James Allen Sailors was the third of eight children born to George Washington & Assenath (Scott) Sailors. He is our 2nd cousin 4x removed on the Green branch of the family tree. All of the Sailors’ kids would live to adulthood, and James was one of two who would serve in the Civil War. He was born on November 3, 1839, in Rush County, Indiana, southeast of Indianapolis, not long before the Sailors family moved north to Wabash County. He was the oldest child still on the farm as of the 1860 Census—20 years old and unmarried.
Then on September 2, 1861, James Allen Sailors enlisted to serve “for the length of the war” in the 2nd Indiana Cavalry. That regiment would become the first complete cavalry regiment raised in the state. Ten days after signing up at Wabash, the county seat, he reported for duty in Indianapolis—likely at Camp Morton—and was mustered in. The regiment’s descriptive roll says he was a 22-year-old farmer, 6 feet tall with a dark complexion, brown eyes, and black hair.
The 2nd Indiana Cavalry trained in Indianapolis that fall, then on December 12 left the state for Camp Wickliffe, near White City, Kentucky. After a brief encampment, they moved along to be part of the Union occupation of Nashville in early 1862. They did not leave that city until early April, when they headed southwest to Pittsburgh Landing and the Battle of Shiloh. However, they did not arrive until shortly after the battle was over—lucky for them.
From Shiloh, the 2nd Indiana Cavalry rode south to Mississippi, and that spring they were part of the month-long Siege of Corinth. Then in the summer and early fall of 1862, Sailors’s regiment was involved in various small engagements in northern Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, leading up to the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862. That battle, while deadly for many soldiers, was almost missed by most of the Union regiments in the area, including the 2nd Indiana Cavalry. A unique combination of topography and weather prevented two of the three assembled corps from even hearing that a fight had begun, much less engaging in it, before it was too late.
After Perryville, the Confederate Army fled Kentucky, never to return, and the Union Army followed them as far as Nashville. On November 28, the 2nd Indiana Cavalry helped recapture a “government train” near Hartsville, Tennessee, a supply train that had been captured by the Rebels in Kentucky. They also capture 200 Confederate prisoners.
Just after Christmas the Union Army headed south toward Murfreesboro where they met up with Rebel forces on December 31 at the Battle of Stones River. Sailors’s cavalry regiment did not have suffer heavy losses, but the Union Army did—almost 14,000 killed, wounded, or captured.
After regrouping, the 2nd Indiana Cavalry returned to Nashville where they were on duty until June 1863. Sometime that winter or spring, James Allen Sailors was captured by the Confederates, but he either escaped or was paroled and returned to his company. I suspect he escaped, because most “official” Union prisoners had a record of their imprisonment or their parole, and Sailors had neither. Instead, there is a record in his service file dated April 15, 1863, stating, “The charge of desertion against Private James A. Sailors Co F 2nd Regt Ind. Cav. is hereby removed, he having produced satisfactory evidence that he was captured while on duty and was unable to join his command.”
In early summer 1863, Sailors was part of the Tullahoma Campaign in central Tennessee. In August he was given a furlough, and likely ventured home to Indiana. But he was back with his regiment before the Battle of Chickamauga in September. It was a massive defeat for the Union forces, with four times as many casualties as at Stones River, but Sailors was not injured.
After being chased from the Chickamauga battlefield, the Union Army retreated to Chattanooga where most of the infantry regiments remained through the fall, all but surrounded by the Confederates. However, many cavalry regiments were able to escape the city along a single mountainous route north, and the 2nd Indiana Cavalry was among them. From September through December, they were assigned to defend the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad from Rebel guerillas. One particular skirmish on October 2, 1863, was illustrated in Harper’s Weekly on October 31, 1863:
The Army of the Cumberland—Charge of the First Wisconsin
and Second Indiana Cavalry on the Rebels,
October 2, 1863. Sketched by Mr. Theodore R. Davis
The 2nd Indiana Cavalry was active in southeast Tennessee, northern Alabama, and north Georgia before it joined the Atlanta campaign in May 1864. Its first engagement was at the Battle of Resaca, followed by the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, the Battle of Ruff’s Mill, and the Battle of Pace’s Ferry. Sailors survived them all.
In late July 1864, as part of Maj. Gen. Edward McCook’s First Cavalry Division, the 2nd Indiana Cavalry was tasked with cutting off Confederate supply lines south and west of Atlanta. If all went as planned, they would continue on to liberate Andersonville Prison, where 32,000 Union soldiers were being held under deplorable conditions.
McCook’s raid started as planned. The cavalry cut off the Atlanta & West Point Railroad at Palmetto on July 28, and burned or captured more than 1,000 Confederate supply wagons near Fayetteville. The next day they rode into Lovejoy’s Station and tore up the Macon & Western Railroad. And then their luck ran out.
Another column of Union cavalry, led by Maj. Gen. George Stoneman, was supposed to show up in Lovejoy’s Station from the east at the same time, but they never made it. McCook’s cavalry turned back, and got as far as Brown’s Mill, three miles south of Newnan, Georgia, where they ran into a Confederate cavalry corps led by Joseph Wheeler. McCook’s command broke down, and the Union forces scattered. One hundred Northern cavalrymen were killed and 1,200 more were captured, along with their horses. James Allen Sailors was among the missing. Where was he?
The answer came ten months later, when he reappeared in South Carolina during the last days of the war. He was shipped back to Indianapolis where, on March 24, 1865, a commission was called at Ekin Barracks, Camp Morton, to investigate a charge of desertion. The transcript states:
“Edgar Willoughby was introduced as a witness for the defense who after being duly sworn testified as follows: ‘I was a sergeant in Co. G, 2nd Regt. Ind. Cav. and was mustered out for expiration of term of service yesterday the 23rd. I am well acquainted with the accused, and have known him for over three years. He is a member of Co. F, 2nd Regt. Ind. Cav. We were in a cavalry fight near Noonan [Newnan] Ga. July 30, 1864. The command to which we belonged was scattered in the fight, and our horses were lost crossing the Chattahoochee River. The country was full of dismounted cavalrymen trying to make their way to Marietta, Ga. at that time in possession of our forces. On the 2nd day of Aug. the accused, myself, and one other soldier was captured by a squad of Rebel cavalry. We have been together ever since the battle aforementioned, and returned from prison about 20 days ago having been held as prisoners by the rebels until about a month ago.’
The commission after carefully considering the evidence adduced respectfully submit that the said private James A. Sailors Co. F, 2nd Regt Ind. Cav. is not a deserter.”
But where had he been held? In a sad, ironic twist, Sailors was taken to the prison his regiment was hoping to liberate: Andersonville. He was there less than two months, and contracted chronic diarrhea. Then in late September, as the Confederacy collapsed, he was moved with other sick soldiers to the Florence Stockade in Florence, South Carolina. In many ways, it was worse than Andersonville; of the 18,000 soldiers held here during its five months of operation, 2,800 died—almost 20 a day. James Allen Sailors was there until about March 4, 1865, when it was disbanded and he was freed.
A contemporary drawing of the Florence Stockade.
With the charge against him cleared up, James Allen Sailors officially mustered out of the service a month later, on April 20, 1865, at Camp Morton in Indianapolis. He returned to Wabash County, and eleven months later married Mary Elizabeth Bratton, on February 1, 1866. In March 1867, they welcomed son Frank Boulder Sailors, and soon after, the family moved to Nemaha County in far southeast Nebraska. The arrived in 1867 via steamship to a Missouri River landing near Barada, and there they stayed.
The Sailors would have eight more children in Nebraska. Clara (1868), Homer Charles (1870), Della (1877), and Stella (1880) all died as infants. Myrtle Mae (1872), Gertrude (1874), Jacob Lyman (1881), and Lot Green (1885) would all grow to adulthood, marry, and have children.
The 1880 Census has the Sailors family on a farm in Saint Deroin, Nebraska, with three children—Frank, Myrtle, and Gertrude. Saint Derion was just north of Barada, closer to the river. That same year, James Allen Sailors applied for and received an Invalid Pension for his Civil War service.
In the early 1880s, the Sailors made a Homestead claim near Palisade in southwest Nebraska. A report was filed in 1886 at McCook stating that the Sailors family had improved on their claim—they’d built a 15 x 30 sod house, a sod stable, a cellar, a henhouse, and a corral. Together valued at $500. They were still near Palisade on March 1, 1889, when the Trenton Torpedo reported: “James A. Sailors Sr.’s windmill, or a part of it, froze and busted the other night and made double trouble for him, since that he has had to haul water for some 30 or 40 head of stock.”
But the homestead apparently didn’t last. The 1900 Census shows the Sailors family back in Nemaha County, near Auburn, with their two youngest sons, Jake and Lot. Sometime in the next decade James & Mary Sailors bought a farm/ranch in far northwest Nebraska, in Sioux County. Son Jake bought land adjoining theirs, to the east. They appear to have spent their summers ranching here, but returned to Barada in the winter.
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James Allen & Mary Elizabeth Sailors and their two granddaughters, Lillie and Mary, 1915.
James Allen Sailors died of pneumonia at his home near Harrison, Sioux County, Nebraska, on May 23, 1919, at the age of 79. Mary Elizabeth was too ill to travel at the time, so the funeral was held at the Sailors’ home, presided over by Rev. Magill. James was buried in the Harrison Cemetery.
Mary Elizabeth Sailors went to live at her son Frank’s home, the family’s old home back in Barada. She died here four years later, according to the Falls City Journal, February 26, 1923:
Follows Daughter in Death in Week
Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sailors, 77, died of pneumonia at the home of her son Frank Sailors living one and a quarter miles east of Barada at 12:15 Sunday morning. Mrs. Sailors had been quite ill for some time. Her condition was so serious that the news of the death of her daughter, Mrs. A. J. Sailors last week, was kept from her.
After short funeral services held at the home at 11 o’clock the body was forwarded to Harrison, Neb. over the Burlington [Railroad] at 2:17 today, E. W. Simpson being in charge.
The daughter who died, Myrtle Mae Sailors, had an interesting story: she married a man named James Allan Sailors, her first cousin, who had been named after her father!
And finally, I discovered one last family story, this one about son Jake, which appeared in the Falls City Journal on August 3, 1940:
Find Fossil Skull of Ancient Bull Buffalo
An ancient buffalo skull, apparently completely fossilized, was found recently by Jake Sailors and Frank Shafer in the bed of a small creek about three miles southeast of Barada.
The skull and horns apparently belonged to a great bull buffalo which roamed the hills of Richardson County untold years ago. From tip to tip, the horns have a spread of 40 inches.
Sailors and Shaffer found the tip of one horn sticking out of the creek and they began digging to find out what it was. The water had been running over the skull, buried only to a shallow depth.
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