Born In Kinnitty, County Offaly in 1824 – Union Soldier Matthew Kennedy Was Captured At The Battle of Peebles Farm And Later Imprisoned At Salisbury POW Camp

HE HAD ONLY ENLISTED A MONTH BEFORE HIS CAPTURE

Confederate Prison (Salisbury, North Carolina) | NCpedia,

On researching the available records for Matthew Kennedy we are able to confirm that this Union soldier was a native of the small village of Kinnitty in Co. Offaly, Ireland. His later US Army pension records give us his exact place of birth and also the name of his wife and with this helpful piece of information we could then confirm his marriage to Honora Brophy which is recorded in the Kinnitty Parish Register in April on 1850. The United States Census records for the years 1850 and 1860 do not indicate that the Kennedy family were then living in America so it would seem likely that they arrived in New York between the years 1860 and 1864. We can be sure of the year 1864 as it was on the 30th Of August of that year that Matthew Kennedy enlisted into Company A of the 51st New York Infantry Regiment and joined the Union Army in its fight against the Confederates.

**https://registers.nli.ie//registers/vtls000634781#page/122/mode/1up**– **Matthew Kennedy Marriage Record (Kinnitty)**

At the time Matthew Kennedy joined the Union Army the eastern theatre of the war was concentrated around the Confederate stronghold of Petersburg, Virginia. Overall Union Commander, General Ulysses S Grant, was determined to gain control of what was a vital supply hub for the Confederate Army and had conducted several battles in and around Petersburg since the beginning of June of 1864 in an attempt to weaken its formidable defenses. The result was a siege which would continue until March of 1865. Matthew Kennedy and his 51st New York Regiment were part of Grants army during this period and on the closing days of September 1864 they would become involved in one of these small engagements that took place around the periphery of Petersburg.

The Battle of Peebles Farm, also sometimes referred to as The Battle of Poplar Spring Church, took place between the 30th September & October 2nd 1864 and it was here that Matthew Kennedy seen his first, and only, combat as a soldier less than one month after joining up. The battle itself would eventually end in a victory for the Union forces but during the late evening of September 30th 1864 as the Confederate Army launched a counter attack in an attempt to regain lost positions near Poplar Springs Church they surrounded and captured 309 Union soldiers. Among those captured prisoners was Matthew Kennedy from Kinnitty.

Poplar Spring Church | ClipArt ETC

Frank Leslie – Battle of Peebles’ Farm – Wikipedia

Now being a prisoner of war Matthew was sent to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina in October 1864 along with several of his colleagues from the 51st New York Regiment. Unluckily for Matthew his arrival coincided almost exactly with the period when Salisbury Prison was being overwhelmed by the arrival of up to 10,000 newly captured Union soldiers who had been engaged in action in the western theatre of the Civil War.

When it opened in December of 1861 Salisbury Prison housed a maximum population of 2,500 captured soldiers, Confederate deserters, political prisoners, and ordinary convicts. Helping to maintain decent conditions in the camp was the existence at that time of agreed prisoner exchanges and paroles agreements which helped to regulate prisoner populations. As the war progressed these exchange agreements faltered for various reasons and this meant places like Salisbury quickly became dangerously overcrowded leading to living conditions becoming horrific for all those housed there.

The widespread disease, starvation, and death that soon took hold of the prison population meant that each day was a struggle for survival for each soldier. Up to September of 1864 Salisbury Prison had recorded about a 2 percent death rate but that figure rapidly changed from October 1864 onwards when that rate soared to and estimated 28 percent. The overall exact figure of the dead at the prison can never be exactly confirmed but it is estimated that 11,700 prisoners died at the prison during its existence with the majority of those deaths taking place between October 1864 and the end of the war. Later accounts from prisoners who survived Salisbury tell of bodies being collected daily at the “dead house” and hauled in a one-horse wagon to a series of 18 trenches dug in a nearby “old cornfield.” That area today form part of what is now the Salisbury National Cemetery.

Matthew Kennedy passed away from the effects of disease, likely Dysentery, on the 3rd of January 1865 at Salisbury Prison and is buried in one of those 18 trenches. It was a short and very harsh last few months in the life of this Offaly born soldier who only enlisted in August of 1864, fought his first battle in September of 1864, was housed in a prisoner of war camp in October of 1864, and was dead by the beginning of January 1865. There is no dedicated marker to Matthew Kennedy at Salisbury National Cemetery but his name is recorded among the thousands buried in those 18 trenches and we now add him to our list of soldiers recorded here on americasoffalyheroes.com.