THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510060257
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
IT WOULD SURPRISE few people that a Middlesex County writer with a name like Phyllis Huckins Haughton would be interested in Virginia history and genealogy.
But recently she has gone much farther in historical research than helping people find their ancestors in musty old court records.
She is now a published author whose book, ``Dearest Carrie, Civil War Letters Home,'' promises to be an important resource for area Civil War buffs.
More meaningful to her is the fact that the publication is the personal fulfillment of a promise she made to one of the book's subjects, William Tipton Hopkins, who was in his 90s when he gave his family's Civil War letter collection to her. In the book's introduction, Haughton leaves no doubt why she feels the preservation and publication of such letter collections are important.
``Ever since the first cave man,'' she writes, ``man left his cave and went with his tribe to fight the enemy, women have wept and waited, and men in the field have been lonely and homesick. The leaders, generals and admirals, could visit home, and sometimes have their wives visit them, but the foot soldiers and seamen had no such advantages. They sent their messages home any way they could . . . I have my letters from my husband sent from Europe and Japan during World War II, and letters from my son sent during the war in Vietnam.''
The first section of letters in Haughton's book were written by Warwick County native William Tipton to his wife, Carrie, during the Civil War. He was an engineer aboard the steamers USS Circassion, whose mission it was to blockade Hampton Roads under Confederate hands, and the USS Sacramento, whose mission it was to track down rebel blockade runners.
The second half of the book carries the letters of Portsmouth veteran Andrew Jackson Hopkins, who was a chief engineer aboard the U.S. Army gunboat Smith Briggs. During a raid near Smithfield, the Briggs was destroyed by a rebel shore battery, leaving a few of her crew including Hopkins to swim ashore and face capture by the Confederates.
The fact that Hopkins joined the Federal Navy and was labeled a traitor by his former neighbors in Portsmouth makes for interesting reading. But the collection of letters he sends his wife, Virginia (Jennnie) Clark Hopkins, from notorious Libby Prison in Richmond and how she comes to deal with her husband's incarceration is a poignant and realistic perspective on how the Civil War divided families and friends.
From the time Jennie writes Carrie Tipton from Norfolk in February 1863, the fear and helplessness of a family designated as ``turncoats'' is painfully clear.
Jennie Hopkins expresses it best in her own words:
``I have awful sad and disturbing news that is to me to communicate to you. My poor dear husband has at last been wounded and been taken prisoner by the rebels, and God only knows whether he is alive or not. The boat that he was on was blown entirely up, some made their escape, but the Capt., 2nd Engineer (Booth) and poor Andy (Andrew) were taken prisoner, and there I am left destitute, for if God is my Gage, and if I was going to die this very moment, I have not got but fourteen dollars and a half to save my life . . . For God sake's tell me, my poor Andy in Rebel's hands, to starve, or perhaps be hung .
It was almost a year later when Jennie Hopkins finally heard from her imprisoned husband. By then it was February 1864. Norfolk and Portsmouth were once again firmly in Federal hands and the campaign to capture Richmond was in full swing. The fact that she got a letter at all was a miracle in itself.
Here are Andrew Hopkins' first written words as a prisoner of war in Libby Prison:
``My Dear Wife, I am well, and in prison. Go to General Graham, and tell him that it is my request that he would get my pay from the Quartermaster and give it to you. Go to Mr. Booth and get him to send me something to eat in a box, and you pay half of it and James the other.''
According to U.S. military regulations, a wife of a serviceman captured by the Confederates was entitled to half his salary during his imprisonment. However, 19th century military bureaucracy did not always work that smoothly and the fact that the frontline of the war was nearby didn't help matters either, as Jennie explained in another letter to her sister.
``You said that I could get half pay. I wish I could. I have been to see about it, but I can't get it. I have to have my marriage certificate, and that I have not got. I will get some friend to get it for me.''
Alienated as they now were from Portsmouth, it was extremely difficult to get anyone to intercede on her behalf in the county court. To make matters worse, her husband was called a traitor by his rebel captors after they concluded he worked in Gosport at the time of Confederate occupation.
This time Jennie pleads for her husband's life in a letter to Portsmouth mayor Daniel Collins hoping that with his considerable unionist connections within the Federal military, he can influence the situation.
``The falsity of the Rebels' charge can be proved by almost any person who knows him in Portsmouth,'' she wrote. ``Mr. Lyons, the Master Machinist in the Yard, Mr. Burros, Master Shipbuilder, Mr. John Edgar, and a great many others would be willing. . . to testify to the unjustness of the charge, as they know the fact that he left Virginia three days after the Rebels got the Navy Yard, and has never been near them since, except as an enemy. . . Otherwise, he might be consigned to hopeless captivity or death,. . . as he was then only a prisoner of war, but is now held as a deserter,'' she added.
The only hope that Jennie will ever see her husband again comes in a letter from her father, John Clark, in Philadelphia. It contains a rumor that a complete exchange of all prisoners of war is near.
By May 25, 1864, things had become even more frustating. A letter reached Jennie from a newly released Federal prisoner of war who knew her husband. The letter stated that the inmates of Libby Prison were being moved south before Richmond fell. In the letter he leaves instructions on how she might contact her husband in the future. ``When you write, you had better not send more than one page of note paper, or else it will not be sent through Fortress Monroe, Va., and leave the envelope open.''
By Sept. 22, 1864, the reader finds Jennie Hopkins still pleading with the U.S. military for her husband's pay allowance, but a month later some news at last arrives from a John T. Free, a former prisoner of war, who has returned to Portsmouth. She at last learns from his and other letters that her husband is still alive and has been moved to Macon, Ga., and then to Charleston, S.C., only to be sent back to Libby Prison. Meanwhile the agonizing news that many of her husband's friends have been parolled was the only consolation for her during the remainder of the winter of 1864.
Finally in February, 1865, just a few months before the end of the war, Andrew Hopkins was released. Determined to return home and help rebuild his community, Andrew and Jennie Hopkins returned to Portsmouth, where he took his former employment in the shipyard as steam engineer. Meanwhile Jennie raised her adopted son, Willie, who went on to become the postmaster of Newport News.
Willie had two sons, one named Andrew Jackson Hopkins after his adopted grandfather. At the age of 93, Andrew Jackson Hopkins II presented his family's collection of Civil War letters to Phyllis Haughton who kept her promise to get them published.
They are today a lasting tribute to all the families of the Civil War who suffered the personal heartbreak that tore the nation apart. They are also a memorial to the Hopkins family's determination to stay together throughout it all and fulfill their destiny to take part in the rebuilding of Portsmouth after the war. MEMO: For further information on the book, write to Brunswick Publishing
Corp., P.O. Box 555, Lawrenceville, Va. 23868, or call:
1-800-336-7154. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
The book includes letters Andrew Jackson Hopkins wrote to his wife,
Virginia Clark Hopkins, from notorious Libby Prison in Richmond
after his capture by the Confederates.
Phyllis Huckins Haughton, left, of Middlesex County, is a published
author whose book, ``Dearest Carrie, Civil War Letters Home,''
promises to be an important resource for area Civil War buffs.
by CNB