I address you in behalf of my only son Major William S. Basinger, who belonged to General Lee’s Army, was captured on the 6th April, & is now a prisoner on Johnson’s Island; you will confer an everlasting obligation by having your all powerful influence in obtaining his immediate release.
By the misfortunes of the country I have lost all my means of
living, am advanced in life & am suffering from an entire loss of health, which makes me incapable of labor, else I would perform & I being entirely dependent on my son, makes his return a case of humanity. Knowing your kindly disposition in promoting the interests of the people, I have (?) to trespass on your time & attention believing that through your generous heart I will soon see my long absent son.
From Fold3 Confederate record collections, this copy of a letter written by W. W. Lawton, who was a James Island Lawton:
The undersigned would respectfully state that about the first day of August AD 1861, two of his slaves named Paris about eighteen years of age and William about seventeen years of age absconded from his plantation on James Island, that he has never seen them since; nor has he heard anything of them except from a statement contained in an extract from the New York Herald (newspaper) in the Charleston Courier of the (blank) 1861.From this statement the undersigned was induced to believe and does believe that the said slaves while on their way to the Blockading vessel off Charleston bar, were taken possession of by one of the United States transport Steamers, that he is prepared to produce the extract from the New York Herald above referred to together with some additional proof of the facts herein stated — March 8th 1862.
I’m sifting through copious amounts of files regarding the Lawton family of St. Peter’s Parish during the war years of 1861-1865. I found these collections on Fold3.
After the war, Confederate citizens had to take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America. Some did so grudgingly, and some took it as a source of relief in order to get back to some sort of normal life.
W. J. Lawton needed help. He had a “delicate” wife, 3 daughters under the age of ten, an aging mother- and father-in-law, and the families of two of his deceased brothers. I haven’t read enough correspondence regarding oaths of allegiance to determine if there was a type of form letter that was used as standard practice. Perhaps someone out there knows more about this subject, and can advise the rest of us.
We know that there were several W. J. Lawtons, but I definitely know that this one is Winborn Joseph Lawton, because he states his full name and that of his father, Benjamin T. D. Lawton.
Georgia
Dougherty County
To His Excellency Andrew Johnson President of the U. S.
The Petition of Winborn J. Lawton of said State & County Respectfully Sheweth That he was born on the 30th day of Sept 1817 in the State of South Carolina Buford (sic) District of humble parents (his father Benj. T. D. Lawton being a house carpenter) that by frugality & industry your petitioner had acquired a considerable property before the year 1861 when the war broke out between the United States & what was called the Confederate States. That your petitioner then owned over one hundred Slaves & several thousand acres of land with the necessary appliances to work his negroes in the business of raising cotton. Your petitioner further sheweth that he was raised & believed in the doctrine of the Virginia & Kentucky Resolution & in the doctrine that a State had the abstract right to seceed from the General Government. That when his State (the State of Georgia) withdrew from the United States Government your petitioner then belonging to the militia of Georgia Volunteered to bear arms in her defense & was made by the unanimous choice of the 2nd Georgia Cavalry a Colonel of State Volunteers which Regiment was turned over to the Confederate forces by the authorities of Georgia. Your Petitioner feels that he performed what he then thought his duty as a Soldier with humanity & becoming kindness to all prisoners who fell into his hands
Your petitioner never intended to remain in the service of the Southern Army one day after he should be released from his duty as a militia man, as his profession & life was peace & not war & on the 23rd day of September 1862 your petitioner tendered his resignation & then left the service & never again returned to it only as compelled by subsequent legislation of the So Called confederate Congress —
Your Petitioner has a delicate wife & helpless children, all being daughters under Ten years of age. Your petitioner has the families of two brothers, one with six & the other with seven children, rendered peniless by the ravages of war to look after & support his two brothers having died one immediately before & the other during the war, neither of whom were in the military service. Your petitioner has an aged & infirm father-in-law with his wife to sustain, who were rendered poor by the war. Your petitioner desires to look after the well being & happiness of his negroes to whom he is very much attached as not one of them left his service or proved unfaithful to him during the four years war. And without his land & stock on his plantations (which is all of the property your petitioner owns) he would be unable in any way to provide for them. Your petitioner claims in a (?) since the benefit of President Lincoln’s amnesty proclamation of July 1862 as it did not expire until 25th of September 1862, & your petitioner tendered his resignation the 23rd of Sept 1862 & left
the service as appears by exhibit (A) at Bardstown Kentucky Agt Wats of the Federal Army of Bardstown will also testify & never again voluntarily entered the army during the war but was a bonded farmer as appears by exhibit (B) on the 20th of April 1864 at which time he was forced either to bond or go into service.
Your Petitioner having taken the Oath as prescribed in your proclamation of May 1865 hopes he will prove himself a true & loyal citizen of the United States Government & humbly prays Your Excellency’s pardon for his participation in the past Rebellion.
W. J. Lawton
July 4th 1865
While he doesn’t mention his deceased brothers by name, he’s referring to William Seabrook Lawton (not the Doctor William Seabrook Lawton of Savannah and Guyton) who died before the war and Alexander Benjamin Lawton who died early in the war. Another Lawton researcher, a descendant of this William Seabrook Lawton, can’t locate a marriage record for him because supposedly the church records of Charleston, SC, were burned. I had hoped to find something in the old newspapers that are online, but haven’t had any luck.
Who knows? Surprising and unexpected answers still pop up.
Leslie and I went to Guyton in search of a historic marker. He’s a good spotter and found it immediately.
The marker is set next to a wide driveway turned parking lot for an office. If you stand with the street to your back, that office is to your right…
And a private residence to your left.
A longer view to the left shows another house of a similar style and vintage, both with red metal roofs with standing seams.
In May 1862 the Confederate Government established a General Hospital in Guyton, Georgia. This hospital was located on a nine acre tract of land between Central Railroad, a determining factor in locating hospitals, and current Georgia Highway 119, Lynn Bonds Avenue and Pine Street. The end of May saw five people on the medical staff at this hospital. Five months later the number had reached 46 people including surgeons, assistant surgeons, contract physicians, hospital stewards, ward masters, matrons, ward matrons, assistant matrons, nurses, cooks, and laundry workers. By May 1863, this hospital had a medical staff of 67 people. Confederate documents reveal that this hospital had 270 beds and 46 fireplaces. When the hospital was filled to capacity the Guyton Methodist Church was used to take in patients who could not be placed in the hospital. Surgeon William H. Whitehead was the Surgeon-in-Charge from May 1862 until February 1863, when Surgeon William S. Lawton took charge and served in this capacity until the hospital was abandoned in December 1864, when the 17th Army Corps of General Sherman’s Federal Army approached. From May 1862 to December 1864, this hospital provided medical care, food, clothing, and lodging for thousands of sick and wounded Confederate soldiers.
Once we got back home and poked around in the internet, we found that a Guyton married a widow Tondee, and of course Leslie is descended from the Tondee family.
We think we’d like to go back and walk around the historic 9-acre area that encompassed the Medical Hospital. Some online sources say that the hospital was a collection of wooden buildings.
What if some of the boards were supplied by Alexander James Lawton from his SC plantation “Mulberry Grove”?
I don’t. I haven’t felt the need. But recently, a genealogy friend that I met right here on this very blog, became a staff genealogist for the show.
Y’all? This is big. She’s completely self-taught. She started back in the day when she found a tombstone in the woods. Google “Kimberly Morgan tombstone”. Recently she and another genealogist were featured on a Facebook Live video. You can watch it HERE.
She is also the very same person who got me involved as a research genealogist with the research project for the Past Conflicts Repatriation Branch. You can google that – it is an amazing project.
Now, back to the Facebook Live video: I watched part of it; I came in late and need to catch up on the first part. They were taking questions, and one of the questions was about researching Civil War-era people. One of the suggestions that Kimberly offered was to go to fold3, search using the word “Confederate”, and dozens of record sets will pop up, like Confederate Amnesty, Confederate Citizens, and Confederate Officers’ files.
So, I went to the Confederate Citizens set, “NARA M346. Known as the “Citizens File,” these original records pertain to goods furnished or services rendered to the Confederate government by private individuals or business firms.” And there’s Leslie’s great-great-grandfather Alexander James Lawton with a file of 24 pages. One of the pages shows that he is receiving payment for prime boards on September 24, 1863, in Grahamville, SC.
Then I looked for Alexander James Lawton’s son, Dr. William Seabrook Lawton, who, according to another family researcher from many years ago, was stationed at a Civil War era hospital in Richmond, Virginia, for the duration of the war. We’ve never been able to find out anything about Dr. W. S. Lawton. It was like he was a ghost. No photos, no service records, nothing.
Except we were looking in the wrong place. He’s in fold3, and he’s at a hospital in Guyton, Georgia, about 30 minutes away, not in Richmond at all, which explains why he and his wife were having children during the war years, which would have been difficult if not impossible were he stationed in Richmond. He was in charge of the hospital at one point. There aren’t any photos, but I have faith we’ll find something somewhere sometime.
This file is BIG, like 141 pages. If you want the file, I can email the PDF to you.
Things have been changing in my little world. I had an oncoming dermatology problem and needed a second opinion, so I had an appointment on September 21. I was surprised when I was told that the biopsy would most probably show a diagnosis of lupus, which is exactly what happened. I have something called SCLE, or Subacute Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus. This is not the systemic Lupus that destroys your kidneys and heart. The treatment is the same in that I’ve started taking Plaquenil after numerous tests involving a dilated eye exam, a visual field eye exam, bloodwork, and 2 different urine tests, plus several follow-up exams. I need follow-up bloodwork and another follow-up exam to review the follow-up bloodwork.
I’ve been busy.
Enough about that. There is so much to write about.
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