Lowrey's Recuperation at home in Mississippi

Brig. Gen. Mark P. Lowrey

The commanding officer of Great Grandfather Oakes's regiment, the 32nd Mississippi, received a serious wound in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky on October 8th. As field medical care was limited, Col. Mark Perrin Lowrey was granted leave to go home for 8 weeks of recuperation. His daughter later recounted the touching reunion:

When [Lowrey] got within 30 miles of his home and family, he found it would not be safe for him to go to [his home in] Kossuth because hundreds of northern soldiers were located within sight of his home... he stopped at his brother's home eight miles south of Ripley, Miss., and sent his brother with an ox wagon after us to move us to a little cabin rented from Captain J. J. Guyton near my uncle's home... My uncle reached our home near Kossuth about 10:00 o'clock one bright moonlight night... As we turned from the 'clothes line' to go back into the house we saw the shadow of a man coming around the corner of the house. We met him at the door. Of course, our hearts leaped to our throats as we thought the man was a 'Yankee soldier.' As we came near the entrance, my uncle spoke, 'Is that you, Sarah? My mother, recognizing his voice, said, 'O, Calvin, what did you come for?' (realizing the danger of any southern man coming within the Yankee lines).

After explaining the reason for her uncle's furtive, nighttime visit, Lowrey's daughter continued her narrative,

Well, we worked all night that night as we must move that wagon and team before daylight. We packed up all the wearing clothes of the family and a few bed clothes and arranged with my aunt and grandmother to move into our house... At 3:00 o'clock the next morning we had every child up and dressed and loaded into the wagon... At sunrise my uncle with his wagon load of [seven] children, and my mother who was in her buggy with two children, were three miles from the enemy's pickets... About 4:00 o'clock the second afternoon we drove through Ripley, Miss. As we started down the hill leaving town, behold, Father was on his war horse coming to meet us! As soon as we saw him we rolled out of the wagon and ran down the hill. He alighted from his horse and started up the hill, but had to let us all hug the same side so as to keep us off his wounded arm. Never were seven children so happy...

We reached our uncle's home after dark... the next day we moved to a little three room cabin two miles from my uncle's house.  The neighbors fixed us up for house keeping until we could send back for some of our possessions...

When General Lowrey had recovered sufficiently from his wound to re-enter the war, he called his family together before his departure [probably in December 1862] and read the 121st Psalm, prayed, bade them good-bye and departed... This Psalm is a most precious passage to the family...

Psalm 121 (King James Version)

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. 

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 

The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. 

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. 

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. 

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Col. Lowrey, who was also a pastor before and after the war, returned safely to his command to face the Federal army again at Nashville. In other documents, I have learned that Lowrey read and preached many times to his men from the Psalms and other Bible passages. What a comfort it must have been to have such a godly warrior in command.

Evacuation of Corinth, May 29-30, 1862

On the 29th and 30th of 1862, the 32nd Mississippi Infantry Regiment was withdrawn from Corinth with the Confederate Army south to Baldwyn, where it stayed through June. One of the men of my great grandfather’s regiment recalled: “Many boys passed their homes on the retreat.” Indeed, Great Grandfather Oakes was one of those who passed within sight of his family’s farm in Kossuth on that march south.

Col. Lowrey reported of his 32nd Mississippi that many of the men were sick and recuperating at home in communities around Corinth. When the army evacuated, those too sick to march with the army were cut off when enemy captured the city. Many of these later were able to make their way to rejoin their units.

At daylight on the 30th, Union Gen. Halleck becomes aware of the Confederate evacuation and vainly sends troops in pursuit. Alas, his one real opportunity for destroying Bragg's army slips through his fingers.

Sources:  Corinth Herald, May 17, 1902; 32nd Mississippi Regimental Return, June 1862

Louis Kossuth, Freedom Fighter

He was one of the more famous leaders and spokesmen of the European Revolutions of 1848. He led the Hungarian branch of this movement, which achieved its independence from the Habsburg Monarchy in 1849, and his name was Louis Kossuth. His influence was felt as far away from Hungary as the little North Mississippi village named in his honor, the community of my ancestors.

Freedom Fighter Louis Kossuth

The 1848 "Year of Revolution" was a wide spread wave of democratic and nationalistic uprisings, beginning in France and spreading throughout Europe, and even to Latin America. Americans followed these events in Europe with interest. Europe’s revolutionary leaders appeared on front pages of American papers. Many of these visited America, the most celebrated being freedom fighter Louis Kossuth.

In 1852, Kossuth embarked on a triumphal tour of America, speaking and raising funds and political support for his Hungarian revolution. Apparently the famous leader created a lasting impression among his American audiences. A statue of Kossuth now stands in New York City near the Columbia University campus, and another in front of the county Court House in Algona, Iowa. Other statues of Kossuth are sprinkled throughout the US. Kossuth County, Iowa, is named in his honor. I even bumped (literally) into a Kossuth bust during a tour of our nation’s capital building a few years ago. And, of course, the village of Kossuth, Mississippi, is named for him.*

Photo by Mark Dolan, 2007

Kosssuth, Mississippi
The ancestral home of the Oakes's family

The Revolution of 1848 eventually collapsed, and most Americans took comfort in the belief that their country was more conservative and, therefore, more stable than their European counterparts. However, seeds of this “European Spring” were sown in American society and politics, thrusting them into their own radical upheaval in the tragic "Civil War" of the 1860s. The war will draw in several of my ancestors, including my great grandfather, Nathan Oakes, from the little Mississippi town named for the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth.

* Louis Kossuth even started something of a fashion revolution in America. Men began to grow Kossuth-esque beards, and "Kossuth hats" (later to be known in the military as the "slouch hat") became widely popular. Couples even learned to dance the polka in the folk hero's honor.