Andersonville

Ahhh, idyllic Vermont.  Clean, fresh air and green mountains.  

The Titus side of my dad's family mainly settled in Vershire, Vermont.  To get there, drive to Timbuktu and hang a left, keep going till you hit East Osh Kosh.  Vershire is just 45 minutes further down the "road."

One of the Titus boys had a brief but significant journey away from Vershire.

Family member name: Morris Park Titus 
Lifetime: 1845-1900
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: My 3rd great-uncle (My dad's dad's mom's mom's brother)

When Morris turned 18 in 1863, the War of the Rebellion was still going strong.  So he enlisted and began his military service as a Private in the 4th Vermont Infantry.

Just six months later, he was captured during a battle in Virginia and became a P.O.W.  He had just turned 19.  First he was held in Libby Prison, an infamous converted food warehouse that was used to imprison Union soldiers.  Huge rooms were overcrowded with men who did not receive medical attention or much food.  

Then he was sent to Andersonville Prison, GA.

**Warning: the following is not for sensitive hearts**

Andersonville was not a prison.  There are many words for it, but the word prison is usually connected with a building that includes cells and bars.  What a paradise prison would have been for those men!  No, Andersonville was an extermination camp in the United States.

Andersonville had two or three rows of tall stockade fences.  And that's it.  It was a pen. 

[Pause here to think of that.]

Inside the pen was the ground and the sky.  No shelter.  No facilities.  There was a small stream running down a hill.  The men would drink water from the top of the stream, and go to the bathroom at the lower stream.  It became a swamp of diarrhea.

The soldiers were starved.  When they had food, it was corn bread and some beans with maggots in it.  They prayed for sweet potatoes in order to possibly avoid scurvy, which most men contracted anyway.  It is a horrible disease.

Morris Park Titus arrived at the absolute worst time to arrive at Andersonville, end June of 1864.  The prisoner population was 26,000 men.  Some healthy men who arrived at that time died in two weeks or less.  Here is what they saw, taken from the diary of a soldier.

As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. "Can this be hell?" "God protect us!" and all thought that he alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place. In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink (latrine), and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then

In August, the Confederates started moving soldiers to other prisons.  The criteria for being moved was that you had to be able to walk out.  Those who could not walk out were left in the pen to die.  Even though he had been there less than six weeks, Morris could not walk out.  In September and October, 1 out of 3 and then 1 out of 2 men died respectively.  

[Pause here to think of that.]

But Morris was not a casualty.  Somehow he survived.  After only four months at Andersonville, he probably spent over a year in the hospital and the rest of his life undoubtedly with PTSD and chronic health problems.

He returned to beautiful Vershire.  Here is Morris on his wedding day just two years later.

When we visited Vershire in 2011, the kind town historian showed us a family history written by a Titus family member in 1930.  Here is the excerpt about Morris.  

From a family history book in Vershire, Vermont

Andersonville did not kill him.  But sadly Morris died on a Monday afternoon at age 55 when he fell on some ice.  Sigh... Vermont.

Married 63 years

Read all about it!  This newspaper article is about my great great great grandparents.  It was torn to pieces, and there are stains from completely dissolved 100 year-old Scotch tape.  My friend is a professional archivist and she kindly restored the fragile newspaper clipping for me.  I decided to transcribe it below for posterity's sake.  It's a genealogist's dream article.  It's also any family's dream article.  Enjoy.

Family member names: Mr. and Mrs. Simeon Bacon Titus
Tree branch: Pearson
Lifetimes: 1817-1903 and 1818-1903
Relation: My 3x great grandmother and grandfather (my dad's dad's mom's mom's parents)

The Cambridge Chronicle - January 11, 1902

I also have the original photo that was used in the article.  How cute are they??

HAVE BEEN MARRIED SIXTY-THREE YEARS.

Mr. and Mrs. Simeon B. Titus Begin Their Sixty-fourth Year of Wedded Life - Live with Their Daughter on Oxford Street.

   It is generally considered a matter worthy of comment when a couple celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and as a usual thing a great deal of attention is given to such an occasion.  But this week an aged couple residing in this city quietly celebrated an anniversary besides which a mere 50 years of wedded life seems insignificant.  Mr. and Mrs. Simeon B. Titus, both natives of Vermont, now living with their daughter, Mrs. Fanny T. Hazen, at 61 Oxford Street, are the couple and Monday they celebrated the completion of the 63d year during which they have been married.  

   Mr. Titus was born in Vershire, Vt., June 6, 1817, while his wife, was born in the adjoining town of West Fairlee May 14, 1816.  Until ten years ago Mr. Titus continued to reside on the farm on which he was born, and it was only at the age of 74 that he was induced to retire from work and come to live with his daughter.  He was one of 12 children, of whom all but he are now dead.  In his veins runs some of the patriotic blood of the sturdy New England farmers.  His grandfather, Lenox Titus, was one of those who aided in routing the British at the battle of Bennington, and thus indirectly contributed to the final defeat and surrender of Burgoyne's army of invaders at Saratoga.  Later he removed to Vershire where he was one of the pioneer settlers.  The farm on which Mr. Titus was born has been in the family 100 years.

   Mr. Titus's youth, and, indeed, his whole life, has been like many another New England farmer's life.  He attended the district school three months in winter, working on the farm during the rest of the time.  All his brothers and sisters went out into the world and to him as the youngest, it fell to remain at home and take care of the farm.  But if Mr. Titus himself did not go into the world or engage in the defense of his country during her wars, his sons evidently inherited the patriotic impulses of the family.  Of his six sons three entered the Civil war, all being under age at the time.  Two gave their lives in defense of the flag.  One, after suffering months in the prison pen at Andersonville, returned home a physical wreck.  Mrs. Fanny Titus Hazen, the eldest daughter, was a nurse in the Columbian College United States hospital, Washington in 1864-1865.  She is now president of the Army Nurse association of Massachusetts.

  Mrs. Titus, too, seems to have come from a family as patriotic as that of her husband, for her paternal grandfather, William Morris, was in the battle of Concord and Lexington [Note: This is unfortunately not true. He was sent as a soldier to Boston after those battles] and rose in the service until he became a first lieutenant.  Her mother was a Morse and was first cousin to the famous inventor of the Morse telegraph system, which has conferred untold benefits on the country and the world.  Of the 11 children of Mr. and Mrs. Titus, five are still living, four daughters and a son.  The son is Charles M. Titus, of Boston.  Of these, three were present at the celebration of the anniversary.

  Mr. Titus's age would seem to be in no way very remarkable for he comes from an exceptionally long lived family.  His mother lived to be 95 years old, while one of his brothers died at the age of 93.  A sister reached the age of 86 and all the others, with one or two exceptions, lived to a good old age.  He has a large number of descendants in various parts of the world, including several great grandchildren.  At the celebration Monday, which was private and quiet, the aged couple were made happy on this anniversary by the presence of three children, grand and great grandchildren - four generations.  

  Mr. and Mrs. Titus until within a few years attended the Epworth Methodist church at Harvard Square.  Mrs. Titus rarely goes out owing to a fall which she sustained some time ago and in which she injured her ankle so that she does not move around much.  Otherwise she is in perfect health.  About the same time her husband left off attendance, although he still preserves his interest and remains on the visiting list of the pastor.  He is in the best of health with all his faculties seemingly untouched by the advance of age and with the same enjoyment of life which he had fifty years ago.