The Civil War cast a long, troubling shadow over the nation, the healing going on for generations. In addition to the damage done to the nation, it also altered the lives of many young soldiers. In the horrifying aftermath of this great conflict, those who returned home, having experienced carnage, bloodshed, and death, were changed people as they coped with the personal trauma of these experiences and memories.
Whether the tragedies of some of these men were caused by the emotional trauma they experienced – having come face-to-face with gruesome scenes they could have never imagined — or some personal affliction is hard to say. Still, worry-some behavior occasionally manifested itself in complex and troubling ways. These unfortunate cases aren’t usually presented in the local narratives, but here is the tragic story of one troubled Civil War soldier.
Born in Chesapeake City in May 1844, James H. Andrews served in the Union Army during the Civil War with credit for two years, according to newspaper accounts. But after being furloughed to come back home to visit his mother, he overstayed his leave and was listed as a deserter at Wilderness, Va., in May 1864. As he told the story, while returning to duty, he got drunk in Baltimore and was late returning but had no intention of “deserting the old flag.”
The war seems to have affected him, for sources said he became eccentric and unbalanced. In 1869 officers arrested Andrews, and a jury convicted him of attempting to assault a young lady in the Chesapeake City Area. After serving a one-year sentence, he was released but got into similar trouble in the Warwick area. This time the jury declared that he was insane and unfit to be at large. He was sent to Baltimore for treatment but soon escaped. After that, he was returned to the Elkton Jail.
Beginning a Life Behind Bars
These incidents began life behind bars, mostly at the Cecil County Jail, except for the escapes he made. When he fled, he usually headed to Washington or Annapolis to speak with the president or the governor about his military commission as a general and his pension. Once, he was on his way to Annapolis to talk the matter over with the governor when a lawman arrested him for vagrancy. This charge sent him to the Maryland House of Corrections, but there a fellow prisoner from Cecil County recognized Jim and notified Sheriff William J. Smith. The sheriff soon had him back in the Elkton lock-up. Another time, he was sent to an institution in Baltimore to treat his delusions, but he soon escaped there, only to be returned to Elkton.
He ended up spending half of his life in the Elkton Jail, except for those brief jailbreaks. The nearly 40 years was “the longest time for any person in the United States to spend in jail,” according to the Cecil Democrat.1 He occupied a cell on the upper tier of the jail and had it fixed up to suit his taste. The old soldier was a great lover of pets and had white rats, white mice, dogs, cats, rabbits, and other kinds of pets and always took pride in dividing his food with them. For years, he longed for a blacksnake but was unable to get one 2
Appealing to the President & Governor for His General’s Commission
Old Jim enjoyed writing letters. Part of his delusion was someone trying to take his general’s commission from him and his veteran’s pension. Those matters often occupied his pen. But many others received letters, such as Magistrate Sasse of Wilmington. He wanted the magistrate to put the wheels of justice in motion against Clint Mackey, Gus Johnson, Polk Racine, Old Sam, and the deputy sheriff. “Don’t give any of them any bail, and you commit the deputy sheriff to jail, too, if he comes over to Delaware,” he told the official.
Sometimes the county commissioners received petitions. At one point, he asked the commissioners to free him as they had spent $4,000 to $5,000 on the old man and he was now ready to settle down. At one point, he took a fancy that he was the jail barber, and for his services for shavings, soap, and towels, he billed the county commissioners $700. 3
Jim resided behind those bars when two prisoners were hanged. Waters’ ghost wasn’t long in getting back to the jail, if Jim Andrews was to be believed, the Cecil Whig wrote. He reported hearing someone in the vacant death cell late at night following the execution. When the county hangman executed Alfred Stout in the jail yard in 1893, Jim became convinced the deputies were conspiring to hang him, too. He immediately took to his pen and paper, outlining the full scheme hatched by the lawmen and requesting counsel.
Finally, in 1907, Sheriff Biddle recommended Andrews’ liberation with the inmate growing old and unable to support himself as his health failed. When Sheriff Kirk assumed charge and learned about the “old man of the prison,” he too went to work to have the life-long prisoner released to spend his final days at the county almshouse. “On Saturday night, the old veteran, for he was a veteran in the Union Army during the Civil War, was taken to the county home near Cherry Hill by Deputy Sheriff Myron Miller,” the Cecil Democrat reported 4.
Deputy Miller took the old man who had lived most of his adult life behind bars around town, allowing him to see now unfamiliar views before they headed to the poorhouse. “To get out in the open world was almost a revelation to Andrews. Although he had been familiar with the surrounding part of the county in his younger days and had attended many dances between here and Cherry Hill, the country seemed to be very strange to him.” 2
Troubled Civil War Soldier Pardoned by Death
In Jail for nearly 40 years years, old Jim Andrews was finally “given a pardon at least by Death,” The Baltimore Sun reported on April 25, 1908. He was about 74 years old. “He served in the Union Army during the strife between the north and south and did credit to himself and country for about two years,” the Philadelphia Inquirer added.5
He is buried at the Cecil County Potter’s Field near Cherry Hill. Old Jim served under nineteen different sheriffs. About seven years before his death, he suffered a stroke of paralysis, which left him in a more or less helpless condition.
Endnotes