Civil War descendant will participate in a special 9/11 event

James Lawrence “Larry” Knight of Manchester, Conn. displays the two small diaries that his great-grandfather, Adelbert Knight of Belfast, kept while serving in the 11th Infantry, United States Army, during the Civil War. Behind the diaries is an album containing the diary entries that Larry Knight transcribed in 1970, when he was a high school senior. One diary includes many entries that Adelbert Knight made while imprisoned at Andersonville, Ga. (Brian Swartz Photo)

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Larry Knight will follow in history’s footsteps on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

He will follow in some mighty big footsteps, those belonging to great-grandfather Adelbert Knight.

In spring 1862, a 21-year-old Adelbert “Del” Knight left Lincolnville to join the 11th Infantry Regiment, United States Army. Writing with a small, tight cursive penmanship, he started keeping a diary on Dec. 11, two days before his outfit participated in the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.

Adelbert Knight probably wrote with a quill pen, and before the war ended, he started a second diary, sending his first one home to his mother Julia. He fought with the 11th U.S. Infantry at Gettysburg in ’63 and at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Cold Harbor in spring ’64.

There his luck ran out, but his diary did not.

Captured at Cold Harbor, the unwounded Adelbert Knight shipped to Confederate prisons in Richmond, Va. and then at Andersonville, Ga. There he kept writing in his diary; his observations about the prisoners’ diet (or lack thereof), the weather, and prison life offer startling insight to Camp Sumter, as the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp was officially called.

Nine days after arriving in this infamous camp, Adelbert sold his pen and ink for bread.

Adelbert Knight of Belfast served with the 11th Infantry, United States Army during the Civil War. He kept two diaries while in uniform and during his imprisonment at Andersonville, Ga.; this diary, the first in which he recorded his activities, has an opening date of Dec. 11, 1862, just two days before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. James Lawrence “Larry” Knight of Manchester, Conn. displays the two small diaries that his great-grandfather, Adelbert Knight of Belfast, kept while serving in the 11th Infantry, United States Army, during the Civil War. Behind the diaries is an album containing the diary entries that Larry Knight transcribed in 1970, when he was a high school senior. One diary included many entries that Adelbert Knight made while imprisoned at Andersonville, Ga. (Brian Swartz Photo)

Adelbert Knight survived Andersonville and later transferred to prisons in Savannah and Millen in Georgia; Florence, S.C.; and Salisbury N.C. He returned to Lincolnville, married and moved to Belfast and had a son, Burt Leroy, who moved to Manchester, Conn.

There Burt, a traffic manager at the historic Cheney Silk Mills, had a son, James Adelbert Knight, who was born in 1923. James Adelbert had a son, James Lawrence “Larry” Knight,” in 1952; he graduated from Manchester High School in 1970. His mother, Bette, and brother, Craig, currently live in Eddington; Bette helped connect Larry with me at the Bangor Daily News after reading “Maine at War” columns in The Weekly, the publication that I edit.

When Larry was a Manchester HS senior, his English teacher “offered projects you take [at home] rather than going to class,” Larry recalled. “It had to be something substantial.”

His parents suggested that he transcribe Adelbert Knight’s diaries, of which “I was aware of … when I was a child,” he said. One diary was complete, the other was partially written, and Larry opted to transcribe the complete diary.

He did so page by page, day by day, on an Olympia manual typewriter. “Luckily I took typing when I was a sophomore. My father had the same teacher,” he said.

The project took “weeks,” Larry said. “At times it took longer to read it then to type it. I enjoyed doing it; it was a lot of fun.”

He submitted his project, which received an “A.” “The teacher was quite impressed,” he recalled. “I don’t think he expected what he got to read.”

Larry possesses “the original typed pages”; album-mounted photocopies went to various relatives, including his mother, who shared her album with The Weekly. Larry has sent “a PDF of the whole document” to be catalogued by the Library of Congress.

Adelbert Knight of Lincolnville served n the 11th U.S. Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. He kept a diary from December 1862 onwards; when Knight was captured at Cold Harbor, Va. in June 1864, a diary went into captivity with him. (Photo courtesy of Larry Knight)

Adelbert Knight’s two diaries went into a safe-deposit box; during a recent Maine visit, Larry Knight invited me to examine them. Larger than an iPod, smaller than an iPad, the diaries are in excellent condition — and the story they tell is incredible.

His English project led Larry to develop a lifelong interest in the Civil War; he “connects with it” via Adelbert’s involvement. “It’s amazing that he (Adelbert) volunteered to go, that he was able to live through what he went through, to live through it so I can be alive now,” Larry said.

At Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia. one corner of the prison stockade has been rebuilt, and replica tent shelters called “shebangs” demonstrate the inadequate housing that Union prisoners like Adelbert Knight of Lincolnville endured in this most infamous of Civil War prisons. (Brian Swartz Photo)

He and his father visited Andersonville National Historic Site for his dad’s 75th birthday in 1998. Touring the prison site, which seems gloomy even on a sunny day, left “me speechless, just the feeling I had of my great-grandfather being there and what he went through,” Larry said. “It was very special.”

He plans to return to Andersonville and the other prison camps later this year.

And next week Larry Knight and his son, Bryan Jonathan Knight (who lives in Manhattan), will recreate 9/11 on the streets of Manhattan. Their observance will not be tied to the 12th anniversary of the modern 9/11, however.

According to his diary, on Sept. 11, 1863, Adelbert Knight and the 11th U.S. Infantry broke camp in Manhattan at 7 p.m., marched from 71st Street south on 3rd Avenue to Broadway, then south to Canal Street, and then west to the docks, where the soldiers boarded a ship and later took train cars to Philadelphia.

The New York Draft Riots had subsided into history, so the soldiers were no longer needed to protect the city.

So this Wednesday, Sept 11, Larry and Bryan will follow Adelbert’s route “at approximately the same time of day” along the same Manhattan streets. “Google Maps tells me the full walk from 71st and 3rd Avenue to the Hudson River (Canal Park) is 4.8 miles and should take approximately 90 minutes to walk,” Larry indicated in a follow-up email.

For Larry, “the march” will be poignant, not only because “it will be 150 years to the day” since Adelbert “went that way,” but because Larry might not have been alive, period in 2013.

Twelve years ago he worked for a Burlington, Mass. company that had an office about four blocks from the World Trade Center. Along with an NYC-based company engineer, “I was supposed to be in one of the towers on Sept. 11 [2001]” for a 9 a.m. meeting with Port Authority officials, Larry explained.

“I still have an audio of the voice mail from the guy calling from our New York office on Sept. 10 to see if I was coming” to the meeting, he recalled. “Luckily my boss told me not to go to that meeting.

“Our engineer was running late [on Sept. 11]. He was just entering the main door [of a World Trade Center tower] when the plane hit. Obviously he turned around and ran,” Larry said.

“I am habitually early” for meetings, he commented. “I would’ve arrived at our office at 8 a.m. and said, ‘Let’s go.’ We would’ve been up there” in the Port Authority offices “when that plane hit if I had been there.”

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.