louisiana. Then he made his way to Virginia.
He eventually arrived in Richmond where he was told where to find General Robert E. Lee’sArmy of Northern Virginia. There was little military security in the North or the South at that time. Pretty much anything you wanted to know about the war was in the newspapers of the time.
I did find a roster, and there are several, of the Army of Northern Virginia where along with Richard Ellis there is also listed an A. Ellis named as a member of Company B, of the First Texas Infantry. So there is evidence he was there.
When he found the Army near Fredericksburg it had already begun a move north behind South Mountain and up the Shenandoah Valley.Confederate units had begun concentrating in mid-May and by June 3, 1863 had slipped away from Union contact.
To be continued next week. So until next time.
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