Stearns, Amos Edward, 1833-1912
Rank:	Private
Regiment:	25th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Co. A (1861-1865)
Service:	1861 September 11-1865 March 25

Background note:

Amos Edward Stearns was born in Taunton, Mass., on January 9, 1833, the fourth of nine children born to Amos and Chloe (Cleaveland) Stearns. Stearns received a basic common school education and was trained and employed as a machinist, but at the outset of the war, he was driven by a succession personal tragedies to enlist in the army. His first child, Mary, died in 1860, and was followed in death in July, 1861, by his wife, Mary C. Keen, whom he had married in 1855, and one month later, by their second child, Nellie, who died of cholera. Grief-stricken and unemployed, Stearns volunteered as a private in the 25th Massachusetts on September 11, 1861.

Shortly after enlistment and mustering in, the 25th Massachusetts Infantry was attached to Burnside's Coastal Expedition and sent to North Carolina, where they remained stationed at New Bern for over a year and a half, participating in the succession of battles in December, 1862, that included Goldsboro, Whitehall and Kinston, and in the defence of New Bern itself during the spring of 1863. In October, 1863, the regiment was ordered to Newport News, Va., where those who declined to reenlist -- including Stearns -- were temporarily assigned to duty with the 139th New York Infantry. Having already withstood some sporadic moments of hard campaigning in North Carolina, the 25th Massachusetts were ordered into the thick of the fray on the southern approaches to Richmond, just in time for the bitter spring campaigns of 1864.

At Drury's (or Drewry's) Bluff, on May 16, 1864, Stearns was taken prisoner while helping a wounded comrade to the rear of a fog-covered battlefield. Processed as a prisoner of war at Libby Prison in Richmond, Stearns was soon sent southward to the notorious Andersonville Prison Camp and later to the less well-known, but equally harsh camps at Charleston and Florence, S.C. As Sherman's forces threatened from Savannah, Stearns was ordered back and forth between Wilmington and Goldsboro, finally gaining parole on February 27th and formal exchange on March 9. Particularly at Andersonville and Charleston, exposure, hunger, disease, and brutality had been every day features of life, but roughly two weeks after his exchange, he was mustered out of the service, arriving home at Worcester on March 25.

Following the war, Stearns found work as a machinist in Worcester, and in 1866, married Lydia Maria Fisher. The couple adopted a son, Walter, in 1873. Stearns was active in veterans organizations, including the Grand Army of the Republic, until his death on May 28, 1912.

Scope and contents:

Amos E. Stearns's account of his Civil War service and imprisonment, entitled Life in Rebel Prisons, is remarkably free of visible animosity towards his Rebel captors and is therefore a rather unusual document. Beginning with his capture at Drewry's Bluff and ending with his release, Stearns depicts his captivity as part of a harsh reality, but without attributing cruel intentions to anyone: even Henry Wirz, the infamous commandant at Andersonville, receives relatively favorable treatment. Since the narrative was written following the war (published in 1887 as Narrative of Amos E. Stearns, A Prisoner at Andersonville), time may have softened Stearns's opinions of the Confederates, or it may be that he was simply more empathetic or more forgiving.

Stearns's published diary, which probably provides the original source material for this narrative, provides a more downhearted sense of the despair and hardships suffered during imprisonment. Together, the two volumes provide a balanced record of Stearns' experiences, offering insight as well into the ways in which the experiences of war were recrafted in the minds of veterans as the years passed.

Related collections:

The papers of Charles F. Tew provide insight into the military experiences of the 25th Massachusetts Infantry, written (like Stearns') from the perspective of a working class native of Taunton and Worcester. The Tew Papers are valuable in fleshing out some of Stearns' experiences prior to being taken prisoner.

Reference:

Stearns, Amos E. The Civil War Diary of Amos E. Stearns, a Prisoner at Andersonville. Leon Basile, ed. (East Brunswick, N.J., 1981). M-2427 Recat. 10/97 rsc

Accesion number
Cat. 2/97 rsc

Link to subject index to the Amos E. Stearns Memoir

Contents listing for the Amos E. Stearns Memoir

Alphabetic index to the Schoff Civil War Collections

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