Echoes of Freedom

The War Comes to Camden

The war came to Camden on a winter's day in 1865. For weeks, South Carolina newspapers reported the steady advance of Sherman's Army. The fall of the state capital in Columbia on February 17 ended any hope of escape for its citizenry. Camden's proximity to Columbia and its rail connection to Charleston and Wilmington, N.C., made it a strategic target.

On February 22, skirmishers clashed near the gentle banks of the Wateree River, not far from Camden. Sherman's troops skirmished in and around Camden, and parts of the town were burned on February 24.

Less than 24 hours later, a contingent of Sherman's troops conducted a reconnaissance through Camden. It included the veteran volunteers of the 12th Illinois Infantry. Formed as the First Scotch Regiment in 1861, its ranks had marched out of Chicago sporting jaunty bonnets with thistle, a tribute to the native land of its colonel, John McArthur.

The Turner Farm in Kershaw County

About 10 miles east of Camden lay the Turner farm. Patriarch John F. Turner had spent his entire 54 years living and working on the land, which supported his wife, Jane, and teen-aged son, Ben. A year before Fort Sumter, Turner reported the five enslaved children in his possession on the federal census schedule.

By law, Turner need only provide their age and gender: three girls, aged eight, 10, and 13, and two boys aged six and 12. Their names are lost in time with the exception of one: 12-year-old Hannibal. He had been born on the farm October 30, 1848, as recorded by Turner.

The Journey to Union Lines

Hannibal may have met the men of the 12th Illinois Infantry in February when they picketed in the Camden area. One can imagine that Hannibal left the Turner place and became one of the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons to seek freedom with the Union army.

Whatever his path to freedom, Hannibal became attached to the 12th and connected with First Lieutenant Addison A. Jackson, who led Company I on the March to the Sea and into the Carolinas. The most likely explanation is that Hannibal took on the role of personal attendant to Jackson — a common practice among U.S. officers that sometimes became a stepping stone to military service.

Service in the 12th Illinois Infantry

On April 1, 1865, Hannibal enlisted in the 12th as an under cook in Company G. Congress and the War Department had created the position in 1863 to better feed soldiers. Cooks in companies with more than 30 men were entitled to two under cooks of African descent, who received pay and benefits.

Hannibal served from Goldsboro and Raleigh into Virginia. In early May at Alexandria, a mustering officer officially enrolled him. Later that month in Washington, D.C., the 12th marched in the Grand Review with the rest of Sherman's forces. The 12th then departed for Louisville, Ky., where on July 10, 1865, the men mustered out.

Hannibal accompanied Addison Jackson to his family's farm in Berlin, near Springfield, Illinois — becoming, as the inscription on his portrait notes, the first Black man to step into William Jackson's home.

Hannibal then enlisted a second time, joining the 110th U.S. Colored Infantry at Gallatin, Tennessee on August 1, 1865. His tenure ended in late October 1865 before he officially mustered in, receiving a discharge due to War Department cost-cutting measures. At the time, he suffered from pneumonia in the post hospital at Huntsville, Alabama.

Life After the War

Hannibal remained in Alabama after his discharge, working as a farm laborer in Athens. He had learned the basics of reading and writing during his time in the army and supplemented his knowledge at night school. He married Rosetta Malone and they started a family that grew to include six children, three of whom survived to adulthood.

About 1885, they moved to Woodruff County in Arkansas and settled into sharecropper's lives on a farm outside Augusta. Rosetta died soon after they arrived. Hannibal applied for a military pension for his service in the 12th. Government examiners discovered his connection to the 110th and launched an investigation in 1886, but ultimately awarded him his pension based on his service as an under cook in the 12th.

In 1887, Hannibal married Mary Madora McLauren, a Tennessee-born woman about 14 years his junior. They brought eight children into the world, and four of them lived to maturity — including Beatrice Turner, born April 14, 1894, who would become the mother of Ozella.

Around the turn of the century, the family relocated to the Lee County community of Moro. Hannibal suffered from rheumatism and chronic lung problems. He died February 12, 1912, due to complications after suffering a rupture. He was 63. Mary passed eight years later.

Special thanks to Civil War Historian Ronald S. Coddington for telling the story of our ancestor and for generously allowing this work to be presented to our family.