Col John Marcellus Steedman

18 Sep 1833-7 Jan 1867
Married Henrietta Amanda Spann
Buried first in the Steedman Family Graveyard; moved by his sons to
Batesburg Cemetery, Batesburg SC

As They Were Sitting Around a Bright Winter's Fire

Col. J.M. Steedman, in the vigor of his manhood, and in the midst of his usefulness as one of the best of citizens, came suddenly to his death under the following heart-rending circumstances, illustrating the deplorable state of affairs to which our once peaceful and happy country has come:
Engaged in merchandizing in a part of Lexington District, where since the termination of the war, it became necessary to guard against the depredations of burglars, he and his little family occupied apartments within his store
On the night of the 7th January, as they were sitting around a bright winter’s fire, the doors and windows all bolted or locked, seeming to give security to all within, the dogs, as faithful sentinels, gave evidence of approaching danger without. The Colonel arose, advanced toward the front door, when his wife, taking counsel “from her fears,” from information that day derived from a negro woman, of which she had also advised the Colonel, remonstrated with him against the imprudence of opening it; begging him instead to go up stairs and look out at the window; but this fearless man, having faced danger on many a bloody field during the late war, now that peace prevailed, regarding it as weakness not to feel secure within his own castle, heeded not her gentle admonition. He had barely unlocked and opened the door, when his devoted wife’s worst fears were fully realized by t he report of a gun; the entire load from it having lodged in her husband’s body. He still, however, retaining a proper presence of mind, had barely time to close and bolt the door before the vile assassins-three negro men-were thundering at it, to force an entrance. The Colonel called for his gun; the resolute wife hastily handed it to him. He warned the assailants that so sure as they entered he would shoot them. Still, they knocked, kicked and pushed the door to open it; the wounded Colonel and his feeble, though resolute, wife, pressing in return to keep it closed. What an awful moment! The Colonel, against the foot of the door, still to aid his wife in keeping it closed, directing her, at the same time, to shoot them if they entered. Declaring aloud her purpose to do so, she called the name of one of the fiends, the supposed leader of the band, and told him to go away; that if money was what they were after, they could get none there, as all had been sent away. This, perhaps, with the fear that the Colonel was still able to resist, and would unto death, caused them to desist from further efforts. The Colonel lived but about three hours after receiving the fatal wound; his wife and three little children, with perhaps a nurse, being the only witnesses of the awful scenes within that beleaguered house, not knowing how soon it might be set on fire, and that then they would have to choose between being burned alive or meeting death by violent hands of the murderers of the husband and father, there lying a corpse. The day after the murder, a jury of inquest was properly empanelled by the nearest magistrate, and succeeded in drawing out such evidence from various witnesses as justified the rendering a verdict that they believed the deceased came to his death by a wound from a gun, fire from the hands of one of a party of three negroes-Henry, Emery and Joe-known to have been prowling about the neighborhood doing mischief, and all of whom the jurors aforesaid believed to have been parties to this infamous crime of murder, with intention to rob.
The two former went off with Sherman’s army, and had but recently returned to this part of the county-entirely too lazy to work for an honest living, and fully imbued with the radical idea of equality, boastingly telling other negroes of the various murders they had committed, and saying that they had papers from the “Yankees” which would protect them from harm, do what they would, should the white people here attempt to molest them. Of course they found but few believers in the miraculous stories. Still, it appears they succeeded in making a dupe of the fellow Joe, who became involved with them in their last sad transaction.

 

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Text Source: Spotsylvania Virginia: Crossroads of the Civil War
Photo of Col Steedman: The Lexington Chronicle