John Strother Chapman was the son of Thomas Strother Chapman and Prudence Huston of Morganfield, Union County, Kentucky. On the 15th of August 1861, John S. Chapman enlisted in Company B, 4th Kentucky Regiment Infantry, CSA and was elected 2nd Lieut. 9 September 1861. During the battle at Fort Donelson, he was taken prisoner and sent to Camp Chase. He escaped 1 March 1862 and went to Corinth, Mississippi, where he was assigned to Gen. William Preston’s Brigade. Chapman later resigned and returned to Kentucky to recruit for Company H. (later Company F), 10th Kentucky for Col. Adam Rankin Johnson, who was responsible for much of the skirmishing in western Kentucky.
As a captain, Chapman was captured 20 July 1863 in the “Ohio Raid” at Cheshire, Ohio and sent first to Fort Delaware and then to the Ohio State Penitentiary, where it was believe that no escape was possible. This claim was proven false as Gen. John Hunt Morgan and six other men did make a daring escape from the penitentiary in November 1863. Chapman did not participate in the escape and was finally paroled at Richmond, Virginia in the spring of 1865.
After the War, Chapman returned to Union County, where he married Hettie Ann Hite, daughter of William Hite, in 1868 and settled down on his farm a few miles from Morganfield. Five children were born to this couple, but two died young. John S. and Hettie Chapman also died early, he in 1885 and she in 1882. The family legend is that all, excluding one son, died of tuberculosis. Chapman is said to have been buried in the Catholic cemetery, possibly St. Ann’s, Morganfield.
Copyright on text and photographs
by Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG
http://wkygenealogy.blogspot.com/
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