CHARLES
R. HOWELL
2nd New York Cavalry
Company C
Yaphank
Charles R. Howell
2nd NY Cavalry, Company C
Yaphank
Charles R. Howell was born in Yaphank on
August 1, 1840. He lived with this widowed mother,
Deborah, and his brother, Edmund, at the time of the 1850
U.S. census. Both Charles and Edmund were farmers.
On December 19, 1855, Reverend William
Lake conducted Charles' marriage to Betsy Homan at the
Methodist church in Port Jefferson. Charles and Betsy had
a son in 1857, Charles Edmund Howell.
On August 27, 1862, at the age of 31,
Howell enlisted with the 2nd NY Calvary for three years.
The 2nd NY cavalry was called the Harris Light, named in
honor of Senator Ira Harris of Albany, N.Y.
Howell joined the regiment in October and
was sent to Aldie, Virginia. The new recruit knew that
life as a soldier would not be easy, but there were some
difficulties Howell and others did not anticipate. In an
undated letter, he wrote:
Today I bought the NY daley times for
5 cents. The first time I have seen it out hear… I
cannot aford to pay 5 cents for a paper when money is so
scers with me. We don't get but $13 per month and we
don't know when we will get paid off. The old men here is
got 4 months pay coming to them now and they don't know
when they will get it.
While based in Aldie, Howell and the 2nd
Calvary participated in some skirmishes. They were then
moved to Fredricksburg to join General Burnside, who
amassed over 100,000 men for an assault against the
70,000 men of Robert E. Lee. General Burnside ordered an
attack upon Marye's Heights. The Confederates occupied
the top of the hill, however, and were protected by stone
walls. The Union attack was futile. By the end of the
day, they suffered 7,000 casualties; the Confederates had
1,200. Lee, while watching the carnage below, told his
officers, "It is well war is so frightful otherwise
we should become too fond of it."
After the terrible defeat at
Fredricksburg, Union forces were moved back across the
Rappahannock. The 2nd NY Cavalry was moved to Belle
Plain, Virginia, where they were assigned picket duty on
the Rappahannock. In a letter to his nephew dated January
20, 1863, Howell describes camp life at Belle Plain:
I have not got well yet. I feel week
and clomsey… I got cold out on picket we had no
tents with us and we had a snow storm. We maid a thing of
a tent with pine brush and bilt a fire in front but it
was too damp for me. I feel like an old man now.
Union Cavalry after crossing Pontoon
Bridge across the Rappahannock.
Union and Confederate pickets were posted
on either side of the river. The pickets had reached an
informal agreement not to fire on each other. They began
a lively exchange of Union coffee for Confederate
tobacco. It was not uncommon to see Union and Confederate
soldiers together on either side of the river engaged in
lively debate.
Meanwhile, Burnside, horrified by his
loss at Fredricksburg, resigned. President Lincoln
replaced him with General Joseph Hooker, who inherited an
army that was in disarray. They had not been paid in six
months, they did not have proper shelter or food, and
dysentery and scurvy made thousands of men sick. His
biggest problem was troop morale: the men were
discouraged after the defeat at Fredricksburg and
desertions were rampant. In a letter to his nephew,
Howell did not hide the discouragement that he and others
felt:
Tomorrow we have got to leave hear to
cross the Rappahannock River to get whipt again as we did
before. The rebbels is plenty thair. Thair is about
70,000 over thair for us to whip or whip us.
General Hooker set out to transform a
downtrodden army by improving food and medical care for
his troops. As morale improved, Hooker felt confident
enough to invite Lincoln to review the troops. On April
6, 1863, Howell was proud to stand there as Lincoln
reviewed the Cavalry troops. This was a definite
morale-booster. The men followed this formal occasion
with an exciting game of baseball three days later,
between the 14th Brooklyn and the Harris Light.
On June 2, 1863, the 2nd Cavalry engaged
the Confederate cavalry at Brandy Station, Beverly Ford,
and Aldie in Virginia. There were 91 casualties.
In July, Howell and the 2nd were in
Gettysburg. They were at Round Top on July 3, 1863,
pursuing Lee after his retreat from Gettysburg. While
chasing Lee, they captured two thousand prisoners and
Confederate General Ewell's entire wagon train. Howell
and the 2nd NY pursued Lee's retreating army until
October. In November, they were stationed at Stevensburg,
and remained there until the famous raid on Richmond.
In February of 1864, Howell was one of
one hundred men chosen for a daring raid. Colonel Judson
Kilpatrick, the flamboyant leader of the 2nd NY Cavalry,
had devised a plan that he felt would shorten the war.
News of his plan reached President Lincoln, who met with
Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick felt that the Confederate Capital
of Richmond was not guarded heavily enough and could be
taken by a swift cavalry raid.
The plan had a number of objectives. They
were to free the Union soldiers who were suffering at
Belle Island, a prisoner of war camp in Richmond. Another
goal was to capture Confederate leaders such as Jefferson
Davis. Additionally, Lincoln wanted Kilpatrick to
distribute copies of an amnesty proclamation for
secessionists who wanted to come back to the Union
On February 28, 1864, Kilpatrick left
with 3,500 men to strike Richmond from the north. Howell
was attached to a group of 500 led by the one-legged
colonel, Ulrich Dahlgren, which was to attack from the
south. Kilpatrick and Dahlgren met with little resistance
as they headed toward Richmond. They destroyed railroad
tracks, mills, and generally anything in their path. By
the evening of February 29, Confederate leaders in
Richmond had learned of the raid. They supplemented a
lightly guarded city with wounded soldiers and civilians.
Kilpatrick approached Richmond and lobbed about forty
shells into the outskirts of the city. Overestimating the
Confederate strength, however, he withdrew and waited for
Dahlgren. Dahlgren, meanwhile, had split his force in
half. Captain Mitchell crossed the James River and
approached Richmond from the north, while Dahlgren
crossed and approached from another direction. Howell was
still with Dahlgren as they attempted to cross the James
River. Dahlgren retained the assistance of a young black
man to show him a place where his men might cross the
river. Whether by ignorance or treachery, no one knows,
the young man led Dahlgren to an unfordable part of the
James River. Outraged, Dahlgren had the young man hanged.
They finally crossed the river and were
less than three miles from the city, but nightfall forced
them to withdraw. With Confederate cavalry pursuing them,
Dahlgren made an attempt to join Kilpatrick. Confederate
cavalry, anticipating the retreat, set up an ambush at
Old King and Queen Courthouse. At 11 p.m., an
unsuspecting Dahlgren and his men entered the trap.
Dahlgren was killed and Howell was captured. He was sent
to Belle Island, the same prison that he was sent to
liberate. He was later sent to Andersonville, Georgia, on
May 31, 1864.
Mill on James River destroyed by
Kilpatrick during the raid on Richmond.
Andersonville, officially known as Camp
Sumter, was near the small town of Americus, south of
Macon, Georgia. Americus had less than thirty people and
was close to a rail line. This, along with the fact that
the prison was deep in the south, made it an attractive
site for a prison. The twenty-seven acre prison was built
to hold 10,000 prisoners, but it eventually held more
than 32,000 men. Over 13,000 men died at Andersonville
from exposure, disease or malnutrition. When the
prisoners died, they were buried shoulder-to-shoulder in
shallow graves. The Confederate government did not have
the resources to provide proper housing or medical care
for its prisoners. Without shelter, the men constructed
"shebangs" made from items such as cloth,
mudbricks, and tree limbs. Fruits and vegetables were
rarely. Charles Howell, lacking the vitamins from fruits
and vegetables, was one of many who developed scurvy.
Worse than the lack of food was the
condition of the water. A small stream called "Sweet
Water Branch" flowed through the prison compound.
The water source served as a garbage dump for the camp
hospital and cookhouse. This was their only water supply
for drinking, washing clothes and bathing. A prisoner
latrine was built alongside the stream. After heavy rains
the latrines overflowed, sending the contents of the
latrine into the stream. This caused thousands of cases
of typhoid fever and dysentery, since this was their only
water supply for drinking and bathing.
Prison latrine runs right next to the
stream used for drinking water.
As Howell's condition worsened, he was
sent to the camp hospital. He did not recover from his
illness, and on October 17, 1864, Charles Howell died.
The cause of death was listed as scorbitus (scurvy) and
malnutrition. Howell was buried in the camp cemetery.
Ninety-two other members of the 2nd NY Cavalry also
perished in Confederate prisoner of war camps.
At the end of the war, Clara Barton and
Dorence Atwater, a former prisoner and member of the 2nd
NY Cavalry, returned to Andersonville. While a prisoner,
Atwater had recorded the deaths and burials of the Union
prisoners by name and number. Barton and Atwater returned
to Andersonville to identify and mark the Union graves.
Through their efforts, the Andersonville National
Cemetery was dedicated in 1865.
Graves of Union prisoners at
Andersonville.
Atwater's records also assisted widows in
filing for pensions. In 1866, Betsy Howell filed for a
widow's pension with the government. Dorence Atwater
provided her with the following affidavit:
This is to certify that I Dorence
Atwater of late a private in Co. D second NY Harris Light
Cav. was a prisoner of war at Andersonville Georgia and
while there kept the record of deaths of Federal
prisoners. And I do further certify that the name of C R
Howell CO. C 2nd NY Cav does appear upon the death
register as having died Oct 17, 1864 of Scorbitus and the
number of his grave is 11,064
Dorence Atwater
April 19, 1866
Washington City
Betsy Howell collected $8 a month and an
extra $2 for her son until he reached the age of sixteen.
She never remarried. Betsy Howell lived with her son,
Charles, and his wife, Matilda, until her death on
November 4, 1899.
The younger Charles Howell grew up and to
become a stagedriver. He eventually opened Howell's
General Store on Main Street in Yaphank, and was a very
successful merchant until his death in 1940.