POW Bedichek: "What were you fighting for, James?"

On the road again!

We are headed across the country on a journey that will take us to Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. I am hitting spots that are connected to several of my ancestral lines, both maternal and paternal. It is going to be quite a challenge to stay focused and be prepared for each stop, but I'll do my best...

Camp Chase

Camp Chase Military Prison, Columbus, OH

First stop, Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. Today, only a graveyard of Confederate soldiers remains. It is on a busy road with all kinds of businesses around -- most surreal, an ice cream stand right next door.

I walked into the adjacent public library and asked for info about the camp, explaining that an ancestor of mine had been imprisoned there. The librarian said, "Wow, you are one of the few people who has stopped in here to ask about an ancestor who was held at Camp Chase and survived." James Madison Bedichek, my great-great-grandfather, was that person.

Photo of Camp Chase during the War

Photo of Camp Chase during the War

According to stories from Beryl Beard Yoder, James's grand-daughter, he was a cunning and nigh invincible soldier -- seeming to have at least nine lives. The tales are very entertaining -- full of suspense with multiple last-minute escapes after hiding in haystacks and under floorboards and dressing up like a farm boy to avoid capture. I have been able to validate only a fraction of her stories, but I do not fault her in any way. She did live next to her grandparents until age 16 and attended their school, the Bedichek Academy -- so she would have heard the stories "straight from the horse's mouth" -- multiple times over the years, I imagine.

The question is: "How much did the horse exaggerate?"

By the time Beryl was 5, these stories were 40 years old -- old enough to grow and mature. Regardless of the veracity of Beryl's stories, I do know that James and his older brother, FA, Jr, served as Confederates and were both captured at least once. My primary question is: "How did the brothers, sons of a recent Swiss immigrant, become so committed to the southern 'cause' that they were willing to put their lives on the line?"

The Boys' Heritage

The first Bedichek (Bezdíček) in my ancestry to immigrate to the United States, Frederick Augustus (FA), was Swiss, born of a Czech father and Swiss mother. In 1837, he left Switzerland and arrived as a young man in New York, establishing himself as a cabinetmaker. Within three years, he had moved to Virginia and met and married Matilda Jividen, of lengthy Virginia lineage. Matilda bore three children in the first five years of marriage and died in 1850 when the youngest, Mary, was about 5 years old. There is no record of FA remarrying.

From my research, I have found no evidence that FA and Matilda or Matilda's parents were enslavers. After Matilda's death, FA remained in Virginia and supported the family with his cabinetmaking. However, by 1860, he had transitioned to farming in Johnson County, Missouri 60 miles southeast of Kansas City near what is known as Missouri's Little Dixie. This area was settled by southerners from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee who brought their hemp and tobacco farming, and enslaver culture, with them.

The timing of this move is puzzling to me. FA, a single father of three teenagers, moved his family into an area -- with which he had no connection -- that was rife with bloodshed. It was near the end of an era known as "Bleeding Kansas" just before Kansas' admission to the Union as a free state. The Missouri/Kansas border was a dangerous place, according to Wikipedia, "Bleeding Kansas demonstrated that armed conflict over slavery was unavoidable. Its severity made national headlines, which suggested to the American people that the sectional disputes were unlikely to be resolved without bloodshed, and it, therefore, acted as a preface to the American Civil War." Most people moving to the area at that time were staunch abolitionists or adamantly pro-slavery. "Each side of the slavery question saw a chance to assert itself in Kansas, and it quickly became the nation's prevailing ideological battleground, and the most violent place in the country. (Wikipedia)

Why go there? Perhaps he heard stories in Virginia of the glorious Little Dixie area and its fertile land. But, FA was a cabinetmaker who was not an enslaver--and he did not start enslaving people when he moved there. For some reason, he left his carpentry for farming and left Virginia for Missouri. For now, I do not know why.

The War Begins

April 1861, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter and the Civil War began. One year later, the first round of volunteers were about to complete their year of service and head home. The Confederate army was in dire need of more soldiers, so they enacted the first conscription law in US history for men aged 18-35. On April 18, 1862, twenty-year-old FA, Jr, took the oath as a Confederate.

In August 1863, nineteen-year-old James participated in the bloody guerilla raid on Lawrence, Kansas with Quantrill and a young Jesse James (age 16) that took the lives of 160. He then enlisted in the Confederate Army in February 1864. After engaging in several battles that year, he was eventually captured in November 1864 at The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee and after a month in Louisville he was sent on to Camp Chase in January 1865 to join the other 9,000 men there. Lucky for him, the Camp closed only a few months later in May and he was released. As far as I know, his military career ended then.

Why?

Did father FA think he was moving his teens farther away from the pre-War "action" or to a place that "needed" some southern sympathizers to "hold the ground?" John Brown raided Harper's Ferry in October 1859. It was several hundred miles away, but did that spook FA?

In Missouri, the brothers lived on the dividing line between the North and the South. They could have enlisted with the Union, but they chose the Confederacy. The brothers did not enlist as volunteers, even though they were old enough. They enlisted after conscription began. Did they go willingly? Begrudgingly? Their family did not have a tradition of enslaving, nor did they depend on enslaving others for their livelihood. They arrived in the area at the end of the Bleeding Kansas era of guerilla warfare, so they had no personal reason for retribution. If they were fighting for "a way of life" they felt was threatened. What was it??

It seems that the brothers were just fighting for "the South" -- their "team," their "tribe." Did they lose anything when their "side" lost? Not that I can tell. They withstood some injuries, probably hunger, lots of discomfort, fearful battles, but didn't lose their life, like many did. When the war was over, they were released from the POW camp and went home with some great war stories and carried on with their lives. They were lucky.

James' Legacy

James was a proud southerner, as were and are his progeny--though I never remember a Confederate flag glorified or flying in my family. James and his wife Lucretia lived a happy life with opportunities and freedom. They trained as teachers and opened a school in Central Texas. They were revered and respected as educators who believed in the power of a liberal arts education. Their son, Roy Bedichek, and his wife Lillian were liberal and forward-thinking educators who supported the rights of African-Americans and the poor in their paid and volunteer work.

I still wonder: "So what were you fighting for, James?"