Knight Tells a Story

KNIGHT TELLS A STORY

When George Davenport Wilson enlisted in the Union Army at Franklin, Ohio on August 31, 1861, he had two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter died shortly after her father enlisted in the Union Army. The son lived on and we now skip the years till 1904, when that young man from Greencastle, Indiana, Wilbur G. Kurtz, was getting into his lifelong study of the Andrews Raid and the men who participated in it. Wilbur Kurtz was in the company of William J. Knight, one of the engineers on the expedition on April 25, 1904, and they were discussing various aspects of the affair. In the course of this conversation, Knight told a rather curious story relating to George D. Wilson.

During the 1880's and 1890's, Knight had toured Ohio and Indiana with an illustrated lecture on the Andrews Raid. The illustrations were not the stereopticon of the period, but a long roll of canvas on which some not very talented artist had painted a series of pictures designed to visualize the narrative as delivered by the engineer who held the throttle of the locomotive General. The canvas was attached to two rolls, one of which was motivated by a crank, both rolls being supported by an assembled framework. The apparatus, when knocked down, was packed in an oblong box with large lettering painted thereon, notifying all beholders that it was the property of William J. Knight, Engineer of the Andrews Raid.

One day in the early eighties, Knight boarded a Baltimore & Ohio train at Belleville, Ohio, and on the car platform was accosted by a uniformed man with a baggage master's badge on his cap who asked if his name was Knight. Being assured that it was, the man asked him to come forward to the baggage coach as he wished to talk with him. Going forward, Knight was given a chair while the baggageman checked up his cargo. Later he addressed Knight and inquired if he was one of the Andrews Raiders. Admitting he was, the baggage man then introduced himself as David Davenport Wilson, son of George D. Wilson, one of the seven men hanged in Atlanta. Young Wilson, who appeared to be about 20, then remarked that he had seen Knight's box – label and all – come aboard the car, and had spotted the owner because of the Medal of Honor pinned to his coat.

Knight was then asked if he recalled that George D. Wilson had any jewelry on his person while a prisoner. Knight did recall as much, stating that there were two articles, one a large gold ring with a massive seal, and the other, an oval frame about the size of a quarter in which was emplaced a photograph of his wife. He even recalled that when Wilson returned to his cell after hearing his death warrant read in the room across the hall (on the second floor of the Fulton County Jail), he told the officer in charge that he wished the two articles buried with him; the ring being a present from his wife, and the oval portrait worn as a pin, being a portrait of the donor. After this explanation, he removed the portrait from the lapel of his coat and affixed it to the inside of his coat. Several years later, Knight continued, the bodies were removed from the sevenfold grave of Atlanta for reinternment in the National Cemetery at Chattanooga. At this time, the ring and the pin were found and sent to the War Department at Washington, he thought.

"Would you know the ring if you saw it?" young Davenport asked Knight.

"Yes," replied Knight, "I think I would."

There on the extended hand of David Davenport Wilson was the gold band with the large square seal. He went on to explain that the articles had been sent to Columbus, Ohio from the War Department, were advertised, and so came into the possession of George D. Wilson's son.

A tragic sequel to this story is that on the first day of the National Grand Army of the Republic Encampment at Columbus, Ohio, in August, 1888, where Captain William A. Fuller and the celebrated locomotive General were honored guests, the press announced a train wreck at Ankneytown, Knox County, Ohio, in which the baggage man David Davenport Wilson lost his life.

In August, 1888, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) held their annual encampment at Columbus, Ohio. Ten of the Andrews Raiders attended as did William A. Fuller. On the tender is J. Alfred Wilson; in the cab are Wilson W. Brown and William J. Knight; standing at left are Elihu H. Mason and William H. Reddick; sitting in front are John Wollam, Daniel A. Dorsey, and William Pittenger; standing by the cow catcher are William Bensinger and Jacob Parrott; and resting on the post is William A. Fuller. This is one of three photographs made of the men assembled by the famous engine, the General, brought up under its own steam from the Western & Atlantic Railroad in Georgia. Fuller gave a talk on the raid and mentioned the great potential military value of it, had it succeeded. He closed with a stirring tribute to the intrepid raiders. The impetus for placing a monument to the event was suggested here.

At the close of 1866, there remained alive fifteen of the original raiding party and all of the major participants on the Confederate side. On July 20, 1871, Robert Buffum cut his throat and died by his own hand while in a mental institution at Auburn, New York. He, like Mark Wood, had escaped a Confederate noose and many enemy bullets. In 1886 Martin J. Hawkins died at Quincy, Illinois. In 1896 another died and was buried at Pemberville, Ohio, with the following inscribed on his tombstone: "A Soldier slumbers here. Captain Elihu H. Mason, Mitchel Raider."