Who Was Thadeus Sabiskie?

Written By: Walter H. Schramm (copyright 1996)

Why did Horry District residents Joseph Jackson Todd and his wife, the former Mary Elizure Hardee, name their first child "Thadeus Sabiskie" 155 years ago?

Joseph's firm hand wrote, "Thadeus Sabiskie Todd, the son of Mary and Joseph J. Todd, was born on February the 5th 1840," in the family bible record begun a generation earlier by Joseph's parents, Capt. William and Ann Stephens Todd.

The younger Todd's life was short and tragic, according to his Confederate States Army record, summarized by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History:
NAME: Todd, Thaddeus S.
RANK: Private
UNIT: Company F, (McCreary's) South Carolina Infantry
ENLISTED: Conwayboro, SC, August 12, 1861
WOUNDED: Cold Harbor, VA, June 27, 1862
DIED: Richmond, VA, July 11, 1862, of wounds received
REMARKS: Born in Horry District. Final pay claim filed by Joseph Todd, father.

Students of Todd family history have learned that Thad/Thaddeus was wounded during the Battle of Gaine's Mill, one of more than 8,000 C.S.A. casualties on that day, and that he was taken to Richmond for treatment in a military hospital, where he died. He is buried in Grave 28, Row 32, Division D of Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond.

Thaddeus was one of four members of his family to serve in the C.S.A. Two younger brothers, Isaac Harrison and Julius Jasper Todd, also died in the conflict. Their father, although 45 at the outbreak of the war, enlisted in September, 1861. He was a sergeant (Co. G, 10th SC Infantry) until his discharge June 12, 1862--then lived on until 1901. With increasing interest in Horry County family histories in recent years, curiosity grew. Why would Joseph Jackson Todd, an American of Scottish ancestry married to a Hardee, give the first-born an apparently-Polish name and then give later sons such middle names as Harrison, Jasper, Lafayette, Grant, and Van Dorn?

A great-grandson of Joseph Jackson Todd reported, "I chased the question through reference departments of many local, state and national libraries. All drew blanks in their search for a historical figure named Thadeus or Thaddeus Sabiskie."

For this great-grandson, a breakthrough came in a 1995 "I believe I can solve your mystery" letter from Pennsylvanian Joseph W. Wieczerzak. A retired history professor and past-president of the Polish American Historical Association, Wieczerzak is editor-in-chief of The Polish Review, a quarterly published by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America in New York City.

Prof. Wieczerzak related that Polish rebellion against Russian rule two centuries ago, "inspired much sympathy, much poetry and fiction in the West, but...no help."

"Among the fiction," he continued, "was a novel by a British writer named Jane Porter, which was entitled Thaddeus of Warsaw. It was a real tear-jerker as it told of the suffering of its hero--Thaddeus Sobieski."

(To those familiar with Polish and American history, it is obvious that the fictional hero's name was drawn from two famous Poles. One was Thaddeus Kosciusko, a Polish patriot who earned honors in his native country after seven years of distinguished service as a volunteer officer in the American Revolutionary Army. The other was Jan Sobieski, who in 1674 became King John III of Poland.)

Wieczerzak added, "there were a number of young men in the United States who were given the hero's name, among them Thaddeus Sobieski Lowe, father of the Union Army's balloon service (the balloons were used in above-battlefield reconnaissance). It would seem that your great-grandfather was also a Thaddeus of Warsaw admirer."

The Horry County Memorial Library reference staff quickly confirmed that Jane Porter's Thaddeus of Warsaw was first published in 1803, that it appeared in four volumes," and that it was "a smashing success."

Sabina P. Logisz, librarian of the Polish Museum of America, and genealogist Stanley Schmidt, president of the Polish Genealogical Society, both based in Chicago, concurred in Wieczerzak's conclusions about the "mysterious Pole" of Horry County.

Ms. Logisz supplied copies of prefaces to some of the ten editions of the Jane Porter novel between 1803 and 1819 (Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, was the American publisher of the book). These show that it was not until after Kosciusko's 1817 death that Porter revealed that he had been the inspiration for her famous novel's hero.

A recent magazine article by Carl F. Bessent, Baltimore, former President General of the Sons of American Revolution, who is a native of Horry County and member of the Horry County Historical Society, validates author Jane Porter's judgment and provides some insight into why a South Carolina Todd family choose to give their first-born son such a foreign-sounding name.

In "Tadeusz Kosciuszko--Lover of Freedom" (SAR Magazine, Winter 1995), we learn, "This Polish nobleman served the cause of the Revolutionary War alongside Generals George Washington, Horatio Gates and Nathanael Greene over a span of seven years, became a friend of Thomas Jefferson... (and) was admitted into the Society of the Cincinnati prior to leaving America...only one of three foreign officers so honored..."

Bessent detailed Col. Kosciusko's contributions to the preparation of Philadelphia's defenses, the victory at Saratoga and the defense of West Point, then described his key role in General Nathanael Greene's successful effort to drive Lord Cornwallis' army out of South Carolina. And it was Kosciusko who led American troops into Charleston in December 1782 at the successful conclusion of the very last engagement of the Revolutionary War.

Ironically, history also notes that Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, the scientist-inventor mentioned by Prof. Wieczerzak, had a brief "South Carolina connection" of his own.

Born in New Hampshire in 1832, Lowe became one of America's first balloonists, and he proposed an 1861 ocean crossing to show that transatlantic navigation was possible. He took off from Cincinnati and headed east for the coast on what he hoped would be the first leg of his transatlantic journey. However, errant winds deposited him on the North Carolina-South Carolina state line after a 900-mile flight.

Lowe's timing was unfortunate, for he landed on April 20, 1861. South Carolinians, at fever pitch after taking Fort Sumter a week earlier, arrested him as a suspected Yankee spy and kept him prisoner in Union (then called "Unionville"), South Carolina for a day before releasing him.

He later aided the Northern cause as a civilian head of a small group of balloonists who provided aerial reconnaissance for the Union Army through the Battle of Chancellorsville. Lowe himself was a balloon observer at the Battle of Gaines' Mill, in which his namesake, Thaddeus S. Todd, was fatally wounded!

Lowe's gas-filled balloons, each manned by an observer and a telegraph operator, served effectively in early battles, and the unit officially became America's first "air corps." However, the balloons were shelved in 1863, to the relief (and surprise) of the Army of Northern Virginia.

In her 1958 book, Thaddeus Lowe -- America's One-Man Air Corps, Lowe biographer, Mary Duprey Hoehling reported that, "...memoirs written by leaders of both armies testified tot he efficacy of aerial reconnaissance."

The Hoehling book quoted South Carolinian Edward Porter Alexander, an artillery officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, who rose to brigadier general and chief of artillery of General Longstreet's corps: "I have never understood why the enemy abandoned the use of military balloons. Even if the observers never saw anything, they would have been worth all they cost for the annoyance and delay they caused us in trying to keep our movements out of their sight."

End