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APPOMATTOX PAROLE OF THOMAS “HARRISON” HAWES, LAMKIN’S BATTERY, VA LIGHT ARTILLERY: EX-COCO COLLECTION

The very good condition Appomattox parole of a soldier as a Confederate light-artilleryman, sharpshooter, and mortar crewman seeing action in South Carolina and Virginia, from 1862 right through the surrender on April 9, 1865. His parole follows the standard format for those issued in the field at Appomattox: a printed form 3-1/8” by 7-1/8” reading: “Appomattox Court House, Va., / April 10^th, 1865./ THE BEARER_____________ of Co.___, ____ Regt./ of ________ , a paroled Prisoner of the Army of Northern Virginia, has per-/mission to go to his home, and there remain undisturbed.” This was filled out in ink for “Private H. Hawes” of Co. “B,” with the word “Regt.” overwritten by “Arty” with “Battln” added after it at the end of the line, and “Virginia” filled in in the next line. It is signed by “Hugh R. Garden / Capt. Comdg. Battln Arty/ 1^st Corps ANV.” The brown ink is a tad light, but fully legible.

The parole comes with a folded piece of stationery from the Clerk’s Office / Fairfax Circuit Court, reading in old brown ink on the outside, “Parole of T.H. Hawes (whose name is written therein as H. Hawes) given him at Appotomax [sic], Va. on April 10^th 1865.” A xerox copy of a 1922 letter from Hawes, who died in December 1926 and is buried at Manassas, indicates he had sent in the parole to verify a pension claim of some sort, noting the difference in it using his middle name, and that it had been returned to him. A 2004 conservator’s report with it details its removal from a “previous folder,” cleaning of the surface, removal of a water stain, glue stain, etc. It is now in excellent condition, showing just slight losses to the edges, light foxing on vertical fold lines, etc. Please see our photos.

Referred to in military records by his middle name as “Harrison Hawes,” Thomas Harrison Hawes was born Dec. 1, 1840. The 1860 census lists him at age 19 living on the family farm in Fauquier County with his parents and three siblings. He enlisted in Fauquier on Nov. 1, 1862, as private, to serve for the war, joining a company of light artillery that had been organized in Nelson County on Sept. 3, 1861, and was commanded by Capt. Woodville Latham and then by Capt. Lamkin. His service file contains only a few muster roll reports- the May-June 1863 report listing him sick in the post hospital since June 12, but present Nov-Dec 1863 and July-Aug 1864, and signs receipt rolls (for clothing and the like) in 2^nd and 4^th Quarters of 1864, indicating his presence through that period as well. After the war Hawes returned to Fauquier County, living there until he moved to Fairfax County about 1890. He married twice- in 1868 and again in 1876, the two unions producing 9 children by one account and 12 by another. He died Dec. 1, 1926, and was interred in the Confederate section of the Manassas Cemetery.

When organized, the battery numbered about 85 officers and men and was sent to Richmond under Capt. Latham, who commanded it for seven months, for training at the artillery camp of instruction on the grounds of Richmond College. Its original designation seems to have been “Nelson Light Artillery No. 1,” to distinguish it from another battery recruited in the county but is most often designated by the name of its commanders: first, as Latham’s Battery, and then as Capt. James Nelson Lamkin’s Company Va. Light Artillery (Co. B,) or more simply, Lamkin’s Battery. They were sent to South Carolina in early 1862 and stationed for periods at Charleston and various smaller posts such as Coosawatchie, west of Charleston to defend the Charleston and Savannah railroad lines with the idea of detachments of mixed arms at these posts combining to ward off raids at given threatened points. They saw their first combat at Pocataligo on October 22, 1862, taking significant casualties in a fight against a large amphibious force of Union troops that left them able to man only two of their four guns, but kept Federal forces from destroying the railroad bridge that was the object of their expedition and purportedly earned them a battery flag with the battle honor of “Pocataligo” on it from Beauregard.

The returned to Virginia in early October 1863, leaving their cannon behind in the expectation of an exchange with a battery transferring south in their place, but were disappointed in this and were instead armed as infantry to act as sharpshooters in support of their artillery battalion until June 24, 1864. At that point, in the Petersburg defenses, they were re-armed again, but this time with coehorn mortars, which they used with effect in the fighting at The Crater on July 30 and later against Federal positions at Fort Harrison near Chaffin’s Bluff, remaining there until April 2, 1865, when they took part in the retreat to Appomattox. Most of their mortars had been spiked and left behind at Petersburg and the men again armed as infantry. A few mortars taken with them in a wagon were lost on the retreat. Their sole consolation was that in the early morning hours of April 9 Gen. E.P. Alexander had given them a freshly captured Federal gun, limber and caisson, noting they had been pestering him for cannon, and considering it rather humorous, since all concerned realized they would not have it long.

At Appomattox just 1 officer and 12 men, including Hawes, were surrendered and paroled, though 21 other officers and men of the battery were also paroled at other places and times from April 13 though June 24. In April 1864 they had numbered 2 officers and 107 men and Gen. E.P. Alexander later referred to it as a “big company of over a hundred men, who came to me in June and were put in charge of many coehorn mortars which they served admirably during the siege of Petersburg & at Fort Harrison.” Total enrollment for the battery is given in one source as 216, with casualties totaling 13 killed in action, 39 wounded (counting some men wounded more than once,) 12 who died of disease, 11 who were discharged on surgeon’s certificates, and none captured until the Appomattox Campaign, giving them a 24% casualty rate- a respectable one in an artillery unit. Included in the surrender and parole record of the battery is one 12-pdr Napoleon with limber, caisson, 12 horses, and 77 varied rounds of ammunition, certainly the captured the Federal gun they, though with its original well-fed teams swapped out for other horses. The battery may have served as mortar crews and sharpshooters as well, but it makes clear their determination to be considered field artillery to the end.

The parole comes with an extensive research file we have only touched on in this summary, compiled by author and Civil War scholar Greg Coco, from whose collection this comes.  [sr][ph:L]

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