Restoring the Stories of a Rural Township's Civil War Soldiers

(On Memorial Day I drafted this post, which features a local history project that I’m working on. Eventually I intend to present this research in detail in another venue. Here I’m discussing it only to make a plea for doing similar research to create rosters or link the Civil War era with history at the grassroots. In the meantime, if you have a special interest in this part of Wisconsin or a family connection to the Town of Concord and would like to contact me, send an e-mail to historylynx@gmail.com.)


Memorial Day is theirs–the war dead–and that is why it is sacrosanct. It belongs to the fallen in each of our nation’s war, including the misguided ones. For better or worse, each death shaped out nation. Each death contributed to what we are today.

Rye Barcott, Washington Post (May 29, 2011)

REMEMBERING AND RESTORING

For me Memorial Day always brings back the image of my grandfather in his American Legion suit, marching in the parade in Rome, Wisconsin. He was a veteran of World War I, who returned to marry his sweetheart and work the farm he had purchased just before he was drafted. In the spring of 1919 he worried about getting home in time to plant fields of oats and corn but that Memorial Day he was still in Europe. My great uncle served in North Africa and Italy in World War II. He played in the band, his proudest moment playing for General Eisenhower. He returned to paint walls and hang wallpaper, and to play the organ in church on Sunday mornings and for many local weddings. As a member of the band, it ws also his duty to retrieve and carry stretchers of wounded men. Recently, I learned that Civil War bandsmen had to perform the same grueling task.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was our nation’s greatest tragedy. More than 625,000 soldiers, men and boys from the North and South, died in that terrible war. If the same proportion of the population had died in Vietnam War, the number would have been four million–but for my generation the 58,000 names on the Vietnam War Memorial are exceedingly painful.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening fusillades of the Civil War, the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and the battles that followed in the summer and fall. So this Memorial Day I want especially to honor those from my Wisconsin community who fought and died to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery. I will honor them by working to restore their stories to the history of the Town of Concord, a rural township in Jefferson County, in southeastern Wisconsin.

Growing up in Concord, the Civil War was "unreal" to me and, I suspect, to most of my grade school friends. This war didn’t happen here, it had little to do with our community (a misconception), and our families didn’t take summertime trips to any Civil War battlefields. Though we studied US History in fifth grade, in a four-room school across from a church cemetery, we didn’t realize that Civil War veterans were buried there (1). The school buses passed by other local cemeteries, where Civil War veterans rested, but most of us we were ignorant of this chapter in our township’s history. I don’t ever remember hearing about Isaac Poe, who died of disease in Arkansas but was brought back to Concord in a zinc-lined coffin (2). He is buried on the Holcomb cemetery--a cemetery that until just a few years ago was overgrown with brush, many of its tombstones broken.

In high school we heard about the big battles--Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and the March to the Sea–but these battlefields were far away. I do remember learning that Confederate POWs were housed at Camp Randall in Madison. Otherwise, we learned nothing that connected our part of the state with those four years of blood and tears. Not even a word about the heroic Cushing brothers of Delafield, Waukesha County (directly east of Jefferson County). First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing died at Gettysburg while he and the men under his command were defending Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s Charge. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2010. His brother, Naval Commander William Cushing, designed two small boats and then recruited 26 volunteers to go after a Confederate ironclad, the Albemarle, that had been attacking Union ships. The ironclad sank but that was not the end of Cushing’s exploits. He was recognized as a naval hero and no less than five Navy ships have been named Cushing. A third brother Howard served in an artillery regiment. (For more about the Cushing brothers see Resources.)

For me the Civil War became real only after I moved to south-central Pennsylvania. Here the war was very real. Local families felt very connected to that period in American history. Three times Confederate cavalry men attacked Chambersburg, a town just eleven miles down the road, and twice it was torched. Gettysburg was only thirty miles away. Visiting that battlefield awakened in me a sense of awe and dread that I could not have imagined before I walked its hallowed fields. The immensity of Gettysburg, the multitude who died there, none of this had a very deep meaning for me (my understanding of the Civil War was indeed stunted). I could only begin to comprehend the total number of Gettysburg’s casualties by comparing it to the engraved roster of the Vietnam Memorial (I’d seen it on a recent trip to Washington, DC). My parents visited Gettysburg too, when they came to see me, and they were deeply moved, especially my father.

I’m now living back in Wisconsin. After reconnecting with my Concord roots and joining the Concord Historical Society, I began to research the history of the families that had settled in Concord–beginning in the late 1830s. It was then that I first heard the story of Isaac Poe, which was well-known to members of the CHS. This was a sad story because Isaac and his wife Polly were the parents of seven children. But I didn’t stop to consider whether there were other civil war casualties or veterans from our community–until one day I discovered that two brothers, Anson and Samuel Baker, from the large Baker family, had both served in the First Heavy Infantry Regiment Wisconsin. How many more were there?

A Civil War Roster for the Town of Concord

Using data available at Ancestry.com, I did a search that brought up well-over 100 names. And nearly twenty of these soldiers were casualties. For years people had been talking about Isaac Poe, but the names of these other men had passed from memory. Of course, people strolling through local cemeteries would have noticed GAR markers on a few graves. Those markers could scarcely tell the story, however. Men who died far from home were rarely returned for burial. Veterans might settle elsewhere after the war or move to another county or state.

Now that the Wisconsin Veterans Museum has posted a database with more information I have used it to refine my results (see Resources). The two lists match almost perfectly but the WVM information includes the battles or places where soldiers were wounded, killed in action, or died later of wounds or disease. Both the WVM database and those at Ancestry.com provide the soldier’s regiment and company, date when he enlisted or drafted, and for veterans, the date and place where they were mustered out.

In 1860 there were 1,442 people residing in the Town of Concord.  There are 116 names in my Concord roster, including only eight draftees. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice number twenty-three.

The revised roster includes a few names that did not come up when I searched the WVM database. I considered these carefully before adding them. I’d like to explain why I did so as this may be of interest to others who are creating rosters.

• James Russell, for example, belonged to a large family of Scottish immigrants, whose homestead was in the northeast corner of the township. When he enlisted in the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment in September, 1861, he was living in the Town of Summit, Waukesha County (a township directly east of Concord). The Russells came to Concord before 1850 and James appears in the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 Federal Census records. In 1861 he was probably working in Summit for a local farmer. He was one of only eight Concord men who enlisted in the cavalry, no doubt because he had horse riding skills.
• Patrick McGinnis, an Irish immigrant who came to the US with his family in 1848 at age ten, had grown up in Concord, but he was living in the Town of Brookfield (in neighboring Waukesha County) when he enlisted. He also returned to Concord family after the war. 
• The WVM database includes George Lockwood and his friend Abner Gould but provides no information about where they were living when they enlisted–on April 18, 1861–the first of eighteen Concord men who would join the Union army by the end of that year.  A later biography tells us that George had lived with his family in Concord until the day he enlisted (3). I suspect that in the case of George and Abner, in the earliest days of recruitment, their place of residence was simply not recorded. Their regiment, the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry left Wisconsin just in time for the First Battle of Bull Run on July 25, 1861. After the war George went to medical school in New York and Michigan but then returned to Jefferson County, where he set up his practice in Rome (in the Town of Sullivan, directly south of Concord). Abner, wounded a place not indicated in the database, died on May, 28, 1864.
• Christian Mittelstadt was one of three brothers, from the same German immigrant family, who served in the Union Army. His brothers William and Charles were both living in Concord when they enlisted on August 13, 1862. William never made it home. He died of disease in New Orleans, in May 1864. Charles was mustered out with his company in June, 1865 but I don’t know what he did after that–except that at some point it seems that he moved to Iowa. Christian was married in Concord in 1861 but he moved with his wife to her father’s farm in the Town of Lowell, in Dodge County (directly north of Jefferson County) and it was from there that he was drafted in 1863. After the war he returned to Lowell for a year, then moved back to Concord, where he was living at the time of the 1870 Federal Census (4). I decided that Christian Mittelstadt’s connection to Concord was strong enough to include him in the roster alongside his brothers. 

Although my research on Concord’s Civil War soldiers is still a work in progress, earlier this month I shared some of my findings at a meeting of the Concord Historical Society. I had much more to say than time to say it so I focused on the earliest casualties and the battles, in 1862, in which they fought and lost their lives.

Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee). Fifteen men from Concord, all members of Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, fought at Shiloh on April 6th and 7th, 1862. Company B was one of four companies, under the command of General Prentiss, selected for picket duty in the hours before dawn on Sunday, April 6, 1862. When they were ambushed by a much larger Confederate force, Company A was hardest hit. So Concord men from Company B took part also in the main battle.

Concord lost two men as a result of this battle. Jesse Hills, missing in action at Shiloh, was the first casualty. We must assume that his body was not recovered. Joseph Quiner, who was wounded at Shiloh, but did not die on the battlefield. He was taken to Savannah, Tennessee, where he lingered until he died on April 28th.

Joseph Quiner was the second Concord casualty of the Civil War, yet most people in the area know virtually nothing about him. It is his niece Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie, who gets all the attention. Let me explain, very briefly, this family history. Joseph’s parents, Henry and Charlotte (Tucker) Quiner were living in the Town of Brookfield when, as the result of a shipping accident, Henry drowned in Lake Michigan. By 1850 Charlotte moved with her six children to Concord (possibly because her deceased husband had relatives in the area), where she soon met and married Frederick Holbrook. Joseph’s sister, Caroline (Quiner) Ingalls, was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura was born after the family had left Concord for Pepin, Wisconsin, but her parents were married in Concord. The Ingalls connection gives Concord a bit of fame among Little House aficionados. It disturbs me, however, that this seems to eclipse so much else of importance about this time period. I especially want to restore the story of Joseph Quiner to the place he deserves in the history of our community.

Joseph was a friend of George Lockwood and Abner Gould, whose letters are part of a collection available online at the Wisconsin Historical Society site (see Resources). He left behind a wife Nancy and two young children. Nancy’s brother Peter Frank, wounded in May, 1864, died in September at St. Charles, Arkansas.

Joseph’s uncle Edward Quiner (his father’s youngest brother) played a very important part in collecting, preserving, and writing about the history of Wisconsin’s contribution to Union army. And credit must be given to Edward’s daughters, for he kept them very busy clipping articles and letters from Wisconsin soldiers that had been published in local papers all over the state. These scrapbooks are now available online (see Resources).

Second Battle of Corinth (Mississippi). After Shiloh, the Union army spent about six weeks laying siege to the fortified town of Corinth (just south, across the Tennessee/Mississippi state line), until they captured it on May 29, 1862. This is sometimes called the First Battle of Corinth. Taking this town was of great strategic importance, as north-south and east-west railway tracks crossed in here. During the summer months Union troops repaired and then extended the town’s fortifications. In early October the Confederates attacked in a prolonged battle of several days, the Second Battle of Corinth, that ended on October 10^th. John Houser of Concord, wounded in this battle on October 3, died on October 6^th. This was the third Concord man from Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment to die fighting or from wounds inflicted in battle.

Battle of South Mountain (Maryland). Avery Perkins had enlisted in the 6th Wisconsin Infantry, one of the regiments of the famous Iron Brigade. He was killed in action on September 14, 1862, at the Battle of South Mountain, which was a prelude to the better-known Battle of Antietam. When I discovered this it took my breathe away because, in Pennsylvania I had lived in the Cumberland Valley, which lies between two ridges, one of these being South Mountain.

Avery’s death must have been especially hard on his younger brother Riley because their father and stepmother had died, both on the same day in 1855, perhaps in an epidemic. Riley enlisted on August 15, 1862, almost exactly a month before the death of his brother. He served in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry with seven other Concord men and survived the war.

Battle of Prairie Grove (Arkansas). This battle, on December 7, 1862, was the last major battle in northwester Arkansas. It reminds us that the Civil War took place west of the Mississippi. There is another story waiting to be told about what happened to Concord men "out west," where they had to contend with bushwackers as well as regular Confederate troops (5).

Two regiments with Concord men took part in the Battle of Prairie Grove: two cavarly men in 3^rd Wisconsin Cavalry and eight men in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry. The battle started when the Union Cavalry and the Confederate Cavalry clashed, with the Union horsemen driven back to Walnut Grove. The Confederate troops then positioned their artillery, with its four bronze cannon, on a ridge at Prairie Grove. After Union reinforcements arrived, the battle ended in a draw, with the casualties about the same on both sides.

Two Concord men, Adam Hazelwood and Samuel Lockwood (George’s brother) were wounded at Prairie Grove. Adam would go on to participate in the siege and Battle of Vicksburg (Mississippi). He was mustered out July, 1865. Samuel’s wounds were apparently more severe as that is the reason given for his discharge, three months later (March, 1863). Both returned to their homes in Concord. Adam, who had immigrated from England with his parents, married the daughter of a Welsh immigrant and became a leader in the community. Samuel also married, shortly after returning, and appears with his family in the 1870 Federal Census.

The National Park service has an excellent online lesson about this battle. It features two outstanding primary sources, accounts by witnesses who were children at the time: Julia West Pyeatt, who was fourteen; and Caledonia Ann Borden Brandenburg, who was nine. In my presentation I read short excerpts from these acounts, which told how their families hid in the cellar during the battle. The most moving passage comes from Caledonia, who described what they saw and did after dark, when they emerged from the cellar:

... we came out of the cellar. There was a dead man across the cellar door, wounded and dying men all around. ... The men worked through the night helping the wounded. Yankees and Rebels all got the same care. Pa sneaked back up the hill ... the home that we all loved so much, had been burned to the ground after the Yankees plundered the inside ... They killed and ate our cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens. ... We had 60 bushels of wheat stored upstairs and it slowly burned for three weeks in the rubble.

Here  wecome face to face with the painful experiences of civilians caught up in the war. We also feel the strength of their compassion ... binding up the nation’s wounds in December of 1862, long before the peace at Appomattox.


Personal Connections to the Past

After my presentation one of our members, a descendant of Adam Hazelwood, who had just returned from a visit to Vicksburg, where he had participated in an elder hostle program, shared with us many fascinating details about that battlefield. What impressed me most, however, was the deep personal connection he felt to the past. Yes, the Civil War veterans are all long gone, but their stories are still being carried forward by their descendants. I feel the same kind of connection to World War I, my grandfather’s war. 

When we can connect the past to real people, who were there and experienced it, the past becomes more than words on the pages of history books, more than documents preserved in archives, more than images or artifacts curated in museums. Of course, all of these help us to imagine the past. Every community needs stories about real people, grassroots people, to enrich its collective memory. There are Civil War soldiers with no descendants to tell their stories. For those of us who love history it is our duty to restore their stories to our communities.

PROJECTS

These are projects for a US History class, a local historical society, local media reporters, a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop, family reunion organizers, genealogists, or anyone who cares about keeping our communities connected to the past. These efforts will make a lasting contribution to local history and provide much needed resources for local teachers. 

ROSTER: Does your community have a roster of its Civil War soldiers? If not, recovering their names and basic information (such as that available in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum database) should be a priority. If a roster exits but was created several years ago, it probably needs checking and revising–as new information may be available.

CEMETERY ROSTER: Survey all the cemeteries in you community and compile a roster of Civil War soldiers burial sites. This roster will (and should) include names of veterans who moved into the community after the war. Then use available databases to add basic information about each person listed. Share this roster with local organizations, schools, and media. Turn it into a Civil War walking/driving brochure of these cemeteries.

FAMILY HISTORIES: What do you know about the families of those who served in the Union or Confederate armies? I’ve discovered that sometimes even genealogists do not know about family members who fought in the Civil War. And it is sad to read obituaries of Civil War veterans that fail to mention their service. At the same time, you can add a vital dimension to any name in the roster by connecting it to families in census records or to information gleaned from family trees. 

SOLDIERS’ STORIES: Using regimental histories and accounts of skirmishes and battles, it is possible to reconstruct the activities of soldiers–or at least follow their movements during the course of the war. What might they have experienced at Shiloh or during the siege of Vicksburg? Are there any documents (including letters, diaries, discharge papers) to help restore their stories? Dig deep in local archives, talk to members of local historical societies, find obituaries, check out resources at state historical societies or repositories, and consult military or Civil War museums. Piece together what you find, speculate a bit (as long as you’re honest about it), and turn names from a list into real people.

HOME FRONT STORIES: Those who didn’t go off to war also made important contributions to the war effort. Find out what’s in local newspapers and look for clues in any surviving correspondence from the Civil War era. Examine agricultural and industrial policies at all levels of government–and compare pre-war, wartime, and post-war statistics–to uncover economic aspects of the war and its aftermath. In communities with many immigrants don’t forget to check out local newspapers in European languages (for example, the German press in Wisconsin).

GENERAL RESOURCES

Anderson, Nick. "Teaching the Civil War, 150 Years Later." Washington Post (April 10, 2011): http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teaching-the-civil-war-150-years-later/2011/04/01/AFyFxaGD_story.html

Blight, David W. "Forgetting Why We Remember." New York Times (May 29. 2011): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30blight.html?ref=opinion

• Did you know that the first Memorial Day was observed on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina? (I’m including this resource because it too illustrates a fascinating piece of local history.)

Valley of the Shadow: http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/ 

• A University of Virginia digital archive of primary sources (letters and diaries, census and church records, speeches) created by people living in two counties, one in the North (Franklin County, Pennsylvania) and one in the South (Augusta County, Virginia). These are organized into three time periods: Eve of the War, War Years, and Aftermath.
• An excellent example of local history resources collected for the purpose of putting localities into the broader flow of history.
• These sources are of great value for topics not tied necessarily to the Civil War, such as local social history. Where I was teaching our department secretary discovered a scandal from those years in her husband’s family!
• Highly recommended for use in high school and college classes across the country.

"The Battle of Prairie Grove: Civilian Recollections of the Civil War." National Park Service: http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/70prairie/70prairie.htm

• Prairie Grove is a state park but the NPS features it in its series "Teaching with historic Places Lesson Plans." Explore this series for other Civil War lessons and primary sources.

RESOURCES: WISCONSIN AND THE CIVIL WAR

Civil War Wisconsin: http://www.civilwarwisconsin.com/

• Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission’s web site of resources for local historical societies over the next five years.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/
"Quiner, Edwin Bryant." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/people.asp?term_id=2671&action=search

• For links to ten volumes of letters Quiner clipped from newspapers during the war years and to regimental histories from his book, Military History of Wisconsin (1866).
• Also a link the diary of Emilie Quiner (his daughter).

"Turning Points: Wisconsin in the Civil War Era." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/subtopic.asp?tid=5

"Letters by Relatives of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1861-1919." Wisconsin Historical Society: Turning Points: Wisconsin Civil War Ear: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1728

• For letters by George Lockwood, Samuel Lockwood, Verdine Carpenter, and Horatio Brewer (all Concord men who fought in the Civil War).

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Loohauis-Bennett, Jackie. "150 Years Ago, Faraway Battles Drew Wisconsinites ." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 2, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/entertainment/119079394

Jones, Meg. "Descendants of Wisconsin Veterans mark Anniversary of the Civil War." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 12, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/news/milwaukee/119671359.html

Dodge Jefferson County Genealogical Society: http://www.dodgejeffgen.com

• Click on ARCHIVES and scroll down to Concord (Jefferson Cty) for link to "Nathaniel Carpenter Ransom biography." It contains a much information, including Ransom’s attempts to enlist and how he experienced the Civil War.
• Use their extensive collection of obituary clippings and library to research the genealogies of Civil War soldiers.
• DJCGS has just received (still cataloguing) a special family collection that includes Civil War documents.
• Site includes links to online Rosters at the Wisconsin Historical Society site: Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I; Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I

"Civil War Encampment September 2007." Johnson Creek Historical Society: http://www.johnsoncreekhistory.com/civilwar.htm


The Cushing Brothers

"Civil War Soldier Awarded Medal of Honor." CBS News (May 20, 2010): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/20/national/main6502241.shtml

"Winning a Battle to Honor a Civil War Hero." New York Times (June 11, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12medal.html?hpw

• Includes a photo of Alonzo Cushing and five others, taken at Antietam
• Describes how Margaret Zerweh spent 23 years to restore Alonzo Cushing's story to national history, finally convincing Senator Russ Feingold to help in the effort to award him the Medal of a Honor

"The Story of William Barker Cushing." U.S.S. Cushing Association. http://cushing.0catch.com/wbcush.htm

• Link from this page to "In William Barker Cushing's Own Words: The Destruction of the Albemarle" and other primary sources

"Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Fuger’s "Brief" Military History of Nearly 44 Years of Service in the 4th Regiment of Artillery, U.S. Army." Cushing’s Battery: http://cushingsbatterywi.com/historical.html

• Fuger, who was at Gettysburg with Alonzo Cushing, provides a detailed account.
• Site is currently being updated.

NOTES

1) That school is now closed. Students in the township attend schools in the Watertown, Jefferson, Oconomowoc, and Johnson Creek districts. I am pleased to report that the Johnson Creek elementary school is doing a great job with its annual Civil War encampment program (see photos at site listed in the Wisconsin section of Resources).

2) A series of Civil War letters from Isaac Poe to his family and by relatives and friends were published in the Milwaukee Journal (May 28, 1961) under the title "Dear Wife and Children." Poe belonged to the 29th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, Company F, with ten other Concord men. He was one of five Concord casualties from this company (there were two others from another company). The survivors were mustered out in June, 1865, at Shreveport, Louisiana.

3) "George S. Lockwood, M.D." Entry in The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1879). Online: http://www.rockvillemama.com/lockwoodg.txt

4) Based on Federal Census data, the WVM database, and significant additional information provided by Bob Mittlestadt.

5) Isaac Poe, who died in 1863, served on the frontier (I intend to tell more of his story in a follow-up presentation). William Allen, who died of disease at Rolla, Missouri, October 1862, was part of this western story and one of the five Concord causualties of 1862