Robert Moffat Livingstone: A South African in the American Civil War - By: Ross Dix-Peek

Robert Moffat Livingstone was the famous Scottish explorer,
David Livingstone's, first-born. The eldest of six children
(three boys and three girls), Robert Livingstone was born on the
9 January 1846, at Mabotsa, Bechuanaland, which is today a part
of the Republic of South Africa. His mother, Mary Moffat, was
the daughter of the Scottish missionary, Robert Moffat, and was
herself born in South Africa. Robert Livingstone spent his very
early years in Southern Africa, before being sent to England,
where he was brought up by his maiden aunts. With the death of
his mother, Mary, on the 27 April 1862, at Shupanga, in
Portuguese East Africa (modern-day Mozambique), Robert decided,
impetuously and without his father's permission, to return to
southern Africa, in a bid to be re-united with his father, and
his grandparents'.

However, upon arriving in Durban, Natal,Robert was forbidden,
in the form of a letter from his father, from continuing further
(that decision on the part of David Livingstone would prove to
be fateful, indeed!). Robert then made for Cape Town, but upon
running out of money, and in straitened circumstances, took
leave of his native South Africa, for the very last time, and
sailed for the United States of America.

Arriving in historical Boston, Massachusetts, He then joined
the Union Army, using the nom de guerre, "Rupert Vincent", and
was either inducted, or enlisted, as a Private in H Company, of
the Third New Hampshire Regiment, of the Tenth Army Corps. The
Third New Hampshire Regiment was formed at Concord, New
Hampshire, on the 23 August 1861. The New Hampshire Regiment saw
most of its service on the Atlantic coast, in North and South
Carolina, seeing action at the battle of Secessionville (1862),
while also taking part in the assault on Fort Wagner (July,
1863), by which time Robert Livingstone may already have joined
the regiment. Robert, or Private "Rupert Vincent" as he was
known, was subsequently wounded and taken prisoner; either at
Laurel Hill, Virginia, or sometime during the lengthy siege of
Richmond, Virginia, which served as the Capital of the
Confederate forces during the Civil War. Richmond withstood a
mammoth siege by the Union Army, which lasted well over
one-thousand-days, and involved many desperate battles.

Thus began Robert Livingstone's incarceration in the infamous
Confederate prisoner-of-war camp, at Salisbury, in North
Carolina. The Confederate prison at Salisbury, North Carolina,
began life as a cotton mill, before being turned into a
prisoner-of-war camp in 1861. It was not long thereafter that
the Union Army suffered defeat at the first Battle of Bull Run
(July 1861), and many union soldiers subsequently found
themselves incarcerated in the prison camp at Salisbury.

Although life for a union soldier, taken prisoner and held at
Salisbury, was always harsh, it was later in the war that
conditions became truly unbearable. Overcrowding and strict
rationing of food took its toll, and many prisoners succumbed.
It was toward the end of the war, on the 5 December 1864, at the
prison hospital, that South African-born Robert Livingstone,
alias "Private Rupert Vincent", and the son of one of history's
foremost explorers, David Livingstone, died of wounds sustained
in combat. Although it is deemed the wound sustained was fatal,
it is worth pondering as to whether Robert Livingstone may have
survived his awful wounds, had conditions at Salisbury prison
camp, been better. But that is merely speculative, one of
history's imponderables. Thus it is, that Robert Livingstone,
alias Private "Rupert Vincent", a son of one of Africa's most
renowned explorer's, David Livingstone, and born in South
Africa, ventured across the vast Atlantic ocean, and made the
ultimate sacrifice, in one of the most cataclysmic wars of the
19th Century!

Robert Moffat Livingstone was the famous Scottish explorer, David Livingstone's, first-born. The eldest of six children (three boys and three girls), Robert Livingstone was born on the 9 January 1846, at Mabotsa, Bechuanaland, which is today a part of the Republic of South Africa.

Born in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1970. Resident in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. An Archivist by profession, and freelance writer. Interested in History, Military History, the English Language and its etymology,Books, and other pursuits.
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