 In fact, Stephen and Temperance Spindler Zollars had four sons:
Lindsey, John, Damascus and Wesley. All but John enlisted as Union
soldiers and all served at great sacrifice.Their story was taken
from a report by Lindsey's great-granddaughter, Sonjo Zollars Conson.
Wesley, 21, joined as a private with the Illinois Volunteers on
Aug. 16, 1861. Of the three siblings, he saw the longest and hardest
battle service. He was honorably discharged in 1864.
Damascus, 29, enlisted on Oct. 1, 1862, at Atlanta. He left his
wife, Susanna, and three children in the care of his parents and
brother John. He was made company brigade wagon master in June 1864,
at Little Rock, Ark. It was a hard job, since the enemy aimed for
supply trains, as a successful strike could leave Union soldiers
without necessities for war.
In May 1865, Damascus was admitted to the U.S. Army General
Hospital at Pine Bluff, Ark., with chronic dysentery, then
discharged. Bad food, water and the elements had permanently damaged
his health.
Lindsey kept a personal account of his three-year infantry stint,
which began Aug. 9, 1862, in Lincoln. Then the regiment started
south. The men's Belgian muskets were repaired at Jackson, Tenn.
During the winter of 1862-63, the company guarded railroads and went
on raids, which often lasted nearly a month.
"During the greater part of the winter we lived off the country
by foraging," Lindsey wrote. "The Rebel Army was always ahead of us
so we got what they had left."
Winter was cold and rainy. If shelter was not available, they
rolled in blankets, sleeping on the driest ground they could find.
In May 1863, Lindsey's regiment was transferred to the 16th Army
Corps and sent to Vicksburg.
"Below Island No. 62 the boat was fired on," he wrote, "and our
Captain, Cash Beasley's son, a neighbor who was just 17 years old,
was killed."
The 16th Corps was issued Springfield rifles and sent to the
Black River line. After Vicksburg surrendered, the men transferred
to the 7th Army Corps and went to Helena, Ark., for the Little Rock
campaign.
"The march from Helena to Little Rock through cypress swamps with
no water supply was terrible," Lindsey wrote, "and the suffering
from mosquitoes and heat was terrific.
"After Little Rock, Ark., was captured we had to obtain our
supplies by raids and foraging on the surrounding countryside and
also by hauling from Duvalls Bluff on the White River. ... It was 50
miles to the bluff and the round trip took a week."
Lindsey drove a six-mule team in the supply train.
The campaign against Rebel headquarters on the Ouachita River
began in spring 1864. Lindsey, unarmed, was driving a supply wagon
when some 6,000 Rebel forces near Marks Mill surrounded the Union
forces.
"After a two-hour fight," Lindsey wrote, "our entire force was
captured."
Numerous Negroes who had left their masters to join the supply
train were killed. Most of the whites, but none of the Negroes
killed in the engagement, were buried.
The wounded were hauled in wagons to Pine Bluffs, about 30 miles
away. Union troops were forced to exchange their clothing for the
ragged clothes of the enemy.
"At sundown," Lindsey wrote, "began the hardest march that is
every [sic] possible to imagine and still live to tell of
it."
None of the Union troops had eaten since daybreak April 25. The
march began at sundown with no food or water and continued
throughout the night. The next day, they drank only water from
footprints or ponds.
The morning of April 28, each man received a pint of cornmeal for
mush. Those with no cup or canteen in which to make the mush ate
their meal raw.
Then, the captives marched 400 miles over 19 days to Camp Ford
Prison near Tyler, Texas. Each received a pint of cornmeal to eat
every day or two.
"Hunger, exhaustion and exposure caused a good number to lose
their reason," Lindsey wrote, "and on attempting to escape they were
shot and left there."
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The troops reached Camp Ford on May 15, 1864. Each morning they
lined up to be counted -- an ordeal that often took three hours.
"About 8 o'clock every morning two men on a mule, followed by a
pack of 10 or 12 bloodhounds, circled the outside of the stockade to
pick up the scent of any prisoners that might have escaped," Lindsey
wrote.
Until late November, the prisoners' only shelter was holes in the
ground with brush shades. A week after he arrived, Lindsey's boots
were stolen from under his head as he slept. Daily rations were a
pint of cornmeal and a pound of maggoty raw beef.
"When we were fortunate enough to have a fire," Lindsey wrote,
"we boiled the meat, and then skimmed off the maggots..."
About four months into confinement, the prisoners' health began
to fail. Scurvy was common. The ground teemed with lice. Due to a
July smallpox scare, prisoners were offered optional vaccinations.
Those who refused were lucky.
Because of the vermin and flies, the vaccinated arms became
gangrenous. Flesh dropped from the upper arm until it was almost
fleshless from shoulder to elbow. Death soon followed.
Dysentery or bloody flux was practically 100 percent prevalent.
Most of the sick died quickly. There were no bandages, medicine or
surgical supplies. Hopelessly sick men were carried out of the
stockade and allowed to die where the air was better.
The camp's first commandant was Capt. McErcheron, who made life
for the prisoners unbearable. His favorite disciplines for trying to
escape were hanging men by their thumbs, making them stand on a
stump for 10 hours in the sun or handcuffing them for 10 days in the
vermin-ridden guardhouse.
Suffering increased that winter. A few prisoners pledged
allegiance to the Confederacy to avoid almost certain death. Lindsey
wrote that he did not blame them.
Lindsey knew of only one tunnel that was completed. Escapees had
scant chance of reaching Union lines, 250 miles away on the
Mississippi or 400 miles north to Pine Bluffs, but two men were
successful.
Lindsey worked on the tunnel, which began in a hut. The goal was
a brush pile on the other side of the wall, about 75 feet away.
Naked prisoners dug in the scant space with a bowie knife,
passing clay back in a haversack to be buried. The farther the
tunnel progressed, the greater the danger. At 80 feet, the worst
danger was suffocation and the digger was the most oxygen-deprived.
Lindsey was paroled on the day he was supposed to go into the
tunnel to dig.
About two months before the war ended, Col. Perkins, "a gentleman
and as lenient as possible," replaced Capt. McErcheron as prison
commandant. Under Perkins' command, the tunnel was discovered and
filled, but no prisoners were punished.
Lindsey was paroled in February 1865. He was one of eight
caregivers able to walk behind wagonloads of feeble parolees -- 140
miles to Shreveport.
The parolees were taken by boat to the mouth of the Red River,
turned over to Union troops and furloughed home for 30 days.
Upon his arrival, Lindsey learned that his parents had been
notified that he was killed in action.
He was mustered out of the Union Army on July 22, 1865.
[By NANCY SAUL]
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