Dates: 1862-1865.
Original diaries are restricted; typescripts and photocopies must be used instead.

Biography:

Thomas Lafayette Beadles

Thomas Lafayette Beadles was born in Tennessee, a few miles south of the Kentucky border, on February 5, 1837. His father, Joseph Beadles, was a farmer from Tennessee, while his mother, Nicy Beadles, was from Alabama. At the age of twenty-one, Beadles moved to Big Creek, Calhoun County, Mississippi, where he became employed in a mercantile business. Beadles and an acquaintance, Jeff Boland, purchased 640 acres of land, a few miles east of Big Creek, that later became the site of present-day Calhoun City. He married Mary Susan Petree (1844-1939) at Edwards Depot (Edwards), Hinds County, Mississippi, on November 12, 1861. Beadles owned $12,000 in personal assets in that year.

Less than six months after his marriage, Beadles enlisted in the Confederate army in Corinth, Alcorn County, Mississippi, in April of 1862. He served as a sergeant in Company F, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. Beadles was informally called "Captain," but he apparently never achieved a rank higher than sergeant.

During the early part of the Civil War, the Twenty-ninth Regiment served in Kentucky and Mississippi and then joined the Army of Tennessee under General Edward Cary Walthall and Brantly's Brigade. Beadles fought in several major battles, including Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and Chickamauga, Georgia. He was captured at Chickamauga on September 20, 1863, and he was taken to Camp Douglas, Illinois, as a prisoner-of-war.

There were over seven thousand prisoners in Camp Douglas at one point during 1864, even though the number imprisoned there fluctuated throughout the war. Beadles helped a number of other Freemasons form the Prisoners Masonic Relief Association, and on February 27, 1865, he was elected as president of the organization. On March 8, 1865, he was appointed as commissioner of Confederate supplies at Camp Douglas. When the prisoner exchanges were arranged after the Civil War, the Confederates at Camp Douglas were released in groups, and Beadles regained his freedom on June 13, 1865.

After returning home, Beadles began farming and paid off debts incurred by his mercantile store during the war. Beadles and his wife had eleven children: Eugene St. Clair, Clarence Victor, Cassius Brutus, Edna Earl, Effie, Clyde, Ernest Wolff, Adrian Otto, Birdie, Mabel Guy, and Roy Beadles. He supported the temperance movement, and he canvassed for the Democratic party, speaking out against governmental extravagance and waste. Beadles held the highest office in the Blue Lodge of the Masonic Order. Thomas Lafayette Beadles died in Coffeeville, Yalobusha County, Mississippi, on June 6, 1932.

 
Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of two original Civil War diaries of Thomas Lafayette Beadles and typewritten transcriptions of and supporting materials for the diaries.

The first diary begins on September 13, 1862, and ends on July 17, 1864, and the second diary begins on July 18, 1864, and ends on June 17, 1865. The first diary is prefaced with material written by a different author than Beadles; the author may be W. B. Davis (b. 1834). He was also a sergeant of Company F, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. Davis was a farmer from Tennessee with $3,200 in real estate in 1860, and he died in the Civil War in July of 1862. "Union City, Tennessee," is written inside the front cover of the diary, and several miscellaneous entries in the front of this diary were most likely written by Davis. He apparently signed the top of one page entitled "Sketches in Camp Life: 1861." This entry describes the authors enlistment in November of 1861 and March of 1862 in Captain James M. Hamptons Company F, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. There are also several lists that record the amount of money that each soldier sent home to family members.

Beadles's name and company information are inscribed on the first page of the first diary. His entries begin on September 13, 1862, after the diary entries apparently written by Davis. The first page of this section contains an elegy on the death of W. B. Davis. Beadles also recorded a prayer on December 29, 1862, while on the battlefield at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. After the prayer, Beadles did not write anything in the diary for over eight months. On September 18, 1863, Beadles began daily diary entries. The second volume has an original wedding announcement attached to the first page, but otherwise it is a continuation of Beadles's regular diary entries.

Although some of the diary entries are brief, Beadles does not miss a single day between September 18, 1863, and June 13, 1865. Beadles recorded his capture, news from the war, and prison conditions. Since the diaries primarily cover the period from October 3, 1863, to June 13, 1865, when Beadles was imprisoned, they provide many detailed observations on prison life. The principal topics Beadles covered were rations; the prevalence of sickness; the numbers of officers and men who were captured; the frequently successful and sometimes unsuccessful prison-escape attempts; the number of Confederate prisoners who joined the Union army; the anticipation of prisoner exchanges; and the correspondence Beadles wrote and received. Some of the more unusual events that he recorded include a hotel collapse that accidentally injured or killed over one hundred Confederate prisoners, the problems that the men had with the Union guards taking money and clothing, and the extreme methods that were often necessary to procure adequate sustenance.

The transcriptions of the diaries were made by Malcolm L. Denley, M.D., great-grandson of Thomas Lafayette Beadles. Denley provides an introduction to the diaries and supporting materials about Camp Douglas, the Twenty-ninth Regiment, and the battle of Chickamauga. He also includes a transcription of a 1925 letter from Beadles to Denley and genealogical information from the Beadles family Bible.

 
Series Identification:

Series 1: Diaries. 1862-1865. 2 items.

Series 2: Diary Transcripts and Supporting Materials. 1862-1865; n.d. 1 item.