William Newby, alias "Dan Benton", alias "Rickety Dan", alias "Crazy Jack", or The soldier's return; a true and wonderful story of mistaken identity

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

CAPT. G. J. GEORGE.

ALIAS "dan BENTON," ALIAS " RICKETY DAN," ALIAS " CRAZY JACK,"

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE.

Introduction and Prkface; iii.

I. Early Life of WiIvWAm Nfwby ... i

Introduction

EARIvY in 1 86 1 William Newby enlisted in Company D, 40tli Illinois Infantry, along with many of his old White County neighbors and friends. At Shiloh, on Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, when the rebels made their first grand charge upon the Union lines, the 40th met them in that deadly conflict, and in a few moments many fell. Many were killed and many wounded, and Newby, who was left on the field, was thought to be wounded fatally. The regiment retreated, and three days later his comrades thought they buried him with the rest. And this fact was so reported to the government. It now seems that they were mistaken, and that, instead, he was taken prisoner and carried away into the South to Belle Isle, thence to Andersonville, where, although he had lost his reason from the wound upon his head, he was kept in that pen, and known there as " Crazy Jack," his identi-

iii

IV INTRODUCTION.

fication being complete. After being released he wandered over the world for twenty-nine years, finally coming to his own country, where he was discovered, captured, and brought home to his family, whom he did not know. Through the effects of kind treatment and familiar surroundings his reason was to some extent restored. In due time he applied for discharge from the service and for a pension. The case being an important one, the government put upon the claim its special detective and examiner, who, after getting Newby's disjointed statements, and finding he had been at Nashville, Tenn., induced the claimant to go down to Tennessee, where a fellow by the name of "Rickety Dan" Benton was known before the war. Benton had many points in common with the claimant, and the agent found many people there who were willing to swear that Newby and Benton were identical. He was then brought back from Nashville to Springfield, 111., where he was jailed, indicted, and tried as a fraud. One trial is over, and another pending. One hundred and forty of his old neighbors swear he is Newby ; thirty Tennesseeans swear that he is Benton ; six men who were in Andersonville swear that he is "Crazy Jack" — Three in One.

INTRODUCTION. V

We then undertake the task of reducing three to one, and that one to be William Newby, who served his country as a member of Company D, 40th Illinois Infantry, and to assist in restoring him to his family and to his rights as a brave soldier.

Preface

OO greatly has the public mind been exercised ^^ over this strange matter, so famous has the history of this great trial become, so astonishing the verdict of the jury, and so eager is the public to get hold of the facts concerning this manysided man, that I deem it my duty to satisfy public curiosity, and set forth the truth, which the world is sure to welcome.

I knew William Newby in my boyhood. Our fathers were pioneers, and worked many years on adjoining farms. We joined the same company when we went to the war. At the battle of Shiloh he was shot before my eyes, and I saw him writhing on the ground. Three days after, the men, his neighbors and mine, whom I detailed to bury the dead, reported that they buried Newby.

I believed him to be dead, so I reported to the government.

vii viii PRKFACE.

For thirty years I shared, in common with his family, his neighbors, comrades, and the world at large, the belief that the record was true. That convictions of such long standing should be called in question ; that traditions, hoary with age, should be overthrown; that the records should be proven false, and that the grave should give up its dead, seems most strange.

The blunt, brutal fact is, however, that William Newby, the man who "kind o' quivered and fell over on his side" when the bullet struck him on the head at Shiloh, is to-day held prisoner by the government, for knocking at the door of the War Department, and asking for his discharge, and for compensation for past services and sufferings.

This I am forced to believe. So his old mother, his wife and his children believe. And such is the belief of thousands who have seen and heard the evidences of the poor old wanderer's return.

For the faith of these the public demands a reason.

That the case is full of mystery there is no question. In the narrative you have before you the wreck of a man who is recognized as being three different men once known in different

PREFACE. IX

states of the Union, all of whom disappeared from the sight and knowledge of men more than a quarter of a century ago.

A cloud of witnesses recognized him as William Newby, of the Company D, 40th Illinois Infantry, who was supposed to have been buried at Shiloh.

A crowd of witnesses from the South rise up and declare him to be one Dan Benton, a deformed and rickety boy, afterward a vagabond and "a mover-on on the face of the earth," who shambled up and down the " Granny White Pike" in Davidson County, Tennessee, many years ago.

Others know him as Crazy Jack, a wounded and demented prisoner in Andersonville, whom they had often dragged out of the slime and muddy water of that historic stream in 1864.

All these parties swear point blank to their man, and, making allowance for bias due to sympathy, prejudice, or politics, they swear to what they believe to be the truth.

The liyes of the three characters. Crazy Jack, Rickety Dan, and William Newby, have become so mixed up in the minds of men, and so curiously merged into that of the being we call William Newby, that the truth concerning them may never be known.

X PREFACE.

In the narrative I propose to treat each of these characters separately, and hope to vindicate the claims of the old soldier who stands in the shadow-land where the light of reason sometimes stirs the dreams of the past, and helplessly he looks around and pathetically exclaims, "If I ain't Bill Newby, who in the hell am I ?"

I hope, in these pages, to vindicate the judgment of the hundreds of old neighbors, old comrades, and old friends who now believe that Newby was not killed at Shiloh, but was stunned, disabled, and carried away a prisoner into the South.

I hope to vindicate the honor of the gray-haired wife, who believes that the man she now claims to be her husband to be the same whose love, cares and sorrows she shared so many years on the farm, now mortgaged to raise money for his defense.

To benefit the family of William Newby, financially, is, in part, the object of the sale of this book.

The bitter fight made by the Pension Depart- , ment upon the old soldiers, and especially the I tactics employed by the oflficers, have stirred up in the minds of many the questions —

PREFACE. xi

Pensions? or No Pensions?

Will the government Will it point them to redeem its pledges to the "two open doors — the old soldiers? or, the poor house or the

grave?"

While the sense of right and justice is deeplyimplanted in the hearts of the American people, it must be acknowledged that at this time there is great uncertainty and unrest in the minds of many as to the outcome of this matter, and the head of many an old soldier would rest easier upon his pillow if he knew it would be answered in the affirmative.

Men are prone to shirk the payment of old obligations. We often see a man who is willing to thrust off a father or a mother onto the cold charities of the world, not deeming the sacrifices of their early life to merit protection and care in their old age. It should not be a matter of wonder, therefore, that, after a third of a century, some men should grow weary of paying the debt due to those who defended the country in its time of need; those —

" Whose tottering steps and ancient scars Are the living records of their country's wars."

Had this old relict of the war, this "last leaf," this solitary remnant of a mighty army, been xii PREFACE.

permitted to die without applying for pension or discharge, he might have passed his days in solitude, surrounded by his wife and children, and ended in peace a life which for misfortune, mystery and misery has no parallel.

WILLIAM NEWBY AND WIFE.

OR,

The SOLDIER'S Return.

CHAPTER I. THE EARI.Y LIFE OF WII^IvIAM NEWBY

TN the interest of truth, and for the purpose of -*- setting forth the facts in the early Hfe of WilHam Newby in their true order, I have, in this year of our Lord, 1893, go^^ to the archives, where all child-history is filed away, where all infant smiles and tears are recorded, where all youthful joys and sorrows, long forgotten by ourselves, are treasured, and, like the flowers from the coffins of our beloved dead, kept moist with memory's tears — to the mother.

Although weighed down by the cares and experiences of nearly a hundred years, and the fatigues of a recent journey in behalf of her

I boy (sad, too, for when she started to come home from the recent trial, she had said : " Tell them that I gave my boy to the government when they needed him, and now they ought to give him back to me"), the result of the trial, so unexpected to his prosecutors, so unaccountable to the community in general, and to his friends, brought deadly sorrow to her poor old heart. When I greeted her and spoke about her son, thinking that something was being done in behalf of her boy, she exclaimed: "Are you trying to do something for my Bill? If you are, I want to fling in something." Assuring her that I only wanted a few of the recollections of his early life, she returned a few coins to her pocket, and dropped with alacrity into the subject dearest to an old mother's heart — the hard days, the precious days, "when the children were little."

Running on, about as indicated, she mixed comparison with history in a manner which showed how closely she had compared the man with the boy. "I was born," she said, "in 1802. I had six sons and six daughters. William was my second boy, and he was born in Smith County, Tennessee, in May, 1826. We came to Illinois when he was six years old. We were on

HIS EARI.Y I.IFK. 3

the road six weeks, and stopped a few miles from here in Wayne County. We raised three crops over in Wayne and then moved here, William was a good hand on the farm; for a boy, he was a powerful worker. When he was very young his daddy put him to feeding and taking care of the horses. That was a part of his occupation, for he delighted to harness and manage horses.

"In many things he has the same ways that he used to have. He works around horses the same way. He used to carry a pocket full of squirrel-skin strings to mend the gears with. It took two teams to keep William going when he worked on the farm. He would lead an extra horse to the field, and when the one that he was plowing got tired, he would work the other. He used to call me 'mammy' before he went to the war, and he speaks it in the same way now. He used to work so hard, and he would come to the house and say, 'mammy, I'm hungry,' and he would eat a whole pie. He does that same way now. William was a mighty venturesome child. He wasn't afraid of anything or anybody. I went off one time and told him not to fool with a wild horse that we had, and when I came home, bless you, he had caught that horse and had made him gentle, and had hauled a whole string of fence with him. He always wanted to conquer everything ; wanted to break everything in, and that's his disposition now."

In these few rude touches we can see a boy that is hearty, hardy, trustworthy, fearless to a fault, and industrious as the day is long. Later years fulfilled the promises of his youth. I recollect well, in my younger days, when the young men prided themselves upon their muscle, that none of the boys could run Bill Newby to the shade in harvest times, and few of them craved the other end of his hand-spike at log-roUing.

At the age of twenty-three he left the family hive, selected Fereby Files, the daughter of a neighbor, to join with him in the love and labors of a new home. By his labor and thrift he had raked together enough money to enter five "forties" of government land, and with his ax on his shoulder, and with "Ferebe" and a stout will to back him, he entered his new domain.

"Hard work and hominy," an abundance of rough and healthy food, and of rough, hard labor, growing farm, full barns, increasing thrift, "with now and then a baby to cheer them on their way," sums up his domestic life up to the war.

HIS EARLY I.IFE.

As to social life in general, the man that is not familiar with the ways of a new country must not imagine for an instant that because men were obliged to work hard for a living, that therefore the people were uninformed and ignorant, and that life was tame and uneventful.

At log-rollings and house-raisings, and at the village gatherings on Saturdays, all questions, public and private, political and religious, were discussed with a vigor and settled with a promptness which often gave many the headache.

At large political gatherings the merits of rival candidates were often settled with fistic arguments inside of a ring of sympathetic partisans. I make the statement on the authority of two distinguished lawyers, one an ex-supreme judge of this state, that fifty fights have been known to occur on a single Saturday during a term of court, and that it was not an uncommon thing to have the court adjourn for a time on account of the fistic discussions on the outside.

The people of that time, as I remember them, were no more brutal than now, but it was the fashion of the times. The moral standard was not so high, perhaps. Men were more of a law unto themselves. I leave this question of comparison to the moralist, however, and simply note

6 WIIvI^IAM NEWBY.

the fact that the man that made himself felt in the neighborhood was the man of strong convictions and a strong, sturdy frame. Such a man was WilHam Newby. He was, in politics especially, a man of very strong convictions. And here, for the sake of space and perspicuity, I will drop into the narrative of his old mother.

"William," she said, "was a Whig, but when the war broke out he was a Republican. He was a powerful man for a young man, and he was strong for the Union. All of my boys were. One night his brother-in-law, who was a. Southern sympathizer, came along the road by my house and carelessly hollered for Jeff. Davis. William happened to be there unbeknowns to him, and he jumped on his horse, and chased him up the road to chastise him. All my boys were strong Union men. They threatened to hang my oldest son in Jefferson County, and he had to come down here among his friends. William enlisted in the army the 8th day of Aiigust, 1861. Three of my boys went off together to the war. I think they went to Camp Butler, Illinois."

This far thirty-five years have passed in this man's life ; a life thus far no more eventful than your own or your neighbor's; a life that may be

HIS EARI,Y I.IPE. 7

summed up in a very few lines ; a life like yours or mine, that might be crowded into an epitaph, thus —

here; lies WIIvIvIAM NEWBY,

Born in Tennessee in 1826, Moved to Illinois in 1832, Married Ferba Files, 1849, Joined the army in 1861, Was kil— ..????

But here the pen drops. An apparition arises. It brings with it strange tales. It represents William not as dead, but as very much alive, and walking on the earth these thirty years ; walking, not as a disquieted spirit, but in human form — in at least three human forms, so mixed and mingled with each other as to be the impersonation of a great mystery which defies the keenest research, and has heretofore baffled the efforts •of the brightest minds.

In the next chapter the reader will see William Newby enrolled, weighed, measured, and placed in the ranks of Company D, 40th Illinois Infantry. When the battle of Shiloh is over, where is he? Killed? and like Lazarus, carried into Abraham's bosom? or disabled? stunned? and, like the rich man, carried (finally) into — Andersouville ?

MC CORD CO. CIN. O.

A MAP SHOWING THE POSITION OF COMPANY D AT

FHE BATTLE OF SHILOH, SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 1862.

Chapter II. Was Newby Killed At Shiloh?

U V\7ILUAM NEWBY, age 35; hair dark; ^^ eyes gray; height 5 ft. 11 in." Such is the description of William Newby as it appears upon the records of the government when he entered the army in 1861. From Fairfield, where he was enrolled, he went with his company to Camp Butler, thence to Jefferson Barracks, thence to Paducah, Ky., and finally, on Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, we find him with his regiment in Sherman's brigade, in camp a little north of Owl Creek, near Shiloh's meeting-house, answering to roll-call for the last time. The fates were hovering around us. In two hours Death had taken out his toll from our ranks, and Oblivion had marked Newby for his own.

In order to throw some light on the question, "Was Newby killed at Shiloh?" it is proper that I should set forth the events of that day as I saw them ; and inasmuch as his post was very

14 WIIvI^IAM NEWBY.

near my side I may be as competent to state the part that he took in this engagement as another, and there is no man in the world more desirous to record these events faithfully.

The first question always asked is "Was it a surprise? " For this, every man has his own answer. I am willing to state most positively that I was surprised.

It was on a beautiful sunny morning, April 6, 1862. The reveille had been sounded, the men had answered to their names, and breakfast was in a more or less advanced stage of preparation among the different messes. I was multiplying contrivances to reduce my tincupful of coffee to a drinking temperature, when the bullets began to fall in the camp. This incident, trifling in itself, has always been proof to me -" as strong as Holy Writ " that our superior officers did not know that the enemy were moving on us that morning in full force. For my part, I have always regretted that Sherman did not own up to being slipped up on unawares that Sunday morning, or, at least, that it was a surprise in some measure. Picket firing had been going on for a day or two, and we had become somewhat used to the crack of rifles at the front, but here was another state of affairs. Z-z-z-z-p

WAS HE KII.I.ED AT SHII.OH? 1 5

a bullet ; z-z-z-z-p another. Here were signs of a real battle — signs as unmistakable as the negro's signs of rain : " Thunder, lightning, and big drops falling in the mill-pond." An " ager," totally unlike the Wabash variety, seized me. The long roll sounded, and the boys fell in. It was our first battle. We faced south, crossed the creek, advanced up the hill, and soon saw the enemy sweeping on to the attack. We were ordered to fall back. We retreat across the creek, pass through our camp and through the woods in as good order as the nature of the case would permit, until we reached a small stream a quarter of a mile back (north) of our camp. In about a half an hour we reform, or, to be accurate, we reassemble. By this time the panicky feeling had passed away, and all the men were full of fight. We were drawn up in line on the brink of a little hill, near a swampy, little creek. It was here, about thirty paces from this stream, that I detailed^Sergeant Merritt and R. H. Maricle to take William Watkins, who had just been struck by a stray missile, to a place of safety. This was their principal participation in the battle until their services in burying the dead after the smoke of the battle had cleared away.

1 6 WII^IvIAM NEWBY.

After we had reformed we advanced in good order, regiment line of march, east about a quarter of a mile, or about the same distance we had fallen back. Here we were put in line of battle facing south, and were marched about six hundred yards front, where we halted for half an hour on the north side of a crooked little creek or ravine. The enemy were seen pushing through a sage-field in front of us, and we were ordered to charge.

Into the charge we good officers mounted, and the gray-coats charged into the woods and down upon us. Our line of battle was formed, say, seventy-five feet south of the ravine. The companies, as they stood in line of battle, were in alphabetical order, beginning with A on the right, and K on the left, ten companies, letter J being omitted.

The left of Company C would rest on the right of Company D, which was Newby's company, and the right of Company E would rest on the left of D. Remember, they were charging south ; the right, or Company A, to the west, and the left, or Company K, to the east. (See map.) The men, coming to the creek, which was very crooked, would tend, more or less, to cross it at right angles, and would be faced east

WAS HE KILLED AT SHILOH? 1 7

or west, as the crooks or turns might bring them. As the line of battle was only a few steps south of this creek, and as there were trees and logs there, which were used by the soldiers to protect them from the bullets of the enemy, it is easily seen how men belonging to one company would naturally be thrown beside members of adjoining companies on their right or left, and also how men from different companies would be liable to see Newby in or after the fight.

In the arrangement of the men the largest were always at the head of the company next to the orderly sergeant. Adam Files, being the largest, was next to me, then came the three Newby boys, William, James and Whaley, all large men.

Files, the Newbys, and Levi Shores — another large man — pushed about twenty feet ahead of Captain Hooper and myself, and the captain, thinking that they were exposing themselves too much to the enemy, went forward and told them to get down and fight low. Coming back to my side, he turned around, and, seizing my arm, he pointed to Adam Files, who had been instantly killed. Bullets were flying like hail, and in another moment Hooper himself fell at my feet dead. In a few minutes more (I can not tell the exact length of time) I saw William Newby, who had been lying low and firing on the enemy, squirming around on his right side, turning his head to the north, with his hand on his head, and blood flowing from the left side of his head, somewhere above the ear. He was near a tree, by which I think he stopped and ceased his efforts to crawl away. Whaley Newby lost the use of his right arm here. James escaped unhurt, and has since died in Texas.

The fire from the enemy becoming more and more deadly, and the officers and Captain Hooper having been killed, we retreated, leaving seven men on the field.

The question is, was William Newby killed? Marion Files sa}-s he saw him by that tree in a sitting posture, and that Newby told him that he was badly hurt, or shot to pieces, or both — he was not certain wdiich.

James Watson saw him after he was shot, and says that he was not shot in the forehead, and that he was not dead when he saw him. Sergeant Rose, John Null, and others, say that they saw him lying on the field, wounded on the side of the head.

William McNeely, who knew Newby, saw the dead about noon on Monday, about twenty-four

WAS HE KILLED AT SHILOH? 19

hours after the battle, and he says that Newby was not one of them.

Peter J. Files, the hospital steward, whose duty it was to look after the wounded, says that Newby was not among the dead on the field on Monday afternoon. He was a brother-in-law to Newby, and a nephew of Adam Files, who was killed within a few feet of where Newby was shot, and whom he recognized. Mr. Files claimed, when the report of the battle was being made up, that we would have to look somewhere else for "Bill." The following is an extract from a letter just received from Mr. Files, which will explain itself.

Heber, Ark., August 11, 1893.

Comrade G. J. George:

In regard to Bill Newby, I would say that I never saw him after he was shot. You doubtless know that I was on detail in hospital when the battle commenced, but joined the company on the left. Newby was on the right, so I did not see him shot ; but after we drove the rebels back on Monday, past where our men were killed, I went back to where our men were killed and wounded, to take them off the field. That was Monday afternoon. I made a diligent search for

Bill Newby, but could not find him. I found all the rest of our dead; I think forty in number. It was easy enough to recognize the dead when I first went back. I always did know our burying party never buried Newby, but , supposed he was buried by some other party, for I made diligent search for his body, but it was not anywhere near where any of the rest of the bodies were. It was claimed at the time that he was shot near the bodies of Uncle Ad (Files) and Captain Hooper. I knew that couldn't be so. I see it was sworn to that they turned him over and took a knife and some tobacco out of his pocket. Now, Bill Newby never used tobacco. I am satisfied that I saw the body of Hi Morris on the field. . . . The reason that I was not at trial was, I was away from home, and did not get home until the 19th, and supposed that the trial was over before I knew it was sfoing on. Yours truly,

Peter J. Fii^es.

After the battle he wrote to his sister, Mrs. Newby, not to be in a hurry about a pension — that Bill was not found there.

William Murphy, who died about a year ago, told me that he saw Newby after he was shot,

WAS HE KILLED AT SHILOH? 21

sitting Up by a tree. Thomas Ellis, who also died about a year ago, said he saw him alive, and knew precisely where he was hit. He was seen by about twelve comrades after he was wounded, but no one claims to have seen him dead on the field of Shiloh. We marched and fought eastwardly along the Purdy road, and at the "Hornet's Nest" we held the enemy at bay until Prentiss was captured, when we retired into camp about a mile back (north) of where we were encamped in the morning.

On Monday morning we faced south again, and struck the enemy on the Purdy road, east of the point of our engagement on Sunday morning. We fought and drove them the next day without further loss, and camped Monday night about three miles southeast of the place where we first saw the enemy. On Tuesday we struck northwestwardly for our old camp, reaching that point about twelve o'clock on Tuesday.

Here the detail was made by me to go and bury the dead who fell on the bank of the ravine. They went and buried them on the afternoon of Tuesday, certainly more than fifty hours after they were killed. These facts are admitted by all except W. H. Merritt, one of the two men who positively swear that they buried Newby, and he claims that he buried him on Monday.

The men detailed went and dug a long ditch, and buried seven, including William Newby.

Did they or did they not? Is it possible that they could be mistaken? I believe now they were. Why? In the first place, we had seen him badly wounded. The impression among the boys was that he was probably killed, and the detail went upon the ground expecting to find him, and was ready to take any large man that might be lying around there for Newby, in the absence of the man himself.