Editor’s Note: This article focuses on the life and
times of Francis Lafayette “Fate” Foutch, the second prisoner of war from DeKalb County, Tennessee who served in the deadly Pickett’s Charge during the American Civil War in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The compact town of Alexandria, Tennessee had two POW soldiers – John A. Fite and Francis L. Foutch, whom we are focusing on today.
In all fairness, there were two soldiers holding differing ranks from DeKalb County, who were captured during the blood bath called Pickett’s Charge on day three of the American Civil War in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Last week, Col. John Amenis Fite of Alexandria, was spotlighted in this newspaper. This week, it is Pvt. Francis Lafayette “Fate” Foutch, also of Alexandria and my paternal great uncle. He was around age 30 when he enlisted in the war effort. The same description holds true for Col. Fite.
Foutch, like Fite, was a member of the 7th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, which consisted of many middle Tennessee and DeKalb County soldiers. There is only one month separating their muster dates in 1863. Both men were captured at the famous stone wall at the Gettysburg flattened grassy field. Today, there are no trees or further landscaping remaining in the cannon-smothered fields. It is as perennial as the grass. The sounds of silence are the only echoes reverberating throughout what once was an artillery-filled land with blood-curdling screams and red-covered bodies.
To paraphrase, it has been written that Pickett’s Charge was “a monumental disaster for the Confederacy; but a monumental victory for the Union.”
Upon the Union capture, Foutch was sent to a prisoner of war camp for the remainder of the war. This Union prison camp was undersized and offered only three small and indigestible meals daily. Hardtack (a cracker-like biscuit) was everywhere and digested well. Coffee was made and sweetened with mashed potatoes as sugar was an unheard-of delicacy. The highest majority of deaths were caused from systemic diseases and not from combat injuries. The most prevalent surgery was the removal of limbs that had been damaged by gun and cannon fire. The anesthesia used was only whiskey or chloroform.
The casualties at Pickett’s Charge in which Fite and Foutch participated, were 1,123 killed; 4,019 wounded; and 3,750 captured. The latter totals include the local soldiers. The entirety of this battle lasted only one hour, from start to finish.
For Fran Foutch, and with Pickett’s Charge ending on July 3, 1863, he was approximately 27 years old when he was taken as a Union prisoner of war. His birthday was on December 11, 1835. He was 78 years old when he died in Alexandria, his hometown.
Fort Delaware, which became Foutch’s criminal residence, recently has been featured on Ghost Hunters television shows. Paranormal tours are offered in the fall season. The Civil War Union Army prison was built in 1868. By the end of the war, there were more than 33,000 Confederates, political prisoners, and Federal convicts housed in the prison, where inmates received only two meals daily. They survived only in one room, which sometimes housed more than 50 additional persons. Further indications reveal that the prison was located at Pea Patch Island on the Delaware River. Any escapees had to tread water before arriving on any adjoining land. Of further notation, the worst POW camp during this time was the Andersonville Military Prison (for captured Union soldiers) located in Anderson, Georgia, where 100 men died daily. The latter is sometimes referred to as Fort Sumpter. Fite was housed at Johnson’s Island prison in Ohio. It, too, is built on the coast of Lake Erie.
Pickett’s Charge was an infantry assault on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War on July 3, 1863. Ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee against Major General George G. Meade’s Union positions on Cemetery Hill, the attack was a costly mistake that decisively ended Lee’s invasion of the north and forced a retreat back to Virginia. This assault featured the military efforts of Fite and Foutch during 1863.
The Charge was led by Major General George Pickett, who was one of three Confederate generals during the uprising. He followed Lee’s orders, although he disagreed with his plan. At one decisive moment when Lee wanted to continuing fighting, Pickett told him, “Sir, I have no division” left.
In retrospect, “Under the overall command of Gen. James Longstreet, Pickett’s division, along with the divisions of Generals Isaac Trimble and James Johnston Pettigrew lunged forward at 3 p.m. Approximately 12,500 Confederate soldiers from Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama marched from their positions. (Note: The Confederate army marched directly into a formed and lengthy line representing the Union army. It was a death march, as the soldiers walked directly into the line of fire.) It is miraculous that Fite and Foutch survived the bloody ordeal. Each man was taken as prisoners on the third day of the war. The end-result is that they served on the battlefield in the prior two days of the war before capture or injury or death.
As depicted by poet William Faulkner in “Intruder in the Dust,” the visions and feelings persisted:
“For every Southern boy, 14 years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on the July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled-ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t even begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a 14-year-old boy to think this time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain. Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.”
Foutch died on December 11, 1835 at age 77 in Alexandria. He is buried with the remainder of his family at Eastview Cemetery in downtown Alexandria. His parents were Levi Foutch, Sr. and Rachel Whitley Foutch. His spouse was America Frances Knight Foutch and they were the parents of five children.
In total, more than 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps over the course of the war.
In the descriptive noun and sentence, “Is there a hell?” the answer follows: “Yes, hell is real. Yes, hell is a place of torment and punishment that lasts forever and ever – with no end in sight.” (John 3:16 – 18- 36).
And, throughout the 19th century, we had two local survivors – and many unnamed survivors at home and at war.
In remembrance, one arrested Confederate Prisoner of War remembered the blood, the sweat, and the tears, and said, “Can this be hell?”
