On this day 150 years ago, William Trefethen and his wife Izette, and their children John, William, and George of New Castle, New Hampshire near Portsmouth were enjoying a relaxing summer excursion on a small island in the Piscataqua River, which during the previous century had been used to quarantine small pox patients (click here for more info http://www.seacoastnh.com/Places-%26-Events/Brewster%27s-Rambles/Smallpox-Parties-on-Pest-Island/.
But on that warm, idyllic August day, death must have been furthest thing from their minds. The bloodiest summer of the Civil War that had recently transpired on the gruesome fields of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg must have seemed a world away. But the war was about to make a violent intrusion far from the battlefield, and shatter the Trefethen's world.
After President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect on January 1, 1863, many states and the Federal government began organizing units of black troops. During the summer of 1863 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which was only across the river from Pest Island and New Castle, black troops were brought in to garrison Fort Sullivan and learn how to fire the cannons which lined the river in case of an enemy attack from Confederate raiders such as thee Alabama. Click here to see post-war images of Fort Sullivan: http://www.northamericanforts.com/East/Maine/Fort_Sullivan/history.html
But on August 28, 1863 the Trefethen family suddently found themselves in the line of fire and this newspaper clipping from the New Hampshire Statesman on September 4 described the horrific scene:
A gravestone at the Riverside Cemetery in New Castle identifies John Trefethen as the boy who was killed. Additional records reveal that Mrs. Trefethen was also pregnant at the time of incident, making her heroic actions even more remarkable (see here
http://kristinhall.org/fambly/Neal/IzetteNeal.html).
I am still searching for documents at the National Archives that might reveal the internal investigation by the Shipyard into the incident. Given how controversial blacks serving in the military was in 1863, my guess is that the Trefethen tragedy only served as confirmation to those who doubted former slaves could be competent soldiers. One can only imagine the remorse and embarrassment the unidentified soldiers themselves felt about the innocent loss of life they had caused.
The impact of that errant cannonball on August 28, 1863 lasted for decades. A document written more than twenty years later tragically hints at the severe psychological scars, probably post-traumatic stress, which Mrs. Trefethen suffered. On April 27, 1886, William Trefethen submitted a petition to Committee of Claims of the U.S. House of Representatives of the 49th Congress, which responded to his claim below:
The facts in this case are that on the 28th day of August, 1863, the wife and sons of the petitioner...were gathering berries on Pest Island , about three-fourths of a mile from Fort Sullivan, and that while so engaged a detachment of United States colored troops, stationed at said Fort, commenced firing shells upon the island, the result of which was that the petitioner's son was killed, and his wife was rendered insane from the fright received by the firing and the shock produced by the killing of her son. These facts are abundantly proven by affidavits...
Your committee are of the opinion that petitioner has not strictly legal claim for compensation, yet, in view of the facts that the gun firing was, according to the testimony of Rear-Admiral Murray, the result of carelessness and ignorance on the part of the United States troops, we report a bill allowing petitioner the sum of $5,000, and respectfully recomment that it do pass.
(Click here for the original document from the Congressional Record): http://books.google.com/books?id=ylFHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR433&dq=son+of+William+Trefethen+killed+1863&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%20William%20Trefethen%20killed%201863&f=false
Unfortunately for historians today, I was informed by the Center for Legislative Archives that all of the affidavits mentioned in the petition above have been lost. But the monetary compensation would never heal the invisible wounds suffered by the Trefethen family. Back in New Hampshire, Izette Trefethen died in March 1887, according to her headstone in the same cemetery as her poor son, where they lie for eternity within sight of the island which witnessed the tragedy that shattered their world.
