A Memento of Misery

 

Among the many unusual artifacts in the collections of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier there is a small piece of wood, apparently kept as a kind of souvenir. Fortunately, there is a soldier-link to this particular scrap from the past. It belonged to Pvt. John Troutner, Co. A, 30^th Indiana Infantry. Troutner, born about 1842 or 1843 according to census records, lived in Allen County, Indiana, before the Civil War. The 1860 census shows eighteen year old John living in the household of his aged father, John, much younger mother Francis, and two siblings, Phillip and Phebie. Young Jon mustered into the 30^th Indiana in nearby Fort Wayne on September 24, 1861.

The 30^th Indiana Infantry fought in a number of western theater battles, including: Shiloh, Corinth, Stone’s River, the Tullahoma Campaign, and Chickamauga. It was at Chickamauga that John Troutner’s war experience changed. During that desperate battle’s first day Troutner ended up a prisoner of war. Eventually, he landed at Camp Sumter, Georgia, better known as Andersonville.

Becoming a prisoner at this point in the Civil War was one of the worst fates that a soldier could endure. Earlier in the war an agreed upon system often allowed for prompt and efficient prisoner exchanges. That system broke down after the Emancipation Proclamation when the United States army started enlisting large numbers of African American soldiers. Confederates, unwilling to recognize black men as legitimate soldiers, refused to include them in exchanges. In retaliation, President Abraham Lincoln suspended all further exchanges. The breakdown in the exchange system resulted in rampant overcrowding and deplorable conditions at both northern and southern prisoner of war camps.

At places like Andersonville, which held as many as 30,000 prisoners in an area originally designed to hold 10,000, soldiers were left to their own devices to erect shelter and find ways to survive. Unable to obtain new clothing, proper nutrition, or medical care, soldiers in prisoner of war camps, North and South, died by the thousands. Andersonville claimed nearly 13,000 alone.

In addition to all the threats to one’s health, soldiers also suffered from boredom. To pass the time men carved rings from meat bones or whittled wooden chains or other trinkets. John Troutner carved a wooden ball-in-cage during his confinement, which also resides in the Park’s collections.

An accompanying post-war tintype photograph of Troutner includes a paper label stating: “Captured at Battle of Chickamauga and sent to Andersonville prison. Released from prison at the end of the war and sent to an Army Hospital. Lived out life in Adams County, Indiana as a ‘feeble minded’ shell of a man.” Records show that Troutner mustered out of his unit on May 30, 1865. Census records show him living until at least 1910. His veteran’s gravestone in Allen County does not record a death date.

For some reason John Troutner kept that small scrap of wood from the stockade that confined him and challenged his very survival. Perhaps it was a memento of what he had endured, or maybe it served as a memorial for comrades who died there. We will likely never know why he saved it, but its mere existence shows it contained some importance to him and that time in his life.