BACKTRACKING
America's Worst War
by
Terry Hogan
It
was by most measures of standards, America's worst war, at least in my
opinion. The devastation of US
property, the impact on the economy, the loss of American lives, and the impact
on two American cultures still have not fully bound and healed their
wounds. Of course I'm referring to
the American Civil War. It is more
than American history. It is
American family history. Few
families who lived in the eastern half of America were spared the sorrow or
economic hardships imposed by the war.
If you start doing family history, you soon find yourself in the
mid-1800's and contact with the Civil War becomes inevitable. It is important to have some basis
context to place these generations of family into. I say "these generations" because it is quite
possible that you may find two or even three generations of your ancestors
fighting in the war. And you may find
families fighting on opposing sides.
First
a few statistics may help to set the Illinois perspective of the Civil War.
Numbers can be a little boring.
But they can also show the importance of understanding the setting of
this war. You can't fully
appreciate your ancestors without some understanding of the war that goes
beyond the name of Lincoln and the vague notion of freeing the slaves. In 1860, the census nearest to
the outbreak of the Civil War, Illinois had a population of 1,711,961. Of that
total, Chicago reported 108,260, so Illinois was still rural, but with an
increasing urban population even then. Illinois was a source of cheap land, so
many first generation Americans could be found both in Chicago and in more
rural down state areas. Galesburg
was finding Swedes becoming railroad workers, farmers, hired-hands, and shop
owners. Irish were also coming to town, bringing the Catholic religion with
them. It was a time of growth and
a time of change. Of course, of
these nearly 1.75 million Illinois residents, many were women and young
children, who for the most part, did not participate directly in the war.
Illinois
put 259,092 men in uniform during the Civil War. This represents over 15% of the entire population of
Illinois. If you let me make a few
assumptions that are merely my guesses, the numbers become more
spectacular. Families were bigger
back then. Families needed
children as farm hands and birth control, other than abstinence, was
nonexistent. Thus, if we can assume that the average family consisted of two
adult parents and 4 minor children; this would make one adult male (no exclusion
for old age in my assumption) potentially available to fight for each 6 folks
in the census. Adjusting for this
assumption, there would be potentially 285,326 adult males from which to draw
259,092. This would suggest 91% of adult males were put in uniform. This is not likely, so what is
wrong? What is wrong is that not
only head-of-household males went to war.
Often they went to war with one or more young, single sons. However you want to adjust the
numbers, the conclusion is obvious.
At least two generations of males were at risk, and probably in some
families with senior officers (and often senior age) there might be three
generations at war. In Illinois, most of the soldiers were young and looking
for adventure. They were mostly
between the ages of 18 and 25, although some were older than 50. On the other end, some mere boys went
off to war. Five from Illinois were identified to only be 13.
Of
the 259,092 who went off from Illinois to war, 34,834 (over 13%) never came
home alive. The causes of their deaths varied, ranging from wounds, disease,
accident, and ill-treatment in POW camps.
But disease was a bigger killer than the enemy without regard to the
color of the uniform. Disease had
no moral high ground. It did not honor white flags. It did not respect age or
heroism, and gave no concern about loved ones back home.
As
such, your genealogical research cannot and should not ignore your ancestors'
roles in the war. And don't forget
to look on "both sides".
We were a mobile society even in those days. Father against son and brother against brother, are not
merely Hollywood enhancements. I
know this from my own Hogan line.
Most
of the Illinois soldiers were volunteers.
Although later in the war, a draft was established, it was only
implemented, state by state, if volunteers were insufficient to fulfill the
state quota. Illinois did a pretty good job at that. When it became difficult
to meet quotas, Illinois expanded recruitment for "colored soldiers".
Good
for genealogical research, but bad for the communities, Illinois Civil War
units were formed in local communities or from a couple of nearby units. Thus if you know the county your
ancestors were in, it makes it easier to identify their units. Of course, the bad side for the
community is that whole units often by back luck, or poor commanders, were send
in harm's way. Whole units,
company-sized or larger were at times nearly decimated, creating great loss of
life for local communities. Adult males went off in mass from a town and often
died in mass, never to return to the community and families they left. Such
community units were good for morale and promoting bravery, but were hard for
the folks at home when things went bad.
In
some cases, units were broken down into even smaller subsets of the
community. Galena, Illinois had
the 45th Illinois Regiment, known as the Lead Mine Regiment. The farmers around Dixon, Illinois
joined up to form with the 34th Illinois Regiment and were called the ÒRock
River RiflesÓ. The 73rd
Illinois was formed by a Methodist minister and it is reported that it had so
many "men of the cloth", that it was commonly known as the
"Preacher's Regiment".
Bloomington, Illinois also produced a unique unit - the 33rd
Illinois. It was formed mostly
from the campus of the Illinois "State Normal School". It had two
unique distinctions. First, most
the unit's members were quite young.
Second, they were very well educated, compared to the other units. One of the contemporary jokes was that
a soldier declared to be mentally incompetent in the 33rd was qualified to be
an officer in other units. In
fact, one company of the 33rd had 13 college graduates, and they were all
privates.
As
becomes apparent from the above, most of the Illinois soldiers who went to war
were civilians shortly before.
They were ill-trained, and generally poorly equipped, particularly early
in the war. Even many of the officers were poorly trained and equipped for
leadership. Some were civilians,
elected by their peers. Some were
old soldiers trained in maneuvers that no longer met the needs of a new type of
war equipped with repeating rifles.
Some were sent home. Some were killed. Some learned. But the troops
quickly learned if they had a good officer or not. Their conclusions were
sometimes related in letters to back home. Major Black of the 37th Illinois wrote home that his
superior officer, "Émight prove to be a soldier in peace, a citizen in
warÉ." (Hicken,
1991, page 17).
If
you had ancestors who fought in the Civil War and were from Illinois, there are
a couple of good places to start your research. I have included them at the end
of this article. If you had ancestors who enlisted in other states, either for
the north or the south, the Internet is getting better every day as a starting
point for information. Unit
histories are often available for downloading. Information on major battles that the units were involved
with, can also be downloaded.
Beyond
the Internet, you may also be able to get the military records and any pension
records of your ancestors, if you know their exact names and the units they
served with, and approximate dates of service. The National Archives even has a remarkably good record of
Confederate units as well.
It
was America's worst war. It left few families untouched. It probably touched yours.
References
Chapman,
Chas. C. 1878. History of Knox County, Illinois. Blakely, Brown & Marsh Printers,
Chicago. (Reprinted by the Knox
County Genealogical Society, Galesburg, IL) (Book has list of units and roster
of local volunteers in the units.)
Hicken,
Victor. 1991. Illinois in the Civil War. University of Illinois Press. 417 pages (available in
paperback) (Great book for "local color" of Illinois units)
Reyburn,
P. and T. Wilson. 1999. Jottings from Dixie, The Civil War Dispatches of
Sergeant Major Stephen F. Fleharty, U.S.A. Louisiana
State University Press. Baton Rouge. 262 pages.
Internet
site: www.researchonline.net
2-28-05