Meet my Norwegian Great Great Grandparents, Martha Thompson and Thomas Oscar. This picture was taken about 1870 in Wisconsin where they lived. Thomas was the ONLY survivor of his all Norwegian Union Company. He was captured by the confederates while tearing up the tracks of the Weldon Railroad. He was a POW and served time in Libby prison, Belle Isle and Salisbury prison. He watched his best friend, neighbor and brother-in-law STARVE TO DEATH! Martha younger brother Andreas (Andrew) was killed in the Civil War after being captured by the Confederates, just 17 years old. My Great Grandfather Peter Andrew Oscar was named after his mother’s brother and brother-in-law. I am shocked that the murdering of the innocent young men, killing of their spirits and prison business is still going on in America. Thou shalt not KILL. It’s time for God’s TRUE PEOPLE to WAKE UP!!! any political campaign that supports WAR is of the DEVIL and against God’s laws! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!
For prisoners who died at Camp Sumter, record keeping was shabby at best. There was great concern that after the war relatives would not be able to locate and identify the bodies of their loved ones. Into this situation stepped one prisoner, Dorence Atwater, of the 2nd New York Cavalry. Sent to Andersonville Atwater was detailed as a clerk to the surgeon who recorded all the daily deaths. Secretly, Atwater compiled a duplicate list of names and regiments of the deceased, keying them to numbers that were inscribed on the hastily erected posts or boards that were placed over the graves. With the war over, Atwater eventually saw this list of 12,912 names published, thereby enabling proper identification of the graves. He received no reward for his efforts, but Dorence Atwater was a true hero of the Civil War.”
TO THE SURVIVING RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OF THE MARTYRED “DEAD” AT ANDERSONVILLE, GEORGIA
Dorence Atwater, an eyewitness wrote: This Record was originally copied for you because I feared that neither of you nor the Government of the United States would ever otherwise learn the fate of your loved ones whom I saw daily dying before me. I could do nothing for them, but I resolved at I would at least try to let you {sometime} know when and how they died. This at last I am now able to do.
So many conflicting rumors have been in circulation in regard to these rolls and myself, that I deem it prudent to five a brief statement of my entire connection with this Death Register¸ and to show how and why is has been so long withheld from you.
On the seventh day of July, 1863, I was taken prisoner near Hagerstown, Md., and taken to Belle Island, Richmond, Va., via Staunton, I remained five months. I then went to Smith’s Tobacco Factory, Richmond, where I kept the account of supplies received from our Government¸ and issued to Federal prisoners of war. In the latter part of February, 1864, I was sent to Andersonville with a squad of four hundred other prisoners from Belle Isle, arriving there on the first day of March. I remained inside the stockade until the middle of May, when I was sent to the hospital. On the 15th of June I was paroled and detailed as a clerk in Surgeon J. II. White’s office, to keep the daily record of deaths of all Federal prisoners of war. I also made monthly and quarterly abstracts of the deaths, the latter one was said to be for the Federal Government, which I have since learned was never received.
The appalling mortality was such that I suspected that it was the design of the Rebel Government to kill and maim our prisoners by exposure and starvation so that they would forever be totally unfit for military service, and that they withhold those facts. Accordingly, in the latter part of August, 1864, I began to secretly copy the entire list of our dead, which I succeeded in doing, and brought safely through the lines with me in March, 1865. Arriving at Camp Parole, at Annapolis, Md., I learned that I could not get a furlough on account of my term of service having expired some seven months before. I immediately wrote to the Secretary of War, asking for a furlough of thirty days, for the purpose of having my Death Register published for the relief of the many thousands anxious in regard to the fate of their dead. Before an answer could have returned, I received a furlough from the Commandant of the Camp. I then went to my home in Terryville, Connecticut, where I was taken sick the next day after my arrival, which confined me for three weeks. On the twelfth of April, I received a telegram from the War Department, requesting me to come immediately to Washington and bring my rolls, and if they were found acceptable; I should be suitable rewarded. I started the next day for Washington. Arriving there, I went to the War Department, and learned that the person (Col. Dreck) with whom I was to make arrangements turned, and he informed me that the Secretary of War had authorized hi to pay me three hundred dollars (300) for the rolls. I told him I did not wish to sell the rolls, that they ought to be published for the benefit of the friends of the dead, for whom chiefly they had been copied. He told me if I went to publish them, the Government would confiscate them, that I could have until 9 o’clock the next morning to decide whether I would take the three hundred dollars or not. The rolls were then in his possession. I told him if I could have a clerkship in the department which ne had described to me, three hundred dollars, and the rolls back again as soon as copied, I should consider it satisfactory. To this he agreed. He then informed me that it would be necessary for me to enlist in the General service in order to get the clerkship. To this I objected but in no other way was it available, and I accepted. I was then mustered out of m original enlistment, and given permission to visit home, ad return for duty by the first of June. While in New York in the latter part of May, I telegraphed Colonel Breck, asking if my rolls were copied, to which I received a reply, “Not yet.”
Soon after my arrival in Washington in June, I called on Colonel Breck, and asked for the privilege of taking sheets of my rolls out after business hours, to copy and turn the next morning. He said he would have to ask General Townsend’s consent. I again met him in a few days; he told me he had been unable to see General Townsend. I then wrote to Colonel Breck, asking if he did or did not intend to return my rolls, that I had promised that the rolls should be published for the benefit of the friends of the deceased. He returned my letter endorsed as follows: “I have fully explained the matter to General Townsend, and he says the rolls shall not be copied for any traffic whatever.” I had never spoken of trafficking in them; I only wished to give them to the people for whom I had copied them at some personal risk. Nothing more was said in regard to the rolls until after my return from Andersonville in August.
Miss Clara Barton, of Washington, D.C., upon learning the condition of the Cemetery at Andersonville, and that the graves could be identified, had reported the facts to the Secretary of War, who ordered the necessary arrangements to be made for the marking of the graves. A party charged with this duty left Washington on the eighth day of July, consisting of Miss Cara Barton, Capt. J.M. Moore, myself and forty-two letterers, painters, and clerks, arriving at Andersonville on the twenty-fifth of July.
Before leaving Washington it was found that the original Register, captured by Gen. Wilson, was deficient in one book containing about twenty-four hundred names, and my rolls were sent to supply the deficiency. The original was also found in may places blurred and imperfect, through want of care, and my rolls were frequently needed to aid this defect. They were therefore publicly and constantly in the hands of all who had occasion to consult them.
Not One Federal Reserve Note 