Perry County, Indiana - Chapter 24: Benevolent and Patriotic Work of Women, 1916

Perry County's patriotic women did not confine themselves merely to ornamental displays of sentiment toward the soldiers, but the same vigourous characteristics which women of the Revolutionary period had manifested came forth a century later in their descendants, and the approach of winter found organized societies for sending practical comforts to the men at the front, besides administering relief to such families they had left behind as were in circumstances of need. Knitting-needles flashed in many a parlour, and the Ladies' Patriotic Aid Association, of which Mrs. Charles H. Mason (Rachel Huckeby) was president, supplied to the Quartermaster-General at Indianapolis many undergarments, socks, mittens and comforts of regulation pattern, which represented the generosity of Cannelton and Tell City women in time and labour.

All this was in addition to the many boxes of homeprepared food, substantials and delicacies, with little individual luxuries, shipped direct to the Perry County regiments in camp. Several of these were attached to the Army of the Frontier, in Missouri, and in January, 1862, Lieutenant George Perry De Weese, of Rome, who had enlisted in the First Cavalry, was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General for the Military District of Southeastern Missouri.

In October and November of 1861, Joseph Whittaker, of Cannelton, co-operated with John Sumner, of Spencer County, in raising a company designed for the Sixty-second Regiment, with rendezvous at Rockport. Their efforts were successful, but when the men were mustered into service, February 24, 1862, it was as

Company G, of the Fifty-third Regiment ; Joseph Whittaker, captain ; John Donnelly, first lieutenant ; Michael Fitzpatrick, second lieutenant.

As a river county, more or less directly affected by any events of the war along the Ohio or its tributaries, deep local interest was felt in the campaign prosecuted by the army and navy forces, under General Grant and Admiral Foote respectively, on the Cumberland and the Tennessee, whose courses parallel one another about ten miles apart for some seventy miles from Where both streams empty into the Ohio. Many Perry County troops were engaged in the attack on Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, so the news of the capture occasioned great rejoicing.

Under command of the irascible General Nelson, (who had exhibited while landing at Cannelton for coal, that ill-controlled temper which caused him to shoot General Jefferson C. Davis in the Gait House at Louisville some time afterward,) a numerous transport-fleet had gone down the river only some few days earlier, many of these boats now returning laden with sick and wounded soldiery, and there was talk - which never materialized - of establishing a military hospital at Cannelton. On Sunday morning, February 28, the steamer Argonaut passed up, carrying the captured General Simon Bolivar Buckner and three hundred other Confederate prisoners bound for Indianapolis. Adjutant Thomas James de la Hunt, who was detailed in personal charge of General Buckner, disembarked at Cannelton for a few days' furlough before returning to his regiment in Missouri.

Early in April much excitement developed through the fact coming to light that private letters passing through the Cannelton post-office had been opened without authority by persons professing to be spies of the government, in search of evidence against citizens suspected of disloyalty to the Union. The charge was a grave one, either way, but when finally sifted down, it became evident that personal animosity more than national sentiment had instigated the accusation. No denial was ever made that some letters had been opened, but those tampered with were the business correspondence passing between non-resident propertyowners, then living in the Confederacy, and the Cannelton lawyer who held their power of attorney.

This commotion quickly died out when the tidings came of the Battle of Pittsburg Landing with its tale of bloodshed, and a delegation of physicians and volunteer nurses was immediately formed in Cannelton to hasten to the battle-field and alleviate the suffering. Dr. Harmon S. Clark, surgeon with rank of captain in the Indiana Legion, headed the staff. Dr. William P. Drumb, Dr. Charles L. Soyez, John C. Wade, Peter Schmuck, John G. Hathorn, Joseph M. Gest, William McKinley, Sr., and Dwight Newcomb being his aides. Besides liberal contributions of cash and supplies, large quantities of linen - sheets, pillow-cases, shirts, bandages, ets., - were speedily prepared by the women and forwarded to camp. On the return home of these benevolent volunteers. Doctor Clark delivered a public address (afterward published by request in the Reporter) describing their experiences, before a large audience in the Methodist Church.

The Fourth of July was celebrated in the customary manner all over the county, ushered in by ringing of bells, salutes of musketry and cannon, the display of bunting, and largely attended picnics. In the grove near Cannelton, Jacob B. Maynard delivered an oration, Master Huntington Smith (son of Hamilton Smith and nephew of Judge Huntington) read the Declaration of Independence, and the Legion gave a dress parade, Colonel Charles Fournier as commandant.

Renewed attempts for volunteers were made, following the national call of July 2 for 300,000 men. Captain W. H. Cornelius procured several enlistments at a war meeting in Cannelton later in the month and also on August 16, and a bounty fund of $300 for the first company leaving the county under the call was raised in a few hours at Cannelton by popular subscription. In Anderson Township Captain Andrew P. Batson had reorganized the "Hickory Rangers" and some of these enrolled for the war. A native of Sweden, October 16, 1824, and one of very few of such nationality in Perry County, Captain Batson came of seafaring parentage (Andrew and Magdalene (Dalsta) Batson) and in his boyhood had encountered many of a sailor's perils. He used to relate how upon the second of several voyages to Rio de Janeiro he was cruelly flogged with the cat-o'-nine tails for his inability to discover the captain's spectacles, which that officer later found over his own forehead. But a life on the rolling deep was not without its pleasure and romance, for at the age of twenty-two, when second officer on the ship "Ondickee" of Philadelphia, after sailing for two years from New Orleans under the Stars and Stripes, he met as a passenger from Sweden, Prudence Nixson, to whom he was married December 15, 1846. They arrived in Perry County on Christmas Eve of that year, and in 1847 located on the farm in Anderson Township where twelve children were born to them and where the remainder of their lives was spent.

In the eastern end of the county William O'Neill and Titus Cummings had been engaging recruits, and the call of August 4 for another 300,000 men, with conscription threatened, showed its effect in a growing response to all appeals. Before the middle of the month one company left the county and on August 22, at New Albany, were mustered into the Eighty-first Regiment as Company G, William O'Neill, captain; Titus Cummings, first lieutenant; John Arnold Hargis, second lieutenant. All these officers, with others non-commissioned, and a majority of the privates, were at the time or afterward residents of Derby and vicinity.

Just one week later the next company from Perry County were mustered in as Company K of the same regiment : William H. Cornelius, captain ; William Mc-

Kinley, Jr., first lieutenant; John Lang Huckeby, second lieutenant. The regiment, under Colonel W. W. Caldwell, left the same day for Louisville, en route to the front, joining General Buell's brigade early in October, and acting as a reserve at the Battle of Perryville, the first of many - and more important engagements in which it participated. Few if any of Perry County's soldiery saw more valiant service than the men of the Eighty-first, who were at Stone River, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Rocky Face, Resaca, Kingston, Kenesaw, Marietta and the siege of Atlanta.

Even more men, however, were required to fill the heavy quota allotted to the county under the two calls of July and August, so work of further enlistment was actively taken up by Jerome Spillman and Narcisse J. Meunier. The latter soon left for Camp Noble with thirty men, and toward the close of the month the roster was complete. All were mustered in August 28, at Madison, as Company G of the Ninety-third Regiment ; Jerome Spillman, captain ; Campbell Welsh, first lieutenant ; Narcisse J. Meunier, second lieutenant.

Following this there was a prolonged lull in the enlistment of men, and the services of Colonel Fournier were not needed as draft commissioner. Perry being one of only fifteen counties in the state furnishing every man demanded, and that, too, as volunteers with meagre bounty.