ROBERT ALLISON CALDWELL (1834-1916) was born December 6, 1834, at Clark’s Fork of Bullock’s Creek in the Kings Creek section of York County, South Carolina, into a family of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian immigrants who settled the county several generations earlier. His father was James Caldwell (1787-1871), a well-to-do farmer whose parents had come to America from Ireland in 1788. His mother, Sarah Turner Cain (1806-1886), chose to name him for his maternal great-grandfather, Revolutionary patriot Robert Allison, Esquire, who fought for America’s independence at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780 and whose memory was still vivid in the family. He attended the local schools, as they existed at that time, most of them being private academies sponsored by churches. As a young man, he assisted his father on the farm.
As the clouds of civil war gathered, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens ordered troops to be raised for the defense of the state. On February 4, 1861, Robert Allison Caldwell was appointed a second lieutenant of the Kings Mountain Guards by the governor. At almost the same time, on April 4, 1861, he was married to Miss Jane Catherine Adams of the Crowder’s Creek community in adjacent Gaston County, North Carolina. They were only able to be together for about three weeks before duty required him to leave for Charleston, where on May 13, 1861, he was formally enlisted as a private in Company K of the 17th South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers (Lacy Guards). He was described in military papers as “of light complexion, dark hair, blue eyes and 5-feet, 8-inches tall.”
He served honorably in the Confederate Army for the entire duration of the war. For the first year, he was stationed in and around Charleston, protecting the military installations there. Later, he was transferred to Virginia and the soon-to-become famous Army of Northern Virginia. Important battles in which he participated with his regiment included Johns Island, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Kinston, Wilmington, Charleston, Mississippi, Hatcher’s Run, the Siege of Petersburg, The Crater and Five Forks. In one battle, he was buried beneath an avalanche of dirt and debris thrown by a bursting shell, but was dug out and found to be unhurt.
In the closing days of the war, as Robert E. Lee’s once invincible Army of Northern Virginia was greatly depleted and near starvation while maneuvering to protect Richmond, Robert Caldwell was captured at Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, on April 1, 1865, following the Battle of Five Forks. On the same day at Five Forks, a short distance away, his brother, Hugh Gibson Caldwell, was also captured. The Federals transported them and their captured comrades to various prisoner-of-war camps in the North, Robert to Hart’s Island in Long Island Sound, twenty miles north of New York City, and Hugh to Point Lookout Prison on the tip of southern Maryland, bordering on the Chesapeake Bay, where he died on April 30.
Robert Caldwell was released from Hart’s Island on June 21, 1865, after signing the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. With other survivors, he was soon transported on a cattle boat to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where the United States had established a military base and hospital at the beginning of the war. From there, he walked nearly two hundred miles across territory that Sherman’s troops had burned and pillaged to his family’s home in York County. Local families along the way were kind to the returning soldiers and shared what little they had with them. His wife and family knew nothing of his whereabouts for months after the war’s end. Happily, he was to find his home and family unharmed, but the land in much need of young men’s work to restore it to its former bountiful harvest.
Robert, his wife Caty, as he called Jane Catherine, and their three-and-a half-year-old son, James Meek, called Jimmy, who had been born January 24, 1862, while his father was away at war, settled down on the Clark’s Creek farm to resume the every-day life of simply living. The couple’s second child, Isabel Adams, known as Belle, was born on May 22, 1866. Then on June 27, 1871, their third child, Bettie Gibson, was born at the old Caldwell home. It was a time of great political upheaval and dislocation in South Carolina and throughout the South.
Sometime during 1873, Robert Allison Caldwell and his family moved about fifteen miles northeast to a 276-acre plantation he had purchased along Crowder’s Creek, in Gaston County. For the next twenty-seven years, he and his family lived here and made it one of the most productive properties in the county by incorporating the most advanced methods of agriculture. They were a friendly, outgoing family, and their home was widely known as a hospitable place to visit. They were also a religious family with strong Calvinistic beliefs and transferred their membership from Beersheba Presbyterian Church in York County to Olney Presbyterian in Gaston County.
From about 1888 onward, they maintained a home in Gastonia in order that their children might take advantage of the town’s better educational and social facilities. Robert and Caty Caldwell were strong believers in education and saw to it that each of their children received what they had been unable – a college education. James Meek received a medical degree from the College of Charleston in 1889. Belle and Bettie graduated from Columbia Female College in Columbia, S.C.
On September 8,1916, Robert Allison Caldwell died peacefully at the age of eighty-one at his Gastonia home. The Gastonia Gazette of September 12 reported, “Funeral services were conducted at the First Presbyterian Church at 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon by the pastor, Rev. J. H. Henderlite, assisted by Mr. Caldwell’s former pastor at Olney church, Rev. G. A. Sparrow, and Rev. Dr. J. C. Galloway, pastor of the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. There was present a large concourse of the friends of the family, many of the deceased’s former neighbors from York County and the Olney neighborhood being present. Rev. Mr. Sparrow having borne to Mr. Caldwell the relations of pastor, friend and comrade in the Civil War spoke feelingly of his faithfulness to all his obligations as a citizen, a soldier and a Christian.” A church periodical read in part: “In his death the town has lost one of its most prominent and esteemed citizens… He was a brave Confederate soldier, a successful farmer and business man, and a citizen of the highest integrity… His mind was remarkably clear almost to the very end, which came very quietly as he lay in his bed with his family about him.” He was buried in the Caldwell-Jackson Family plot at Oakwood Cemetery in Gastonia.
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. St. John 11:25
Written and contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a great-grandson and namesake.
As the clouds of civil war gathered, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens ordered troops to be raised for the defense of the state. On February 4, 1861, Robert Allison Caldwell was appointed a second lieutenant of the Kings Mountain Guards by the governor. At almost the same time, on April 4, 1861, he was married to Miss Jane Catherine Adams of the Crowder’s Creek community in adjacent Gaston County, North Carolina. They were only able to be together for about three weeks before duty required him to leave for Charleston, where on May 13, 1861, he was formally enlisted as a private in Company K of the 17th South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers (Lacy Guards). He was described in military papers as “of light complexion, dark hair, blue eyes and 5-feet, 8-inches tall.”
He served honorably in the Confederate Army for the entire duration of the war. For the first year, he was stationed in and around Charleston, protecting the military installations there. Later, he was transferred to Virginia and the soon-to-become famous Army of Northern Virginia. Important battles in which he participated with his regiment included Johns Island, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Kinston, Wilmington, Charleston, Mississippi, Hatcher’s Run, the Siege of Petersburg, The Crater and Five Forks. In one battle, he was buried beneath an avalanche of dirt and debris thrown by a bursting shell, but was dug out and found to be unhurt.
In the closing days of the war, as Robert E. Lee’s once invincible Army of Northern Virginia was greatly depleted and near starvation while maneuvering to protect Richmond, Robert Caldwell was captured at Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, on April 1, 1865, following the Battle of Five Forks. On the same day at Five Forks, a short distance away, his brother, Hugh Gibson Caldwell, was also captured. The Federals transported them and their captured comrades to various prisoner-of-war camps in the North, Robert to Hart’s Island in Long Island Sound, twenty miles north of New York City, and Hugh to Point Lookout Prison on the tip of southern Maryland, bordering on the Chesapeake Bay, where he died on April 30.
Robert Caldwell was released from Hart’s Island on June 21, 1865, after signing the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. With other survivors, he was soon transported on a cattle boat to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where the United States had established a military base and hospital at the beginning of the war. From there, he walked nearly two hundred miles across territory that Sherman’s troops had burned and pillaged to his family’s home in York County. Local families along the way were kind to the returning soldiers and shared what little they had with them. His wife and family knew nothing of his whereabouts for months after the war’s end. Happily, he was to find his home and family unharmed, but the land in much need of young men’s work to restore it to its former bountiful harvest.
Robert, his wife Caty, as he called Jane Catherine, and their three-and-a half-year-old son, James Meek, called Jimmy, who had been born January 24, 1862, while his father was away at war, settled down on the Clark’s Creek farm to resume the every-day life of simply living. The couple’s second child, Isabel Adams, known as Belle, was born on May 22, 1866. Then on June 27, 1871, their third child, Bettie Gibson, was born at the old Caldwell home. It was a time of great political upheaval and dislocation in South Carolina and throughout the South.
Sometime during 1873, Robert Allison Caldwell and his family moved about fifteen miles northeast to a 276-acre plantation he had purchased along Crowder’s Creek, in Gaston County. For the next twenty-seven years, he and his family lived here and made it one of the most productive properties in the county by incorporating the most advanced methods of agriculture. They were a friendly, outgoing family, and their home was widely known as a hospitable place to visit. They were also a religious family with strong Calvinistic beliefs and transferred their membership from Beersheba Presbyterian Church in York County to Olney Presbyterian in Gaston County.
From about 1888 onward, they maintained a home in Gastonia in order that their children might take advantage of the town’s better educational and social facilities. Robert and Caty Caldwell were strong believers in education and saw to it that each of their children received what they had been unable – a college education. James Meek received a medical degree from the College of Charleston in 1889. Belle and Bettie graduated from Columbia Female College in Columbia, S.C.
On September 8,1916, Robert Allison Caldwell died peacefully at the age of eighty-one at his Gastonia home. The Gastonia Gazette of September 12 reported, “Funeral services were conducted at the First Presbyterian Church at 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon by the pastor, Rev. J. H. Henderlite, assisted by Mr. Caldwell’s former pastor at Olney church, Rev. G. A. Sparrow, and Rev. Dr. J. C. Galloway, pastor of the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. There was present a large concourse of the friends of the family, many of the deceased’s former neighbors from York County and the Olney neighborhood being present. Rev. Mr. Sparrow having borne to Mr. Caldwell the relations of pastor, friend and comrade in the Civil War spoke feelingly of his faithfulness to all his obligations as a citizen, a soldier and a Christian.” A church periodical read in part: “In his death the town has lost one of its most prominent and esteemed citizens… He was a brave Confederate soldier, a successful farmer and business man, and a citizen of the highest integrity… His mind was remarkably clear almost to the very end, which came very quietly as he lay in his bed with his family about him.” He was buried in the Caldwell-Jackson Family plot at Oakwood Cemetery in Gastonia.
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. St. John 11:25
Written and contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a great-grandson and namesake.
ROBERT ALLISON CALDWELL (1834-1916) was born December 6, 1834, at Clark’s Fork of Bullock’s Creek in the Kings Creek section of York County, South Carolina, into a family of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian immigrants who settled the county several generations earlier. His father was James Caldwell (1787-1871), a well-to-do farmer whose parents had come to America from Ireland in 1788. His mother, Sarah Turner Cain (1806-1886), chose to name him for his maternal great-grandfather, Revolutionary patriot Robert Allison, Esquire, who fought for America’s independence at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780 and whose memory was still vivid in the family. He attended the local schools, as they existed at that time, most of them being private academies sponsored by churches. As a young man, he assisted his father on the farm.
As the clouds of civil war gathered, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens ordered troops to be raised for the defense of the state. On February 4, 1861, Robert Allison Caldwell was appointed a second lieutenant of the Kings Mountain Guards by the governor. At almost the same time, on April 4, 1861, he was married to Miss Jane Catherine Adams of the Crowder’s Creek community in adjacent Gaston County, North Carolina. They were only able to be together for about three weeks before duty required him to leave for Charleston, where on May 13, 1861, he was formally enlisted as a private in Company K of the 17th South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers (Lacy Guards). He was described in military papers as “of light complexion, dark hair, blue eyes and 5-feet, 8-inches tall.”
He served honorably in the Confederate Army for the entire duration of the war. For the first year, he was stationed in and around Charleston, protecting the military installations there. Later, he was transferred to Virginia and the soon-to-become famous Army of Northern Virginia. Important battles in which he participated with his regiment included Johns Island, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Kinston, Wilmington, Charleston, Mississippi, Hatcher’s Run, the Siege of Petersburg, The Crater and Five Forks. In one battle, he was buried beneath an avalanche of dirt and debris thrown by a bursting shell, but was dug out and found to be unhurt.
In the closing days of the war, as Robert E. Lee’s once invincible Army of Northern Virginia was greatly depleted and near starvation while maneuvering to protect Richmond, Robert Caldwell was captured at Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, on April 1, 1865, following the Battle of Five Forks. On the same day at Five Forks, a short distance away, his brother, Hugh Gibson Caldwell, was also captured. The Federals transported them and their captured comrades to various prisoner-of-war camps in the North, Robert to Hart’s Island in Long Island Sound, twenty miles north of New York City, and Hugh to Point Lookout Prison on the tip of southern Maryland, bordering on the Chesapeake Bay, where he died on April 30.
Robert Caldwell was released from Hart’s Island on June 21, 1865, after signing the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. With other survivors, he was soon transported on a cattle boat to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where the United States had established a military base and hospital at the beginning of the war. From there, he walked nearly two hundred miles across territory that Sherman’s troops had burned and pillaged to his family’s home in York County. Local families along the way were kind to the returning soldiers and shared what little they had with them. His wife and family knew nothing of his whereabouts for months after the war’s end. Happily, he was to find his home and family unharmed, but the land in much need of young men’s work to restore it to its former bountiful harvest.
Robert, his wife Caty, as he called Jane Catherine, and their three-and-a half-year-old son, James Meek, called Jimmy, who had been born January 24, 1862, while his father was away at war, settled down on the Clark’s Creek farm to resume the every-day life of simply living. The couple’s second child, Isabel Adams, known as Belle, was born on May 22, 1866. Then on June 27, 1871, their third child, Bettie Gibson, was born at the old Caldwell home. It was a time of great political upheaval and dislocation in South Carolina and throughout the South.
Sometime during 1873, Robert Allison Caldwell and his family moved about fifteen miles northeast to a 276-acre plantation he had purchased along Crowder’s Creek, in Gaston County. For the next twenty-seven years, he and his family lived here and made it one of the most productive properties in the county by incorporating the most advanced methods of agriculture. They were a friendly, outgoing family, and their home was widely known as a hospitable place to visit. They were also a religious family with strong Calvinistic beliefs and transferred their membership from Beersheba Presbyterian Church in York County to Olney Presbyterian in Gaston County.
From about 1888 onward, they maintained a home in Gastonia in order that their children might take advantage of the town’s better educational and social facilities. Robert and Caty Caldwell were strong believers in education and saw to it that each of their children received what they had been unable – a college education. James Meek received a medical degree from the College of Charleston in 1889. Belle and Bettie graduated from Columbia Female College in Columbia, S.C.
On September 8,1916, Robert Allison Caldwell died peacefully at the age of eighty-one at his Gastonia home. The Gastonia Gazette of September 12 reported, “Funeral services were conducted at the First Presbyterian Church at 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon by the pastor, Rev. J. H. Henderlite, assisted by Mr. Caldwell’s former pastor at Olney church, Rev. G. A. Sparrow, and Rev. Dr. J. C. Galloway, pastor of the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. There was present a large concourse of the friends of the family, many of the deceased’s former neighbors from York County and the Olney neighborhood being present. Rev. Mr. Sparrow having borne to Mr. Caldwell the relations of pastor, friend and comrade in the Civil War spoke feelingly of his faithfulness to all his obligations as a citizen, a soldier and a Christian.” A church periodical read in part: “In his death the town has lost one of its most prominent and esteemed citizens… He was a brave Confederate soldier, a successful farmer and business man, and a citizen of the highest integrity… His mind was remarkably clear almost to the very end, which came very quietly as he lay in his bed with his family about him.” He was buried in the Caldwell-Jackson Family plot at Oakwood Cemetery in Gastonia.
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. St. John 11:25
Written and contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a great-grandson and namesake.
As the clouds of civil war gathered, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens ordered troops to be raised for the defense of the state. On February 4, 1861, Robert Allison Caldwell was appointed a second lieutenant of the Kings Mountain Guards by the governor. At almost the same time, on April 4, 1861, he was married to Miss Jane Catherine Adams of the Crowder’s Creek community in adjacent Gaston County, North Carolina. They were only able to be together for about three weeks before duty required him to leave for Charleston, where on May 13, 1861, he was formally enlisted as a private in Company K of the 17th South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers (Lacy Guards). He was described in military papers as “of light complexion, dark hair, blue eyes and 5-feet, 8-inches tall.”
He served honorably in the Confederate Army for the entire duration of the war. For the first year, he was stationed in and around Charleston, protecting the military installations there. Later, he was transferred to Virginia and the soon-to-become famous Army of Northern Virginia. Important battles in which he participated with his regiment included Johns Island, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Kinston, Wilmington, Charleston, Mississippi, Hatcher’s Run, the Siege of Petersburg, The Crater and Five Forks. In one battle, he was buried beneath an avalanche of dirt and debris thrown by a bursting shell, but was dug out and found to be unhurt.
In the closing days of the war, as Robert E. Lee’s once invincible Army of Northern Virginia was greatly depleted and near starvation while maneuvering to protect Richmond, Robert Caldwell was captured at Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, on April 1, 1865, following the Battle of Five Forks. On the same day at Five Forks, a short distance away, his brother, Hugh Gibson Caldwell, was also captured. The Federals transported them and their captured comrades to various prisoner-of-war camps in the North, Robert to Hart’s Island in Long Island Sound, twenty miles north of New York City, and Hugh to Point Lookout Prison on the tip of southern Maryland, bordering on the Chesapeake Bay, where he died on April 30.
Robert Caldwell was released from Hart’s Island on June 21, 1865, after signing the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. With other survivors, he was soon transported on a cattle boat to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where the United States had established a military base and hospital at the beginning of the war. From there, he walked nearly two hundred miles across territory that Sherman’s troops had burned and pillaged to his family’s home in York County. Local families along the way were kind to the returning soldiers and shared what little they had with them. His wife and family knew nothing of his whereabouts for months after the war’s end. Happily, he was to find his home and family unharmed, but the land in much need of young men’s work to restore it to its former bountiful harvest.
Robert, his wife Caty, as he called Jane Catherine, and their three-and-a half-year-old son, James Meek, called Jimmy, who had been born January 24, 1862, while his father was away at war, settled down on the Clark’s Creek farm to resume the every-day life of simply living. The couple’s second child, Isabel Adams, known as Belle, was born on May 22, 1866. Then on June 27, 1871, their third child, Bettie Gibson, was born at the old Caldwell home. It was a time of great political upheaval and dislocation in South Carolina and throughout the South.
Sometime during 1873, Robert Allison Caldwell and his family moved about fifteen miles northeast to a 276-acre plantation he had purchased along Crowder’s Creek, in Gaston County. For the next twenty-seven years, he and his family lived here and made it one of the most productive properties in the county by incorporating the most advanced methods of agriculture. They were a friendly, outgoing family, and their home was widely known as a hospitable place to visit. They were also a religious family with strong Calvinistic beliefs and transferred their membership from Beersheba Presbyterian Church in York County to Olney Presbyterian in Gaston County.
From about 1888 onward, they maintained a home in Gastonia in order that their children might take advantage of the town’s better educational and social facilities. Robert and Caty Caldwell were strong believers in education and saw to it that each of their children received what they had been unable – a college education. James Meek received a medical degree from the College of Charleston in 1889. Belle and Bettie graduated from Columbia Female College in Columbia, S.C.
On September 8,1916, Robert Allison Caldwell died peacefully at the age of eighty-one at his Gastonia home. The Gastonia Gazette of September 12 reported, “Funeral services were conducted at the First Presbyterian Church at 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon by the pastor, Rev. J. H. Henderlite, assisted by Mr. Caldwell’s former pastor at Olney church, Rev. G. A. Sparrow, and Rev. Dr. J. C. Galloway, pastor of the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. There was present a large concourse of the friends of the family, many of the deceased’s former neighbors from York County and the Olney neighborhood being present. Rev. Mr. Sparrow having borne to Mr. Caldwell the relations of pastor, friend and comrade in the Civil War spoke feelingly of his faithfulness to all his obligations as a citizen, a soldier and a Christian.” A church periodical read in part: “In his death the town has lost one of its most prominent and esteemed citizens… He was a brave Confederate soldier, a successful farmer and business man, and a citizen of the highest integrity… His mind was remarkably clear almost to the very end, which came very quietly as he lay in his bed with his family about him.” He was buried in the Caldwell-Jackson Family plot at Oakwood Cemetery in Gastonia.
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. St. John 11:25
Written and contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a great-grandson and namesake.
Inscription
Robert Allison Caldwell
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
