Ray City History Blog

In the organization and command of the Berrien Minute Men it is noted that Levi J. Knight, Jr. was a nephew of Major Levi J. Knight who originally organized a company of Berrien Minute Men at Nashville, GA. Levi J. Knight, Jr. also served as an officer in the same company; In 1861, he was elected 2nd Lieutenant.

In May 1862, The 29th Georgia Regiment was reorganized with Knight’s company of Berrien Minute Men becoming Berrien Minute Men, Company G, 29th GA Regiment. A second company of Berrien Minute Men became Company K. Elections were held on May 7, 1862 for new regimental and company officers.

Levi J. Knight, Jr was elected Captain of Berrien Minute Men Company G (formerly Company C), 29th Georgia Regiment. His election followed the resignation of Captain Thomas. S. Wylly. Captain Wylly may have resigned under financial pressure. The Savannah Daily Morning News reported May 19, 1862, that the State of Georgia had filed suit against Wylly for collection of back taxes. Edwin B. Carroll was elected 1st Lieutenant of Company G.

Berrien Minute Men Company G was detailed to Lawton Battery, where they joined the Brunswick Rifles manning artillery defenses of the city. The Berrien Minute Men and Brunswick Rifles had encamped together at Brunswick, GA in 1861 prior to the formation of the 29th GA Regiment.  (Berrien Minute Men Company K was manning the battery at Causton’s Bluff and other posts around the city.)

Lawton Battery

Lawton Battery was part of the complex of Advance River Batteries supporting Fort Jackson on the Savannah River. The battery site had been selected by General Robert E. Lee while on an inspection trip with Col. Edward C. Anderson on December 8, 1861. Anderson noted foundations for a gun Battery were already being constructed by enslaved African American laborers on a mud island above Fort Jackson. The other sites included Smith’s Island and Hutchinson’s Island, and “at both which points the General ordered batteries to be erected.” Smith’s Island became the site of Lawton Battery.

1864 map showing relative positions of Savannah, Battery Lawton, Fort Jackson, Fort Lee, and Causton’s Bluff.

Battery Lawton consisted of one 32-pounder rifle gun, one 42-pounder smooth bore, two 8-inch and two 10-inch columbiad guns. The battery was built on low-lying land of Smith’s Island (Barnwell Island, SC) on the Savannah River opposite Battery Lee.   Smith’s Island was such a low mudbank, pilings had to be driven into the mud to support the foundations for the heavy gun emplacements. The island was entirely inundated whenever the river was swollen with heavy rains. High water on occasion flooded the powder magazine at Battery Lawton.

Col. Edward Clifford Anderson, Commanding

Lawton Battery, Fort Jackson and the other Advance River Batteries were under the command of Col. Edward C. Anderson. Anderson was educated at a Massachusetts prep school, a former mayor of Savannah and a former officer of the United States Navy. He had participated in numerous naval and amphibious operations in the Mexican-American War.    At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was sent as an envoy to England and styled himself as the Confederate Secretary of War.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Anderson was sent to Richmond by Governor Joseph E. Brown, to purchase ordinance from the Tredegar Iron Works for the State of Georgia. Soon after, Anderson was personally summoned to Montgomery, AL by the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, who commissioned him a major in the Corps of Artillery. He was ordered at once to set sail for Europe, as a confidential agent to buy war material for the Confederacy, arranging for its transfer to the Confederate States, through the Union blockade by way of blockade runners. In England, he was stalked continually by spies hired by the United States Consul General, Charles Francis Adams. Anderson described his position as the Secretary of War in England. He and fellow Georgian James D. Bulloch negotiated with the British for the sale of warships and blockade runners to the South.

On a mission to purchase arms from Great Britain, Edward C. Anderson flew a Confederate national flag, the “Stars and Bars,” to celebrate the southern victory at the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). The same flag would have flown over Fort Jackson, Battery Lawton, Fort Lee, Causton’s Bluff, and other advance river batteries from March 1861 through May 1863.

Upon learning of the Southern victory at the First Battle of Bull Run, Anderson raised a Confederate Flag upon the rooftop of a friend’s house in Liverpool. Their success in both exporting arms, and running the blockade prompted other British firms to begin blockade-running efforts. Returning home in November 1861, aboard the newly purchased Merchant Steamship Fingal with Bulloch, they delivered much needed arms and ammunition. Fingal was later converted to the iron-clad CSS Atlanta. Anderson was promoted, and served as “Commander of the River Batteries” as a part of General Robert E. Lee’s staff. At this time, Anderson was placed in command of Fort James Jackson (Old Fort Jackson), becoming the Confederate Headquarters for River Defenses, including the Confederate Navy. He was a member of the Confederate high command at Savannah until the end of the war.

Col. Anderson was somewhat of a stickler for military discipline. In the summertime the soldiers’ daily routine at Battery Lawton, Fort Jackson and other Savannah River batteries under Anderson’s command began at 4:30 am and ended after sunset, approximately 8:30 pm.

On the 1st of May 1862, a soldier of Battery Lawton staunchly defended the pride, commitment, professionalism and patriotism of the men stationed at the battery.

Savannah Daily Morning News
May 3, 1862

COMMUNICATED
Smith’s Island, May 1st, 1862.

Mr. Editor: Please make room in your valuable paper for the following. In the Republican of yesterday, is to be seen in one of its paragraphs, under the head of “Savannah Never to be Surrendered”

“One thing more remains to be done, and then we shall be ready to measure arms with the enemy. Let the commanders of our various batteries call together their respective garrisons and swear them never to abandon a gun so long as it sets on its carriage, and a soldier is left to man it.”

A soldier takes the liberty here to inform the editor of the Republican (if he is not aware of it, that we are volunteers from Georgia, absent from respectable and comfortable homes, and come without consulting Mr. Republic and, to defend our homes and country at large, and expect to do it to the last. We need no oaths to make us fight for all that is near and dear to us. Prompted by a sense of duly and a spirit of patriotism, we expect to accomplish all that can be done by human hands. Any one who can’t fight without taking an oath, can’t fight with. No one need be sworn to fight except those who would have others sworn. But God help the country whose battles are to be fought by such men, or the prattling tongues of editors. We are ready and daily expecting the enemy, and have been for weeks, and it has just now transpired that there is one thing more to be done before “we are ready to measure arms with the enemy,” (not so much of the “we,”) and that as set forth in his paragraph. I confess that I am ashamed even to let our enemies know that we have men—or a man in our midst—that would either publicly or privately express such an idea. I confess, also, that I thought the people whose homes are but a few miles above our batteries, and which we are shortly to enter into a life and death struggle for, had more confidence in the soldiers whose lots are cast at batteries amid sand flies, mosquitoes, marsh mud, swamp fever, &c. Georgians never have disgraced themselves on the battle field or elsewhere, neither have they given any cause for any one to suppose they would. If the said Editor wishes to make a display of his patriotism, I would advise him to lay down his air-gun and take a musket. But that he will not do; he prefers remaining In his office amusing himself by abusing Gov. Brown, dictating for wiser men than himself and making himself conspicuous, as well as ridiculous, in various other ways. But the whole trouble with said Editor is this, if “we” are defeated below, the Republican office falls into the hands of the enemy; and I am constrained to believe that he would see it, with all Savannah, laid in ruins before he would for a moment expose his breast to the galling fire of the enemy, and, from his editorial, would conclude that he would have us (hundreds) sacrifice our lives to save his ‘‘little all.” I hope God will save his office, protect his person, and take a liking to his principles. I can’t do either, and more especially the latter. I have my hands full fighting for the Confederacy.

In the spring, men at Smith’s Island may have taken their station with pride, but in warmer weather the conditions at the river batteries became nearly intolerable. James A. Knight came from Milltown, GA (now Lakeland) to Smith’s Island and was enlisted there in the Berrien Minute Men, Company G. on May 6, 1962; within weeks he was absent sick in the hospital.  At Fort Pulaski, on April 6, Lt. Theodorick W. Montfort, wrote about the insect pests, which he hoped afflicted the federal troops even more than Confederate soldiers:

We are terribly annoyed with sand flies & soon will be musquitoes. Yet we have the consolation of knowing that “Afflictions though they seem severe, are often mercy sent.” While we are annoyed by them we are assured by those acquainted with the places occupies by Yankee Soldiers & Batteries on the River between here & Savannah, that they are a hundred times worse than here. The places now occupied by them between here & Savannah on the river, are the places on the river where heavy vessels heretofore have had to stop to unload & load & so annoying are the musquitoes & sand flies & the places so sickly that I am informed frequently they have been unable to employ men at one dollar an hour to go there to assist in unloading & loading. And while we have abandoned all idea of assistantance from the Government we put our trust in God, ourselves, the musquitoes & sand flies. If these fail us we are gone.

For Harrison Jones, Company G, Berrien Minute Men, the conditions were too much.

Said soldier has been ailing and unfit for duty for the last three months with one disease or another, this illness at present is said by the surgeon to be Remittent. This constitution in my opinion will not undergo the fatiague & duties of a soldier. Said soldier did not reenlist and has not received any bounty. June 9, 1862. L.J. Knight, Jr, Capt. Commanding Company.

Captain George A Mercer, after visiting Smith’s Island and Fort Jackson on Sunday, June 22, 1862, wrote of the miserable experience.

“Sunday was intensely hot, and I could not but feel how much our brave soldiers were enduring in their present position. Fort Jackson, and the adjacent batteries, are located in low swampy fields, where the insects are terrible the air close and fetid and full of miasma and death. Capt. Blain’s men, on Smith’s Island, are particularly uncomfortable; their tents are pitched on the muddy ground, beneath the blazing sky; not a dry spot of earth, not a shade tree is near; the tide frequently rises above the platforms of their tents, soaks their bedding and washes away all they have; they have positively been obliged to anchor their cooking utensils to prevent their being carried away. And yet these brave fellows must stay — and do stay cheerfully in this dreadful spot, where every comfort is denied them, and sickness and death must add their horrors to the scene. I spent a miserable night last night; I lay down at the Fort but not to sleep; hundreds of fleas ran over me stinging me into a fever; I did not secure one moment’s sleep, but lay tossing in misery, counting the weary hours till morning; had I left the bed and gone outside the net the mosquitoes would have been as bad as the fleas. Indeed a sad necessity is imposed upon our troops; they must garrison spots where a white man can hardly live.

Berrien County Minute Men garrisoned at the Savannah River batteries during the Civil War would have taken quinine as long as supplies were available.

Captain Mercer noted that in August and September 1862, “The River Batteries [were] guarded only by small detachments of ten or twelve men each; the deadly miasma in the vicinity has rendered them uninhabitable.”  The “miasma” was actually mosquito-born transmission of diseases like yellow fever or malaria. Even on January 31, 1862, Lieutenant William Dixon, of the Republican Blues, had noted at Fort Jackson, “This has been a very warm day. The mosquitoes have been bad and troublesome.” – Fort Jackson interpretive materials

“Several times during the war, the river batteries were left almost empty because most of the soldiers stationed here were in the hospital in Savannah – many with malaria. In 1862, Private Vaughn of the 22nd Georgia Heavy Artillery wrote home: “There is no use of my trying to get a furlough…for a dead man can’t get one hardly in this department and besides our company is all sick but ten… and we can’t hardly get a Corporal’s guard.” Over half the garrison were in the Savannah hospitals. Quinine was known to be effective in the treatment of fevers, and Col. Anderson required his troops to take daily doses of quinine in “tonic water” for as long as supplies held out. But after the Union blockade of Savannah was established, imports of quinine were cut off.  It was also believed that camphor smeared over the upper lip at night could fend off the “miasma”; The treatment was somewhat effective, as camphor is a natural mosquito repellent (Fort Jackson interpretive materials). The CSA Medical Purveyor’s Office in Savannah ran want ads for the bark of Pinckneya Pubens, the Georgia Fever Bark tree, an American shrub in the quinine family. 

For those soldiers who did get sick, the care provided in hospitals was as likely to make them worse as it was to effect a recovery.

The hospitals in Savannah were feared by the soldiers as death houses. In order to address this fear Lt. Col. Anderson set up a separate hospital at Deptford. The less critically ill could be sent there, watched by their comrades and not have all their personal belongings stolen – which would happen when they were sent into Savannah.

Regimental returns show Captain Levi J. Knight, Jr was at Camp Debtford in July; Camp Debtford was on the Debtford plantation adjacent to Causton’s Bluff.  In August, Knight was sent to Camp Anderson.  Other men of the 29th Regiment detailed to Camp Anderson included First Lieutenant Willis Clary, 2nd Lt Henry Clary and Pvt Hines H. Grey of the Georgia Foresters; Stephen D. Chitwood, Fountain Nally, Thomas Mills and John F. C. Mills of the Stephens Volunteers; Elijah W. Bryant, Thomasville Guards; John H. Elkins, John R. Griffin, Jonas Johnson, Peter Madden, George C. Maddox and Hines Holt Grey, 17th Patriots; Isiah Goff, Allen D. Smith, William D. Warren  and R. M. Simpson, Thomas Volunteers; James Johnson, Alapaha Guards.

Camp Anderson was where Major Robert Houston Anderson was forming a “select battalion of sharpshooters” from highly qualified volunteers and select officers and men from the existing regiments around Savannah.  “By Special Order No. 259, District of Georgia, dated July 30, 1862, men were chosen from the regiments manning the defenses of the city to fill up the other companies of the new battalion.” Company D of the new sharpshooter battalion was composed of men selected from the 29th, 30th, 47th, and 13th Georgia Regiments and the 8th Georgia Battalion.  According to Russel K. Brown, “Camp Anderson was situated on Wildhorn Plantation, 12 miles below Savannah on the west bank of the Groves or Little Ogeechee River and near the line of the Savannah, Albany and Gulf Railroad. William Moody described the camp to his wife thus, ‘We are camped about 1 1/2 miles from Number 1 station and in 1/4 mile from the little Ogechee River on a very high pleasant place tho I exspect it is a sickly place. The sand files is very bad.'” 

Circumstances at Camp Anderson may have been better than at Lawton Battery, but only marginally. As at other Savannah garrisons, health conditions were problematic from the first encampment at Camp Anderson. Men died of typhoid, typhoid fever and typhoid pneumonia, bowel disorders, chronic diarrhea, and congestion. Many more went on sick rolls. Desertion became a problem; by the end of the year, 29 men would desert from Camp Anderson.  At least one deserter killed himself rather than be captured and returned to Camp Anderson. Another, after firing a shot at Major Anderson, was court-martialed and executed by firing squad. Three more deserters were sentenced to death but were released and returned to duty under a general amnesty and pardon issued by Jefferson Davis.

Levi J. Knight, Jr was not at Camp Anderson for long; After August 29, 1862, he was reported on regimental returns as absent sick in a Savannah hospital.  Willis Clary, suffering with a lung impaired by pneumonia and a congenital short leg, resigned at Camp Anderson on August 22.   Henry Clary was sick in a Savannah hospital; he died September 4, 1862.

Regimental return for September 1862 showing Levi J. Knight, Jr. absent from post at Camp Anderson.

In mid-August 1862, allegations of payroll fraud by Levi J. Knight were raised by the Confederate Quartermaster General, A.C. Myers.   The matter was referred down the chain of command from Brigadier General Hugh Wheedon Mercer, to Captain George A. Mercer, to Col. Edward C. Anderson. Anderson’s investigation found that the alleged double pay drawn by Knight was the result of the Quartermasters confusion of Captain Levi J. Knight, Jr with his uncle, Major Levi J. Knight, and the matter was terminated without prejudice.

In October Captain Knight returned to Battery Lawton on Smith’s Island under Col. E. C. Anderson’s command. At Battery Lawton, Col. Anderson’s attention fell on Lt. William Pendarvis, of the Georgia Foresters, Company A, 29th Regiment. In October Pendarvis was “in arrest.” Pendarvis tendered his resignation November 20, 1862, which was endorsed by Col. E. C. Anderson. The Colonel had previously busted Pendarvis from rank for “disreputable conduct.” Pendarvis had been subsequently elected lieutenant while Anderson was away from the post. Anderson pronounced him totally incompetent for the position, and he would have been court-martialed had he not resigned. Perhaps the only men of the 29th Georgia Regiment for which Col. Anderson had any respect were its blacksmiths; Anderson complained to his superiors when blacksmith Richard Ault was reassigned to another post.

It appears that an animosity also developed between Captain Knight and Col. Anderson.  Knight, a big man, was six feet tall with dark hair and eyes, and dark complexion. Col. Anderson, who described Knight as an irresponsible, demoralizing “evil example,” undoubtedly saw him as a dark and brooding figure.

The situation culminated on November 28, 1862, when Knight’s insolent behavior drove the Colonel to place the captain “in arrest” and to make charges against Knight in a letter to Captain George A. Mercer, Assistant Adjutant General.

Letter of Col. Edward C. Anderson, Nov 28, 1862 censoring Captain Levi J. Knight, Jr.

Letter of Col. Edward C. Anderson, Nov 28, 1862, censoring Captain Levi J. Knight, Jr.

Savannah River Batteries
28th Novb 1862

Capt Geo A Mercer
AAG

Captain
I regret to have to bring to the notice of the Brig Genl Comdg. the total inefficiency of Captain Levi J. Knight, Co G 29th Regt Ga Vols. This officer commands one of the finest companies in the service in point of materiel. Yet from inattention and want of care they have lapsed into a condition o negligence not just to so fine a body of men & very far from creditable to the officers whose duty it was to have encouraged and instructed them. There is a familiarity between the captain & the private soldiers that is hurtful to the service. The men have free access to his tent even to taking possession of his bed and loafing there. As evidence of the detrimental tendency of this system of free intercourse I have to inform you that on the occasion of my exercising the companies today at the great guns Captain Knight’s men failed to come forward at the long roll & only appeared after repeated calls & by my sending up the commanding officer of the port to enforce the order. Captain Knight had been duly notified of my intention to drill the men. He did not accompany his detachments, but after the lapse of half an hour came strolling leisurely down by the longest & most circuitous route & being informed that I had ordered him under arrest for his conduct, excused himself upon the plea of not feeling well. Upon another occasion when reported to me for failing to attend the School of Instruction ordered by you & for leaving the Island without notice to his commanding officers, the same excuse was made & thus it has been again & again. I have been unwilling to suppose that an officer would lightly avail himself of the plea of indisposition to evade his duty & hence have refrained from bringing the matter to your notice heretofore. Candor compels one today that Captain Knight is not fitted for the responsible trust confided to him & that – in the event of any mishap to the officers in command of the Battery – I do not regard him as qualified to fill his place. I should regret to lose his company. Under a different Captain they could be made a credit to the service, but under existing auspices the forces of evil example will demoralize & cripple them.

I am Captain Very Respectfully
Your Obbt

Ed. C. Anderson

Coming to the attention of Brigadier General Hugh Wheedon Mercer, the matter was forwarded for further action:

Head Qrs. Dist. Ga.
Savannah, Nov 30th, 1862.
Respy. forwarded to the Genl. Comdg. The Department with the request that a Board of Examiners may be convened to examine the conduct of the officer.

H. W. Mercer
Brig Genl Comdg

By December 1862, Levi J. Knight, Jr was relieved of his command.  Regimental records show Captain Levi J. Knight, Jr was “in suspension,” for insubordinate behavior. On December 4, 1862 he was brought before an Officers Examining Board, and he was “suspended from rank and commission by order of General Beauregard. His rank was reduced to private.  On May 28, 1863, his name was on a published “list of officers of different grades who have been dropped from the rolls of the army, in accordance with the provisions of the act for ‘ridding the army of ignorant, disabled and incompetent officers,’ by orders from Adjutant and Inspector General’s office.”

After being stripped of his rank, Knight continued to serve with the Berrien Minute Men. In 1863 he was elected by the company to the rank of Jr 2nd Lieutenant, but the election was set aside by Col. Anderson.

A year later, Knight’s new commanding officer, Captain Edwin B. Carroll, again put him up for an officer’s position. In the midst of the defense of Atlanta against the approaching, overwhelming army of U.S. General William T. Sherman, Captain Carroll paused to write a letter recommending Sgt. Levi J. Knight be accepted as an officer of the company.

Camp 29th Ga. Regt
July 14th 1864

Capt J. W. Turner
Comdg 29th Ga Regt

Captain
I respectfully make the following statement in the case of private Levi J. Knight Co G 29th Ga Vols. He was elected Jr 2nd Lieut. in Co G on the 28th day of September 1863 but the election return was disapproved by Col. E. C. Anderson — Comdg on the grounds that Knight had been dropped from the rolls and could in consequence hold no position. Knight was detailed by Col. Anderson and sent to Charleston with another company and another election was ordered. While in Charleston he made a fresh statement of his case to Genl Beauregard and thereupon was ordered before the Board of Examiners that he might prove whether or not he should be put on duty as an officer. The decision of the Board is that he is competent for discharge the duties that may devolve upon him. I think he is entitled to the position and hope that he will be ordered on duty as an officer in the Company

Very Respectfully
Your Obt Svt
E. B. Carroll
Capt Comdg Co G
29th Regt

*************************************

Head Qrs Stevens Brigade
July 15, 1864

The enclosed paper is reply returned with the following statement. Co. G. 29 Regt has been on detached duty in Savannah until very recently. Some of the records are accessible in this case now. The facts are that L. J. Knight was Captain of Co G was brought before a Board of Examiners for incompetency. On their recommendation his name was dropped from the rolls by the War department and he became a private in the same company. Upon the occasion of a vacancy he was elected 2 Lt but on some cause his election was set aside by then Comdg Officer Col E. C. Anderson and a new election ordered at Smith [Island]. J. L. Hall was elected, examined and announced in orders and has filled the position ever since. Upon a transfer to duty in some other command Knight appears to have appeared before a Board of Examiners, the findings of which are herewith enclosed – I would Resply ask what action should be taken in the case.
Resply
H. S. Stevens
Brig Genl

Confederate States of America
War Department
Adjutant and Inspector Genls Office
Richmond, Va., April 28th, 1864

Genl
I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you that the proceedings and findings of the Examining Boards in the following case, have been confirmed by the War Department.

Sergt. Levi J. Knight, Co. “G”, 29th Ga. Vols.
Decision- “The Board pronounce him qualified for promotion.”

You will please issue the necessary orders.

Very Respectfully, General
Your Obedient Servt

Saml M. Melton
Maj.

Days after requesting the promotion of Levi J. Knight, Jr., Captain Carroll was captured in the Battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864.

Orders came directly from General John Bell Hood that Knight was not to be reinstated as an officer.

Hd. Qrs Dept Tenn
In the field
July 27, 1864

Respy recd but the fact of the officer having been dropped debar him from again becoming an officer.

By order of
Genl Hood

Regardless, Levi J. Knight fought with the Berrien Minute Men and apparently acted in the role of an officer. It is certain that casualties left a shortage of officers for the Berrien Minute Men.  The letters of John W. Hagan indicate that by the summer of 1864, Levi J. Knight and Edwin B. Carroll were the senior officers and were acting in command of the 29th Georgia Regiment. When Knight was captured near Nashville, TN on December 16, 1864, he gave his rank as 2nd Lieutenant.  Officer’s rank meant he would be sent to the Federal prison for officers on Johnson’s Island, OH rather that the prison for enlisted men at Camp Chase, OH.  The Military Prison on Johnson’s Island was where his commanding officer, Edwin B. Carroll, and other officers of the 29th Georgia Regiment were held as prisoners of war. Knight was held as a POW until June 16, 1865, when he was released after swearing an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America.

Related Posts:

• Causton’s Bluff Part 1: The Key to Savannah
• Causton’s Bluff Part 2:  Challenge from Tybee
• Captain Edwin B. Carroll and the Atlanta Campaign
• Organization and Command of the Berrien Minute Men
• Richard Ault, Blacksmith for the Berrien Minute Men
• Berrien Minute Men and Civil War Stories
• L.E. Lastinger and Captain Knight’s Berrien Minutemen
• Resolutions of the Berrien Minute Men
• Berrien Minute Men On the Square
• Berrien Minute Men at Brunswick ~ July, 1861
• Berrien Minute Men on Sapelo Island: Part 1
• 29th Georgia Regiment at Camp Wilson near Savannah, GA
• Berrien Minute Men at Johnson’s Island Prison, Ohio