NICHOLAS "SHANGHAI NICK" COMBS


A Civil War POW




By Doug Epperson

        Special thanks should be given to Larry Combs who
 researched information for this article. Larry is also a 
great-grandson of Nicholas �Shanghai Nick� Combs.



Nicholas Combs, my Great Grandfather, was born October 12, 1839
in Perry County.  It is unclear as to the location of his birth 
because his family either lived at the present site of Vicco or on 
Troublesome Creek  (now Knott County) at the time.  Nicholas was 
the son of Jeremiah �Long Jerry� Combs and his second wife 
Sarah Whitely. 

Nicholas was only four years of age when his father �Long Jerry� 
died in 1843.  Because of Nicholas being a minor when his father 
died, he did not have a voice in the appropriation of his 
father�s large estate.  

Nicholas Combs appears in the 1850 Perry County census as living 
with his mother and his older brother Elijah Combs, probably on
Troublesome Creek.  At the age of 20 Nicholas married Eliza J. 
Williams. Eliza was the daughter of Nicholas and Ann (Williams) 
Williams. About 1862 a son, Newberry Combs, was born to
Nicholas and Eliza.   


On April 12, 1861, when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter, 
a U.S. Military post in Charleston, South Carolina, the Civil War 
began. Kentucky was one of the �border� states and some men 
living there fought for the South and others for the North. 

With a young wife and son and another baby on the way, on 
October 1,1862 Nicholas, along with his brother Elijah, enlisted in
the 13th Kentucky Cavalry of the Confederate States of America at 
Whitesburg, Kentucky.  The 13th Cavalry was commanded by Col.
Benjamin Caudill.  Nicholas and Elijah were assigned to Company 
�C� commanded by Captain Anderson Hayes. 

After being involved in many battles and skirmishes, on 7 July 1863 
Pvts Nicholas and Elijah Combs were captured at the Battle of 
Gladesville (now Wise), VA. The Union troops completely surprised 
the confederates on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night 
celebration. Most of the soldiers who were captured didn't have a 
chance to get to their weapons before they were surrounded.  

More than 100 confederate soldiers and officers were captured.  
Col. Benjamin Caudill was one of those officers captured.  Some 
were marched to a river, put on boats to Cincinnati, Ohio, and then
taken by train to Sandusky, Ohio then by boat to Johnson's Island 
prison.  Others were held at various other POW camps.



Nicholas was imprisoned at Johnson's Island Federal Prison 
which was located in Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie until Nov of 
1863 and then was transferred by train with about 300 other 
prisoners to Philadelphia, Pa.  At Philadelphia, the prisoners
were unsuspectingly loaded onto a ship and taken to Point 
Lookout, MD.   This is how Nicholas came by the name of 
�Shanghai�.  When Nicholas would tell  the story about his 
being taken aboard a ship and transferred to Maryland, he
 would always say he was �shanghaied.�  



Point Lookout, Maryland was deemed the largest and worst  
Northern POW camp. Point Lookout was constructed of  
fourteen-foot high wooden walls. These walls surrounded an 
area of about 40 acres. A walkway surrounded the top of the 
walls where Negro guards walked day and night. It was reported 
the guards were brutal in their treatment of prisoners.
No barracks were ever built at Point Lookout Prison.

The Confederate soldiers were given tents to sleep in until 
overcrowding became so bad that there were not enough 
tents for the number of prisoners incarcerated. 

Approximately 50,000 Confederate enlisted men were contained 
within the walls of Point Lookout Prison Camp during its 
operation 1863-1865. Prison capacity was 10,000 but at any 
given time, there would be between 12,000 and 20,000 soldiers
incarcerated there.  

The extreme overcrowding, Maryland's freezing temperatures, 
shortages of firewood for heat, and living in tents took its 
toll and many lives were lost due to exposure. Most prisoners 
were covered with body lice. Lice, disease, and chronic diarrhea
often resulted in an infectious death. Prisoners were deprived 
of adequate clothing, and often had no shoes in winter.  
Sometimes there was only one blanket among sixteen or 
more men housed in old, worn, torn, discarded union sibley 
tents.

Even the weather played havoc with the prisoners. Because of 
its location, it's extremely cold with icy wind in the winter 
and a smoldering sun reflecting off the barren sand in summer
was blinding. High water often flooded the tents in the camp
area. The undrained marshes bred mosquitoes. Malaria, typhoid 
fever and smallpox were common. The brackish water supply 
was contaminated by unsanitary camp conditions. 

There was a deadline about 10' from the approx. 14' wooden 
parapet wall. Anyone caught crossing this line, even to peek
through the fence, was shot. Prisoners were also randomly shot 
during the night as they slept, or if they called out from pain.  

As the water supply became polluted and food rations ran low, 
prisoners died from disease and starvation. Food was in such 
short supply, the men were reported to have hunted rats as a 
food source. 

Nicholas was held at Point Lookout Prison until he was paroled 
in April 1864. Ironically Point Lookout Prison was located just 
across the Potomac River from Virginia where several of Nick�s 
Combs ancestors had lived prior to the Revolutionary War.  

Some other soldiers from Perry County imprisoned at Point
Lookout were George Washington Noble, McChager Napier, 
Robert Combs and William Moore.  

Nick, as well as the others, were repeatedly offered to be 
released if they took the Parole oath. The oath was to support
the Constitution of the United States and not take up arms any 
more and remain peaceable and quiet citizens. After awhile,
Nick took them up on the offer. He had spent a harsh cold winter 
under extreme terrible conditions. He along with others was sent 
to Baltimore, Md. to take the oath and was released.

Shanghai Nick returned to Perry County. He and Eliza had a
total of ten children; Newberry, Billy, Jerry, John, Elijah,
Martha, Spencer, Floyd, James E. and Malvery. Nicholas never 
seemed able to settle in one place after he came back from
the war. He lived in Perry, Wolfe, Clark, and Lee Counties.  
He would always live close to one of his children.  In the 1910
Lee County Census Nick and Eliza were living with their 
daughter Malvary in Beattyville, KY.  

It's not a proven fact but it appears most likely that Nicholas 
may have moved one more time with Eliza and daughter Martha 
to a place called "Little Boonesboro" in the valley between what
is now Derrick Ridge and Shoemaker Ridge at Zoe, Kentucky 
still in Lee County. 

Nicholas �Shanghai� Combs died August 28, 1914 at the age of 
74. His final resting-place is in the Robert Olinger Cemetery on the
top of a mountain just above Little Boonesboro and Walkers Creek 
at Zoe KY.



Shanghai Nick Combs is also the great great grandfather of

Lynda Combs Gipson



page by Lynda