The Militant Lowrys

Only one Wabash Valley Tapscott, Wesley “Tabscott” [31 Oct 2015 post], served in the American Civil War, but some Clark County families into which the Tapscotts married played much larger roles. One was the Lowrys.

Towards the end of the War, on 15 Feb 1865, Jackson Lowry, husband of Eliza Ann Sweet [27 Sep 2015], was mustered into Company C of the 155^th Illinois Infantry, a most unusual action for a 45-year-old married man with seven children. The 155^th was assigned to duty in Tennessee, guarding the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad. By the time the regiment was disbanded, on 4 Sep 1865, it had lost seventy-one men to disease, but not a single one to military action. Jackson's decision to enlist may be due to the actions and fates of two of his sons.

Battle of the Wilderness (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division).

Much earlier, on 5 Sep 1861, Jackson Lowry’s oldest child, Henry Patrick had mustered into the 25^th Illinois Infantry, Company D. Henry was with General Grant at the start of his 1864 Overland Campaign to force rebel forces from Virginia. After crossing the Rapidan River, Union Forces fought a bitter battle with Lee's army on May 5 through 7 across the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, an area crisscrossed by small streams and covered with heavy underbrush. The three-day battle resulted in 29,800 casualties out of 162,920 men engaged. In the days to come, Grant would fight in the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, the Battle of North Anna, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. At some point around this time, Henry was struck by a rebel shell. The date recorded for the injury, 23 Jun 1864, is over a week after the conclusion of the last (Cold Harbor) engagement. Henry's niece claimed that the injury occurred during the Battle of the Wilderness. Of course records of injuries during war are often incorrect. Henry survived, although years later his shoulder still bothered him.

But the Lowry who suffered most from the War was Jackson’s son Lewis Taylor. Military men often overlooked the age requirement of eighteen for enlistment. As many as one-fifth of Civil War soldiers were below the minimum age. Lewis was one of those. On 30 Mar 1864, at age 15, he mustered into Company I, 54^th Illinois Infantry  in Mattoon, Illinois. Just two days earlier, a gang of "Copperheads" had attacked some members of the regiment in Charleston, Illinois, killing an officer and four privates. Lewis's story has been recorded by his daughter Mary Elizabeth (Lowry) Johansen in her book The Merry Cricket [29 Sep 2015]:

[Lewis] enlisted in Mattoon, Illinois, and was sent with hundreds of other young recruits to join General Sherman on his march to the sea. However, before his unit could reach the army in Georgia, news was received that Savannah had fallen. The city was a sea of flames, the campaign in Georgia had been a complete success, and there was much rejoicing throughout the North. But until someone could decide where father's unit should be sent next, it was ordered to stay encamped right where it was.

The green recruits from Illinois were glad to have the chance to rest up. They were led by officers as inexperienced as the men themselves. None of them had been trained in the techniques of war. So, although deep in enemy territory, they lit their campfires and relaxed, all unaware that they had attracted the attention of strong rebel bands which closed in on them easily and which captured the entire unit before it had a chance to resist.

“It was a long march from there to Andersonville,” father said, remembering, but not with bitterness. “Many of the boys who were guarding us were farm boys like ourselves. When their officers were not listening they'd be friendly as could be. What was it like farming up North, they would ask, and what would us Yankees do after Lee had licked us?”

He smiled. “But we changed our minds about them when we finally got to Andersonville. We'd heard about it. The stories had gotten around. But even the worst we'd heard didn't come up to what we found. It was much more than just the most awful filth-infested pest-hold anyone could ever imagine.”

“It was a place where Southern men, and boys, encouraged by the example of the worst bullies amongst them, lost whatever sense of decency they might have been born with and just let themselves have fun being inhuman, not just jailers but murder-loving fiends ! Only a person willing to give up acting like a man could treat other men like animals instead of like human beings.”

“The food was always spoiled, the bread moldy, the soup soured. There was never anything to drink except water and there was just one water spout. This was out in the courtyard and there was a low, stone wall all around it. A prisoner who was thirsty, even those who were sick, had to crawl to this watering trough. But if anyone poked his head up too high over this wall, he was shot at by the guards. Many prisoners, crazed. by thirst, or the pain of their wounds-men whose spirits had been broken or who had given up all hope-deliberately chose this way out.”

“Wirz was hanged for his brutality, his inhuman treatment of the Union prisoners at Andersonville. But he'll be hanged over and over and over again so long as there is anyone left to remember him!”

Andersonville (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division).

Lewis, who mustered out in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 15 Oct 1865, was a survivor. Of the 45,000 Union soldiers confined at Andersonville, nearly 13,000 died at the prison. The prison commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, was the only person to be executed for war crimes during the Civil War.

There is one bothersome problem about Lewis Lowry’s story. Lewis’s name does not appear in lists of Andersonville prisoners. Nevertheless, his story is probably true. Present day prisoner lists are compiled from various sources and are known to have errors. Lewis is known to have served in the Civil War and the details of his story appear to be correct.

The Merry Cricket

Mary Elizabeth Lowry and her six sisters.
(Thanks to Linda Grinnell.)

In our last post, we met Eliza Ann Sweet and Jackson Lowry of Clark County, Illinois, and heard mention of their granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Lowry, who compared her grandmother to a “rip-snorting dragon.”

Mary Elizabeth Lowry was born 6 Aug 1888 in Clark County, Illinois, to first cousins Mahala Elizabeth Sweet and Lewis Taylor Lowry, one of thirteen children, three of whom died very young. Mary became a teacher, got married (to Soren Peter Johansen, a native of Denmark), and migrated from Martinsville to Los Angeles with her husband and their two children, Dane and Karen. In California she began teaching again and was able to get a B.S. in Education from the University of Southern California. She taught for 33 years in Los Angeles city schools and won a number of awards for her public service.

It was after she retired from teaching that Mary accomplished the deed that earns her a well-deserved spot in this post. She wrote a book, a wonderful book, The Merry Cricket (the nickname given her by her parents). which describes her childhood in Clark County, Illinois. She wrote about her brother Ellsworth (whom she adored), her six sisters, her parents, her grandparents Austin and Mary Ellen Sweet, her uncle Morgan Sweet (who married Cora Isabelle Tapscott), her aunt Rachel Lowry, and, of course, her grandmother Eliza Ann Sweet. And she tells about the collection of neighbors — some funny, some weird, some a little scary — who lived around Possum Ridge, many of whom attended Sour Oak Church. And she gives a rich description of backwoods life in Clark County. From the jacket of the book,

Through her many happy memories Mary Johansen takes us back into the forever lost world of the one-room school, the rare outings to market town, home hymn singing, joyous reunions with cherished grandparents, the hazards of exploring a still untamed countryside, and the thousands and one farming and farmhouse crafts from pig-killing to jam-making known then to any self-reliant farmer and his wife before our age of trucks, refrigeration, supermarkets, and door-to-door service.

Mary’s book is a door to the world of the Lowrys, Sweets, Wrights, Mallorys, and Tapscotts who inhabited Martinsville, Auburn, and Anderson townships at the turn of the century — the last century!

The Merry Cricket, by Mary Lowry Johansen, was published by Carlton Press, New York, in 1967. My copy of the book, a gift many years ago from my cousin Dolores (Tingley) Berbaum, is signed by the author with a handwritten dedication to her children Dane and Karen. I have tried, without success, to find another copy. It appears in no library holdings, no used book inventories, and no on-line bibliographies. My copy, perhaps the only one still extant, will someday go to a library, where it will be available to all.

Mary Elizabeth Lowry Johansen, passed away 4 Jan 1981 in Orange County, California.

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

The Pipe-Smoking Dragon

“If Whistler’s Mother had smoked a small clay pipe which she always carried in her reticule or in the deep side pocket of her black silk dress, she would have been very much like Grandmother Lowry.” “Grandmother Lowry” was Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry as described by her granddaughter Mary Elizabeth (Lowry) Johansen. Eliza was one of twelve children of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet (9 Sep 2015 blog) and she was my great great grandmother.

Eliza was a real Clark County, Illinois, character. Mary Johansen continued her description as “somewhat of a spoiled old darling who had all the endearing softness of a rip-snorting dragon, a tiny one weighing less than a hundred pounds and standing only for feet ten inches high…” The Marshall Herald described her as a “genuine pioneer.”

Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry on right, daughter Elizabeth

J. (Lowry) Wright at left. At the back may be her
granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Wright (c1915).

And a pioneer she certainly was. Born in Kentucky or Ohio (even Eliza seemed unsure) on 14 Jul 1822, she came to Illinois with her parents and siblings in 1836. In Danville on 28 Feb 1839 she married Jackson Lowry and the two had twelve children, several dying young. In Clark County the family lived in Auburn Township near the Tapscotts, Sweets, and Wrights. There, according to another granddaughter, Hattie (Lowry) Chick, “they lived in one room for a while then built two more rooms.… She and the girls farmed and raised sheep and spun yarn to make their own clothes.” And once Eliza encountered “A big bear [that] came out of the woods and took a blackberry pie which was cooling on the window sill.”

Jackson, who briefly fought with the Union Army, died young, in 1871 at age 51, leaving his feisty widow to fend for herself. She fended well, living for a while in Martinsville, and eventually moving to Marshall to live with her unmarried daughter, Rachel, whose life she commandeered. According to Mary Johansen “Rachel developed that thin, harried look that women sometimes wear when their lives are devoted to waiting on elderly female dragons.” When Eliza badgered her daughter to trade her house in Marshall for small farm, the two went to live near Hog Thief Church. The move turned out to be Rachel’s liberation, allowing her to meet the next door farmer, Albert Huston, and marry him. At age 44, she was an “old maid” no longer.

After living with Rachel and her husband for several years, a situation calling for disaster, Eliza eventually moved in with her son and daughter-in-law Lewis and Mahala (Sweet) Lowry in Martinsville Township. There she had a log cabin in the family’s backyard, where she would roast corn and potatoes in the fireplace with her grandkids and where she would go to smoke her pipe, a lifelong friend. The 21 Jul 1915 edition of the Marshall Herald described her 93rd birthday.

Last Wednesday [14 July] was the 93rd birthday of Mrs. Eliza Lowery of Martinsville Township. Aunt Eliza as she is known to the people of the community was born in Ohio, July 14, 1822, and came to Clark County in 1836---a genuine pioneer. She was married to Jackson Lowery and reared a family of nine children, five daughters and four sons. Two sons and one daughter are living. They are Lewis Lowry of Martinsville Township, Frank Lowry of Oklahoma, and Mrs. Elizabeth Wright of Anderson Township. Mrs. Lowry's mental condition is good and also her hearing and sight. She smokes her pipe and has done so for 80 years. She makes her home with her son Lewis where a dinner was given Wednesday in her honor. There was quite a number of her old acquaintances present including Howard Norman, W.F. Romines and wife, Thomas Kinderdine and wife, Robert Hurst and wife, Austin Sweet and wife, Morgan Sweet and wife, Charles Sweet and wife, Robert Sweet and wife, Bert Mitchell and wife, Mrs. W.H. Cunningham, Doc Cunningham, John A. Sweet, Mrs. Jane Sweet and daughter, Mrs. Belle Sweet, Mrs. J. Reasor and Mrs. Elizabeth Wright and her daughter, Mary. Old time songs were sung, violin music was furnished by Howard Norman and there was much conversation relating to early times in this county, of deer hunting, log rolling, etc. And old time love songs were sung by W.F. Romines.

Eliza died three years later, on Apr 1918 at the advanced age of 95. She is buried alongside her husband in Auburn Cemetery, a fire-breathing dragon no more. But one must acknowledge that some “dragonality” was needed to bear twelve children, raise a family, and survive as a widow in the backwoods.

As a final comment, the death year and probably the birth year are incorrect on Eliza’s grave marker, and the number of children differs greatly between sources. Twelve is the number given by Eliza.

All genealogical data reported in these blogs are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.