Notes, sources for Colonel Samuel Lumpkin post

By Richard Clem

(Notes and sources for Clem's post on 44th Georgia Colonel Samuel Lumpkin, who was mortally wounded at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.)

1. Steven R. Stotelmyer, The Bivouacs of the Dead (Baltimore: Toomey Press, 1992) pp. 35-36; Thomas J. C. Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1992) pp. 344-345; States of Virginia and West Virginia also contributed $500.00 each for establishing Washington Confederate Cemetery. The official (original) name of the Southern burial grounds was “Washington Cemetery Confederate.”

2.  Joseph G. Coxon, a custodian of Rose Hill Cemetery and Washington County Surveyor, S. S. Downin, were given the job of laying out Washington Confederate Cemetery; Coxon’s site map was used to indicate approximate location and name of the 346 “known” Confederate remains listed on the cast-bronze plaque at the head of the cemetery; Each known soldier is buried in a section designated according to his own individual state; Governor Oden Bowie, Descriptive List of the Burial Places of the Remains of Confederate Soldiers, hereafter sited as Bowie’s List (Hagerstown: Free Press, 1869); Richard E. Clem, Etched in Blood (The Gettysburg magazine, issue Thirty-Eight, Jan. 2008) pp. 59-60, 68-71.

44th Georgia Colonel Samuel Lumpkin
was mortally wounded at Gettysburg.

3. The author grew up in the south end of Hagerstown having spent many hours playing “Cowboys and Indians” over the sacred ground of Washington Confederate Cemetery. In the late 1940,s, as a kid, I had no idea  the significance behind the old burial site; The “trustee of Rose Hill Cemetery” as mentioned in Lumpkin’s story was Mr. Hubert C. Smith, a close friend of the writer’s family. Smith also shared a story handed down through the years how horse-drawn wagons coming from South Mountain and Antietam (Sharpsburg) carrying Rebel remains would pull in a half or semi-circle, their wheels making deep ruts and consequently laying out the design for the Washington Cemetery. Hubert Smith passed away in 2002 and is buried in Rose Hill only yards from the Confederate Cemetery.

4. Based on all Official Records Lumpkin’s middle initial was “P” for “Pittman” not “E” as inscribed on the gravestone. Also the letter “P” has been omitted from his last name. Ending in the letter “E,” Georgia is also misspelled. These errors in documents and found on tombstones during the Civil War era are common.

5. In 1984, the year the author discovered Lumpkin’s stone, no one except Hubert Smith knew it existed including family members in Georgia; A cancelled check revealed Lumpkin was reinterred in Washington Cemetery in 1913 – forty-eight years after the war. Any one alive who could remember back to 1913, in all probability, would have been dead. More later in Lumpkin’s story on the cancelled checks.

6. Once finding Lumpkin’s gravestone, ads were placed in various Civil War publications, seeking information on the colonel from Georgia. P. Charles Lunsford, Associate Adjutant – John B. Gordon Camp #46 – SCV of Atlanta, Ga., read one of the ads and through research in Georgia State Archives, produced material, military and geological, on the fallen officer. This writer will forever be indebted and grateful to Charles Lunsford whose extensive research made the Good Colonel’s legacy’s possible.

7.  Bryan H. Lumpkin, The Lumpkin Family (Dec. 1936) pp. 58-59; L.L. Cody, The Lumpkin Family of Georgia (Macon: 1928) pp. 7, 17, 88.

8. 1860 U.S. Census, Watkinsville District, Clarke County, Ga.

9. Last Will & Testament of Samuel P. Lumpkin, recorded March 1, 1862, Clarke County Court House, Clarke County, Ga.; Samuel Lumpkin’s Military Service Records, Company C, 44th Georgia Infantry, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

10.  Ibid.; Henry W. Thomas, History of the Doles-Cook Brigade (Dayton: Press of Morningside Bookshop, 1981) p. 467; http://www.historynet.com/44th-georgia-regiment-volunteers-in-the-american-civil-war-htm.

11.  John Macdonald, Great Battles of the Civil War (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988) p.32; Lumpkin’s Military Service Records; Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, pp. 485, 515.

12.  Lumpkin, The Lumpkin Family, p. 59; Lumpkin’s Military Service Records; Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, p. 485; Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode With Stonewall (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1940) pp. 223-228.

13.  Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, pp. 5-10; Champ Clark, Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide (Alexandria: Time-Life Books Inc. 1985) p. 10; Clem, Etched in Blood, Gettysburg magazine, p.60.

14. Retreat From Gettysburg, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York: Thomas Yoseloff Inc., 1956) p. 438; Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, p.8.

15. Ibid.

16.   U.S. Government, War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1 vol. XXVII, hereafter cited as OR, All Subsequent references are to series 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889) pp. 581-582.

17.  Ibid., p.586; Gregory A. Coco, War Stories (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1992) p.39; Frederick Tilberg, Gettysburg: National Military Park (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954) p.12; http://www.historynet.com./44th-georgia-regiment-volunteers-in-the-american-civil-war-htm.

18. Lumpkin, Military Service Records.

19. Gregory A. Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1988) pp.129-130; In 1866, a number of identified bodies found at the Schriver farm gives solid evidence it was also used as a hospital for Col. Edward A. O’Neal’s Brigade.

20.  OR, Vol. XXVII, p.582; Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, p.485; http://www.historynet.com./44th-georgia-regiment-volunteers-in-the-american-civil-war-htm.

21.  Williams, History of Washington County, Md., pp.348-350.

22.  Ibid., p.350; Bryan Lumpkin, The Lumpkin Family, p.59; In December 2010, Washington County Hospital moved to a newly constructed location just east of Hagerstown called “Meritus Medical Center.” The fate of the old building where Col. Lumpkin gave his “last full measure of devotion” hangs in the balance.

23.  Steve French, Imboden’s Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign (Berkley Springs: Morgan Messenger, 2008) p.85; Clark, Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide, p.151; Williams, History of Washington County, p.348; John H. Worsham, One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry (New York: The Neal Publishing Company, 1912) p.174; Clifford Dowdey, The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee (New York: DaCapo Press, Inc. 1961) p.540.

24.   The author received a copy of Dr. McGarity’s unpublished hand-written letter dated Dec. 5, 1863 from the University of Georgia filed under “Lumpkin Manuscript Collection # 658.” In the two page document, McGarity states, “When we reached Hagerstown, I thought it advisable to leave Col. S.P. Lumpkin & Capt. Haygood.” In all probability, Dr. McGarity had traveled with Lumpkin, a high-ranking officer, in an ambulance wagon with Ewell’s Corps to Hagerstown.

25.   Thomas, Doles-Cook Brigade, pp. 484-488.

26.   Ibid., p. 519.

27.   Sam Lumpkin’s Military Service Records lists him as dying from “typhoid fever” on Sept. 11, 1863. A book “Lumpkin Family History” shows his death as Sept. 14, 1863. The gravestone in the Confederate Cemetery indicates he passed away Sept. 18, 1863. These three separate dates of the colonel’s death is understandable due to Hagerstown being in a state of turmoil and mass-confusion brought on by civil war. It would be reasonable to believe the date “cut in stone” – Sept. 18, 1863 – would be close to being correct considering local records would be more accurate than those in Georgia, Richmond or Washington.

28.  Bowie’s List states, “Col. S.P. Lumpkin, 44th Ga., Died Sep. 12, 1863, was buried in Presbyterian graveyard at Hagerstown, moved to Rose Hill.” Here is still another date of death. It should be noted by fall 1874, all Rebel remains were removed from various locations throughout Washington County to the Confederate Cemetery. Although listed, Lumpkin’s body, however, remained in the Presbyterian graveyard until almost 40 years later, when it was also re-interred in the Washington Cemetery.

29.   Lumpkin, The Lumpkin Family, pp.59-60; The information pertaining to Col. Lumpkin was recorded in 1936, in The Lumpkin Family. The writer, Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn, was a niece to the colonel.

30.   Bowie’s List; Records of Rose Hill Cemetery; Although the exact date of when Lumpkin’s remains were removed to the Confederate Cemetery is unknown, a cancelled check drawn on the Hagerstown Bank for reinterring the body carries the date, June 20, 1913; Tilberg, Gettysburg: National Military Park, p.47.

31.   Richard E. Clem, Cracker Barrel: A Unique Magazine (Hagerstown: Tri-State Printing, Inc., Funkstown, Md., 1983) pp.12-17; Taken from Coxon’s Map of 1888, the updated plaque at the Confederate Cemetery gives the names of “Gen. Fitzhugh Lee” and “Dwight D. Eisenhower” plus dates they gave their dedication and rededication speeches.

32.  During research in the 1980’s, on Col. Lumpkin, the author made contact with Samuel Pruitt, trustee of the Washington Confederate Cemetery. While in conversation with Mr. Pruitt, something triggered his mind as to material stored in a “safe deposit box” at a local bank pertaining to Lumpkin. In several days copies of the cancelled checks used with this article surfaced. The Confederate Cemetery trustee and trusted friend of the author has since also “crossed over the river.”

33.  The author received a copy of “An Old Time Georgia Christmas” from Dr. Henry Lumpkin, Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina. Justly proud, Henry mentioned in his correspondence that his grandfather had served during the War Between the States with Maj-Gen. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s Confederate Cavalry.

34.  Dr. Murray B. Lumpkin of Dalton, Ga. contacted the author after reading an ad placed in a Civil War magazine “searching for any information on Col. Samuel P. Lumpkin.” Once informed the colonel’s grave had been discovered, Dr. Lumpkin was as “thrilled” as I was from receiving his phone call. The last record Murray’s family had on the long-lost colonel “he lost a leg at Gettysburg” and had died or was left lying in an unknown Union prison. They had no idea Sam was buried in Hagerstown. During his military service (World War II) serving as Chief-of-Surgery for the U.S. Army, Murray was stationed at Valley Forge, Pa. On off-duty weekends, he would travel to Gettysburg, Sharpsburg (passing through Hagerstown) and countless church cemeteries searching for his ancestor’s grave. The former army surgeon mentioned as best he could figure, he was a distant nephew to the colonel. In 1990, Murray had the opportunity to visit Hagerstown with his son, Murray Jr., also a doctor, and paid their last respects to Col. Sam. Dr. Lumpkin ended one of his letters, “My son is not much of a Civil War Buff, but still a nice guy. Again many thanks for your interest in Sam.”