A HAMPSHIRE-born man who battled American Confederates and the demon drink is to be honoured in a historic ceremony this weekend.

John Davis was born at into a poor family at Meonstoke in 1839. He had no proper schooling and started work aged nine, running around the local fields scaring birds from the crops.

He was still a boy when he defied his mother and ran away to sea. After travelling the world for several years, he washed up in America where he spent his time drinking, gambling and womanising. On more than one occasion he was robbed in houses of ill-repute.

In 1861, finding himself penniless and destitute in New York, he signed up for the Unionist side in the American Civil War, serving in the US Navy. He survived six days of a fierce battle on the Mississippi, was cast in irons for getting drunk in an anti-smuggling operation on the Potomac, and in 1864 was appointed Master’s Mate on a wooden steam ship, USS Tulip.

In November of that year one of the ship’s boilers blew up in a massive explosion, killing 49 of the 57-strong crew. Davis was one of the few to survive.

Undeterred, he went back to sea, tried his hand at gold prospecting in Australia, and it wasn’t until 10 years later that he returned to England and found work as a gateman in the London Docks.

In 1875 he went to an evangelical prayer meeting, and vowed that night to give up drink. Surprisingly, he stuck to his pledge. Two years later he joined the London City Mission, and was assigned to his toughest battle so far: to work as a missionary saving the lost souls of the Bermondsey docklands.

This was the notorious area Dickens chose as the haunt of the villainous Bill Sykes in Oliver TwistOliver Twist. There was no proper sanitation, disease was rife, and the alleys were full of gin-shops.

Davis later recalled his early years there. “I have been pelted with garbage and rotten fish. I have been dragged through the district by my hair. It was common to witness two or three fights every day – especially among women.”

But Davis had seen comrades shot down beside him, and shipmates washed overboard, blown to fragments or drowned during drunken debauches. A burly, mature figure he gradually won respect, not only because of his impressive background, but also because of his kindly, soft-spoken manner and friendly twinkling eyes.

He worked the old way of trudging around the alleys, streets and tanneries of Bermondsey preaching Christianity. As he put it: “I go to the people, and keep on going, until they come to me.”

A heckler, sceptical about his constant and familiar references to the devil, once asked him:, “Have you ever seen this Infernal Majesty?” Davis replied:, “No, Sir, but I was his slave for thirty and five years, and carry the scars of his lash on my body unto this day”.

He had a special badge made, showing a lifeboat full of the souls he worked to save. He opened a church under a row of railway arches, dubbing it The Telescope on account of its long narrow shape. Soon congregations several hundred strong came regularly to hear him preach against the evils of drink and the joys of a Christian life. He toiled at his mission, and at Bermondsey’s “Ragged School” for the next three decades.

Davis also founded a British branch of the American Civil War Veterans.

There were a surprising number of members – more than 80 at one time – and he helped many obtain a pension from the US government. When he died in 1917, the U.S. Consul General attended his funeral. He was buried in an unmarked common grave.

His final resting-place would have been lost forever, if it had not been for his great grandson, former police officer Peter Collins.

He learned that the US Veterans Association would supply a grave marker for anyone who had served in their armed forces.

Peter obtained the necessary proof, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), will come from America to attend the installation ceremony.

For the first time, an overseas branch of the SUVCW has been founded. It has been named John Davis Camp, in honour of a Hampshire legend.

The ceremony will be at Nunhead cemetery, Linden Grove, London, at noon on Saturday, July 23.