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 **John Leland**  **For the Record-Herald**
 *  **Staunton Civil War veteran survives horrors of Andersonville**  ||
 * || || || [[image:http://www.recordherald.com/SiteImages/Article/140807a.jpg width="300" caption="Isaac Newton Rowe" link="http://www.recordherald.com/SiteImages/Article/OriginalSize/140807a.jpg"]] ||
 * [|+ click to enlarge] || ||
 * **Isaac Newton Rowe** || ||

Isaac Newton Rowe, an 18-year-old farm boy from Staunton, Ohio, enlisted in Company "C" of the 54th Ohio Volunteer Infantry on September 18, 1861.

In 1862, he fought with the 54th O.V.I. at Pittsburg Landing and Corinth in Tennessee and in 1863 at Yazoo Bottoms, Champion Hills, and Vicksburg in Mississippi.

In 1864, Private Rowe and the 54th O.V.I. were part of General William T. Sherman's army in the campaign to seize Atlanta, the "Gate City of the South."

His regiment belonged to the Second Brigade, Second Division, XV Corps. On July 22, 1864, during the Battle of Atlanta, Confederate soldiers captured Rowe and his squad on the eastern outskirts of the city.

Five days later Rowe arrived by train at Andersonville prison in southwestern Georgia. He remained a prisoner of the Confederates for eight months.

Andersonville prison was a 26-acre open area surrounded by a stockade made of logs and rough lumber. Prisoners had little more than ragged tents and blankets to shelter them from the scorching summer heat and relentless winter cold. A prisoner's daily ration was a 2-inch square of cornbread and a cup of boiled peas.


 * In the summer of 1864, nearly 32,000 Union soldiers were incarcerated at Andersonville. By the time the Civil War ended in April 1865, more than 14,000 men had died at the prison from exposure, hunger, and disease.

A swamp of stagnant sewage lay at the center of the compound. When Rowe arrived, the only drinking water came from a sluggish brook that ran through the swamp. Drinking the polluted water caused dysentery that killed thousands of the imprisoned soldiers.

After five days of torrential rain in August 1864, thunderous bolts of lightning struck just inside the stockade's wall, penetrating the highest point of an underground spring. Next morning a stream of clean water began to flow. Rowe witnessed the miraculous event which he and many others called the miracle of "Providence Spring." (The spring is still running today.)

In November 1864, as Sherman's army proceeded southeast toward Savannah in the historic "March to the Sea," the rebels began moving Andersonville's prisoners by rail to other locations in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Rowe was relocated to Charleston and then Florence in South Carolina. In early March 1865, he was among a small group of prisoners taken to Goldsboro, N.C., ahead of Sherman's army which was advancing north through the Carolinas.

At Goldsboro, the prisoners who could walk were paroled and pointed toward Union lines. Pvt. Rowe weighed less than 80 pounds and could neither walk nor stand. He and others in a similar condition were left to die in a pine grove within sight of Goldsboro. That evening several Southern women came to the grove with food and water. The women had the soldiers taken to an abandoned tobacco warehouse where they cared for them until Union troops occupied Goldsboro in late March 1865.

After his liberation Rowe was sent to an army hospital at Wilmington, N.C. The city had been a major Confederate seaport, but it was now occupied by Federal troops.

<span style="font-family: GEORGIA,SERIF;">"I was slowly brought back to life at Wilmington," Rowe later said.

<span style="font-family: GEORGIA,SERIF;">In May 1865, Pvt. Rowe received some additional care at Annapolis, Maryland before being sent to Camp Dennison near Cincinnati where he was discharged from the army in June 1865.

<span style="font-family: GEORGIA,SERIF;">Isaac Rowe returned to Fayette County and quickly resumed his life in Concord Township. He married Sarah J. Craig in 1870; the family increased with the births of four children. He operated a general store in Staunton, farmed 350 acres nearby, and served as Fayette County treasurer from 1882 to 1886.

<span style="font-family: GEORGIA,SERIF;">Perhaps to bring closure to his horrific captivity, Rowe returned to Andersonville, Georgia in 1890. The prison had become part of a 400-acre farm owned by a former slave. He never forgot his months at Andersonville. But by his own account, he most remembered the kindness of the Southern women who had saved his life.

<span style="font-family: GEORGIA,SERIF;">Isaac Newton Rowe died at his home on East St. in 1931 at the age of 88. || || []

1. How many people died at Andersonville?

2. Why were the prisoners treated they way they were?

3. Where was Andersonville located?

4. Was Andersonville, elaborately built.

5. The words **//"Death Before Dishonor"//** appear on a third of the state monuments at Andersonville National Historic Site. This phrase was the motto of the Union Ex-Prisoners of War. What does it mean?