Orlendo Wales Dimick (1839 - 1919)

Born 3 Sep 1839 in Braintree, Mass

Husband of Lizzie Martha Gregory — married 14 Jul 1875 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Pam Hatton [send private message]

Biography

Orlendo Dimick was a Prisoner of War at Camp Oglethorpe, Macon, Georgia 42 days during the United States Civil War.

1st Lieutenant Orlendo Dimick served in the United States Civil War.
Enlisted: Aug. 12, 1862
Mustered out: June 4, 1865
Side: USA

On August 12, 1862, at age 22, Orlendo Dimick of Lyme, New Hampshire, was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant in Company H, 11th New Hampshire Infantry. The 11th was part of the 9th Corps and saw action at Fredericksburg, VA; Jackson, MS; Knoxville, TN; Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, Va. On June 17, 1864 he was captured during the assault upon the rebel works at the Shand House in front of Petersburg and conveyed south. Dimick was held a prisoner some months, escaped, and after much suffering succeeded in reaching the Union lines. He was mustered out at Alexandria, VA on June 4, 1865.

Captain Dimick gave an account in his own writing of his capture and treatment while a prisoner, and of his marvelous escape. He wrote that after reaching Shand House, he came upon men he thought to be Union officers. Instead he found they were rebels, who aimed their guns at him and ordered him to surrender. He described being loaded into a boxcar with 500 other Union men. He wrote that the enlisted men were put into stockades, while officers were sent on to Camp Oglethorpe, where he and two Pennsylvania officers dug under a frame building, 'burrowed' there during their six weeks in Macon. A quote follows with some of his description of life in the camp:

"Prison life was very monotonous, and yet not without diversions, — cards, checkers, chess, ball, wicket, cricket, etc., and a very few books. The sense of confinement was terribly depressing. . . Each man’s rations at Macon for five days consisted of seven pints of corn meal, one half pint sorghum, one eighth pound maggoty bacon, two tablespoonful’s beans (buggy), and two tablespoonful’s of salt. Until the last of June water for the eighteen hundred was obtained from a single spring."

"On July 28, I arrived in Savannah with 600 other prisoners, where we were confined in the United States Marine Hospital yard. The remainder of the camp was carried to Charleston, S.C. At Savannah, we had the best treatment, best quarters, and the best food during our prison life. On September 13, we were taken to Charleston at the city jail yard. Here General Gilmore’s shells daily passed over our heads and exploded in the city, but no prisoners were ever injured."

On October 5 Orlendo wrote they were taken to Columbia near the Congaree river, and placed in an open field of about four acres with no enclosure but a line of guards. . . Having made a map from Columbia to Knoxville, Dimick and the two Pennsylvania officers began their escape on November 3. On November 6 they were captured by an orderly sergeant from Early’s army, home on a furlough. They were able to run from him but Orlendo soon realized he couldn't hear the others near him, and he never encountered them again. He stopped a few days where a Negro fed him and he took time to repair his shoes that were 'almost gone'. Five other Yankees appeared there, and they traveled nights together, depending on the help of other Negroes who took them to one Henry Grant who had deserted the Rebels twice. He and his wife were very hospitable, feeding them well and providing blankets, then introducing them to another Union man. After more travel, Dimick arrived in Washington, D.C. where the story says 'he looked finely' and received a leave of absence, which he spent at home in New Hampshire before returning to the regiment at Petersburg, March 6, 1865.

Not much was learned about Dimick’s post-war life. Sometime after the war he attended Dartmouth College, married and lived in Watertown, Ma. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Ma.

Sources

https://dmorinsite.wordpress.com/orlendo-wales-dimick/

Source: A history of the Eleventh New Hampshire Regiment, Volunteer Infantry in the rebellion war, 1861-1865. by Cogswell, Leander W. (Leander Winslow), b. 1825. Published 1891. Publisher Concord: Republican Press Association.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40932981/orlendo-wales-dimick