William W. Bescheer
Born October 5, 1838, North Carolina, USA.Died December 28, 1902, Davidson County, North Carolina, USA.
William and his twin brother John were the eldest sons of Godfrey Bischerer (1818-1897). William Bescheer married Martha M. Luther and raised a large family in Davidson County, North Carolina. William and John looked so much alike that even Martha could hardly tell them apart. One of them had a mole on his face, and the other one did not.
William Bescheer
Guard, Salisbury Prison Camp, Salisbury, North Carolina
William Bescheer was a guard at the horrendously overcrowded Salisbury Prison Camp, where an estimated four thousand Federal prisoners of war perished. Salisbury Prison consisted of an old four-story, cotton factory with some small, adjoining tenement houses in a six-acre stockade. The pine log stockade wall stood twelve feet high. On the outer side of the stockade wall, about three feet from the top, extended a platform upon which the guards walked their beats, day and night. The steady tramp, tramp of the guards' feet never stopped. Each half hour, a guard would call out, "Post number one! Four o'clock and all is well!" This was taken up by post number two, and so on all around the stockade. About six feet inside the wall was a narrow ditch, about three feet wide by two feet deep--"the Dead Line." The guards were under order to shoot any prisoner who crossed the line. In addition to the thousands of Yankee soldiers, the prison held 300 Confederate deserters and "violators of military orders,... cutthroats and criminals of all kinds."
On November 25, 1864, the starving, freezing prisoners overpowered a number of guards and nearly took over the prison. The guards fired two cannons loaded with canisters of grapeshot into the rioting mob. 13 prisoners died that day, and dozens were seriously wounded. Survivors claimed that some of the wounded were buried alive. On February 22, 1865, the guards escorted the prison population to Goldsborough, where they were paroled on March 2.
When William Bescheer got furlough, he walked the twenty-five or so miles home to Davidson County. When he returned to the prison camp, he rode a horse from his home in Davidson County to the Yadkin River ferry at High Rock while Martha Luther walked alongside. They'd bid each other farewell at the ferry. Martha rode the horse home. William continued to Salisbury on foot after the ferry dropped him on the west bank of the Yadkin.
The exact identity of the guards organization is vague. According to a former prisoner, the 68th North Carolina Regiment comprised the guard. It was divided into three companies, A through C, of about 110 men each. (Sources: 1. Quote by George S. Bixby, former POW, in the Boston Globe, November 28, 1909. 2. Daily Carolina Watchman, July 13, 1864)
Above - A photo of the Trinity Guard, summer 1861, in front of the main college building in Randolph County, North Carolina. The men in the background composed the first Confederate guard unit at Salisbury Prison. Is William among them?
Join the Salisbury Confederate Prison Association! Membership is $10 per year. Members receive a quarterly newsletter and invitations to Association events such as the annual symposium held each April.
Salisbury Confederate Prison Association, P.O. Box 5093, Salisbury, North Carolina 28144
Recommended Reading - Dark Days of the Rebellion: Life in Southern Military Prisons, by Benjamin F. Booth and Steve Meyer. An excellent, first-hand account by a Iowa soldier who endured Salisbury Prison.
Conrad Bescherer (William's grandfather)
Godfrey Bischerer (William's father)