Monthly Archives: July 2010

 

The 29th Illinois Infantry left Paducah, Kentucky on February 3, 1862 as part of the invasion force that would capture Fort Henry, a Confederate fort sitting on the eastern bank of the Tennessee River, just south of the Kentucky border.  The 29th, along with the 8th Illinois Infantry; 18th Illinois Infantry; 29th Illinois Infantry; 30th Illinois Infantry; 31st Illinois Infantry; Stewart’s, Dollins’s, O’Harnett’s, and Carmichael’s cavalry companies; and Schwartz’s and Dresser’s batteries, composed the First Brigade (commanded by Col. Richard J. Oglesby) of the First Division (commanded by Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand) of the army which would eventually be known as the Army of the Tennessee.  The soldiers of the First Division were aboard transport ships headed up (southbound) the Tennessee River and were accompanied by the Essex and St. Louis ironclad gunboats.

Union Invasion Routes

Fort Henry was constructed in 1861 on the eastern bank of the Tennessee River.  It was a five-sided structure that comprised ten acres of real estate.  The site for the fort was scouted by Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson and was named in honor of Tennessee Senator (C.S.A.) Gustavus Adolphus Henry, Sr.  The location of the fort provided for a two mile field of fire downriver.  This was, however, the only benefit to the location.  The fort was situated on low-lying swampy ground that was prone to flooding and was overshadowed by high-reaching bluffs across the river on the west bank.  To secure the bluffs overlooking Fort Henry, the rebels constructed an earthen fort on the west bank, named Fort Heiman.  Prior to the siege of Fort Henry, rebel soldiers numbering 1,885 and 1,100 manned the fortifications at Fort Henry and Fort Heiman, respectively, with Col. Heiman in command of all troops.  The defenses of Fort Henry consisted of 20 foot masonry walls, 20 feet thick at their base and tapering up to 10 feet thick at their crest.  Seventeen guns defended the fort:  one (1) 10-inch Columbiad, one (1) 24-pounder rifled cannon, and fifteen (15) 32-pounder smoothbore cannons.  Eleven of these were gazed upon the river, while the remaining six were facing inland to protect against an overland assault. In addition to the large guns, the rebels had sunk torpedoes (mines) in the river channel to protect against the invading gunboats.   The garrison of Forts Henry and Heiman were armed with old flintlock rifles that had been in action since the War of 1812.

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William Robert Lancaster was born March 15, 1840 in West Springs, Union County, South Carolina, the oldest child of William and Cassandra West Lancaster.  His great-grandfather, Benjamin West, was a revolutionary war soldier and a victim of the brutality of Patrick Ferguson’s Loyalist Raiders.  In 1854, William Lancaster Sr. moved his family from South Carolina to Pickens County, Alabama.  On August 1, 1862, William Robert Lancaster married Catherine Sanders, daughter of James and Sarah Stewart Sanders in Pickens County, Alabama.

On April 16, 1862, the C.S.A. government passed the Conscription Act, pursuant to which able-bodied men in the southern states were subject to conscription into the confederate army.  William Robert Lancaster was drafted into the Confederate army and traveled to Mobile, where he was enrolled in Company G, 40th Alabama Infantry on October 1, 1862.  He remained in Mobile until December 1862, training and receiving drill instruction.  In December, the 40th Alabama moved to Vicksburg to assist in the defense of that city.  Upon arrival in Vicksburg, the 40th Alabama was brigaded with the 37th Alabama, 42nd Alabama, and 2nd Texas, under the command of Brigadier General John Creed Moore.  William Robert was detached from his company and served as a wagoner for the battalion.  Company G of the 40th Alabama served in the garrison of Vicksburg during the siege of that city.  When Lt. General John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to the army of U.S. Grant on Independence Day 1863, the men of the 40th Alabama, including Lancaster were captured.  Lancaster was paroled on July 9, 1863 after signing an oath stating that he would not take up arms against the United States.  Confederate service records list his status as absent without leave following his parole.  It is possible that he honored his oath and returned home to Pickens County to rejoin his wife.

W.R. Lancaster Service Records

Records on the Alabama Civil War Service Database, however, indicate that Lancaster rejoined his regiment, serving thereafter  in Company B (known as the “Pickens Planters”), after his parole and fought until the conclusion of the war.  Also serving in the Pickens Planters company were a Joseph Lancaster and Eli J. Lancaster, likely relatives of William Robert Lancaster, and John William Sanders, William Robert Lancaster’s brother-in-law.  If Lancaster served in Company B following his parole, he likely saw action at Mission Ridge, Lookout Mountain, the Atlanta campaign, Mobile and in North Carolina.  The authority for this information comes from a personal statement from Lancaster in a 1907 tax assessment and from the 1921 census of Alabama confederate veterans.  In the 1921 census, Lancaster states that he was wounded during the war.  Notwithstanding the lack of service records backing up his claim, it is highly likely that Lancaster was telling the truth and served for the duration of the war.  Circumstantial evidence supporting this claim is that Catherine Sanders did not have any children during the period beginning when her husband left for war and ending upon termination of the war.  Robert Lee Lancaster, his eldest son, was born in April 1866.  This supports the notion that Lancaster was away for the duration of the war.

At any rate, William Robert Lancaster survived the war and returned home to Pickens County, Alabama, where he lived until his late 80′s.  He died on October 14, 1928.  He and Catherine had nine children:  Mary Francis, Robert Lee, James Lonnie, William Thomas, John Henry, Sallie C., James Ambus, Lona R. and E.P.

W.R. Lancaster Family Group Sheet