Escape!

Popman

Cadet
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Hello everyone, I would like to get some opinions. My gg grandfather was a member of 19 Indiana and was captured in Gettysburg. In his obit this is mentioned along with the mention that he escaped " in a most daring manner ". He was able to rejoin the unit about a month later. Any thoughts on his escape or is there any known accounts of other escapes ?
 
They are plenty of other accounts of soldiers escaping their captors. Would you happen to know whether he escaped from a POW camp or simply escaped his captors en route to a camp?
 
Welcome, enjoy. Without a notation in a diary or elsewhere it is just a guess. It has been mentioned that a goodly number of escapes occurred on the retreat trail from Gettysburg.
 
Do you see this thread?

 
Some stories:

 
Do you see this thread?

This is my gg grandfather of whom I talking about. Wow! We don't have any written account of his time in the war. At least none that has survived
 
They are plenty of other accounts of soldiers escaping their captors. Would you happen to know whether he escaped from a POW camp or simply escaped his captors en route to a camp?
Only mention we have is if him rejoining the regiment about a month later
 
In September of 1864, guerrillas under the command of Captain "Bloody" Bill Anderson raided the town of Centralia, Missouri. When a train carrying several furloughed Union soldiers arrived in town, they removed the soldiers, stripped them of their uniforms, and shot all but one on the spot. The only man spared was Sgt. Thomas Goodman. Anderson probably wanted to exchange him. Later in the day, a Union patrol rode out to try to capture Anderson. They were ambushed and most of them killed on the field. Their bodies were stripped and mutilated. Some days later, Anderson and his men rode into Boonville with the scalps of some of those Union men decorating their bridles. But just before that, Sergeant Goodman was able to slip away as Anderson's men were distracted by loading skiffs for a crossing of the Missouri River. Goodman made it most of the way to Fayette, Missouri on foot before encountering a Federal patrol and safety. Later, he wrote his memoir. It is as harrowing an escape tale as you will ever read. It is availabe free, right here:

 
Hello everyone, I would like to get some opinions. My gg grandfather was a member of 19 Indiana and was captured in Gettysburg. In his obit this is mentioned along with the mention that he escaped " in a most daring manner ". He was able to rejoin the unit about a month later. Any thoughts on his escape or is there any known accounts of other escapes ?
The last Gettysburg tour I did before everything shut down was for a group of High School students from Garrett, IN. Accordingly, I spent some time looking into soldiers from Dekalb County who were at Gettysburg.

Is your relative Oscar Bates from Company G, 19th Indiana? The information I have is that he was a carpenter from the town of Butler, IN in Dekalb County. Bates enlisted *** a corporal but by the time he musters out in 1865 he had been promoted to captain. After the war, he married Sylvia Altenburg of Auburn, IN, who was the sister of one of Bates Company G comrades, Henry Altenburg. Oscar and Sylvia moved to Michigan where that took up farming along with two of Sylvia's brothers. Oscar died January 25, 1900.

Sadly, while I learned various information about escapes in general, I was not able to find anything specific about the Oscar Bates' escape. If you ever come across anything, please let me know.
 
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