Fillmore County, Minnesota - Chapter 46: Fillmore County in the War of the Rebellion - Names of Soldiers Who Participated, 1882

Chapter 46: Fillmore County in the War of the Rebellion - Names of Soldiers Who Participated

When, in April, 1861, the echoes of the firing upon the flag of our country at Fort Sumter were reverberating through the Union, exciting the patriotism of tlie people, calling to arms! to arms! Fillmore county was only eight years old, and the State itself had been organized only three years as one of the members of the Union. The effects of the financial crash of 1857, and the subsequent depression had not yet passed away, but what the county was able to do, and actually accomplished by furnisliing men and material to assist in the gigantic straggle, will bear favorable comparison with much older communities in other sections of the country.

On account of the impossibility of finding files of papers published at the time in the county, which were imbued with the spirit of the occasion, the war incidents are not so full as they would otherwise have been. The remarkable scenes that were presented everywhere north of Mason and Dixon's line, involving a transformation from the quiet pursuits of peace to the preparations for war, were visible in Fillmore county as everywhere else. Public meetings were held, speeches were made, and the "soul stirring drum" and the "ear piercing-fife" were heard in the vil lage streets. The population of the county being largely foreign, nevertheless had an appreciation of the peril that was menacing our free institutions, and having been reared where human freedom is much more largely curtailed than here, they perhaps valued the boon of liberty quite as much as those who had never realized what it is to live where it is so uncomfortably abridged as it is in the "Old World."

Consequently the roll of honor contains its full complement of the names of citizens of foreign birth. It should be here recorded that the women of the county, in common with their sisters throughout the North, did what they could to encourage enlistments, and after the men were in the field, contributed largely, through the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, to the care and comfort of the men in camp and in hospital. At one time there was raised for the Sanitary Commission $1,058, and sent on to purchase necessities and luxuries for the boys in blue.

At the time of the war the county had a total population of 13,542, according to the census of the previous year, which had not very materially increased. The State had but two representatives in Congress, and the several calls for troops by President Lincoln were apportioned between the two representative districts.

Fillmore was in the first district, and in this respect was associated with Hoiiston, Mower, Freebom, Faribault, Martin, Winona, Olmsted, Brown, Steele, Waseca, Blue Earth, Rice, Le Sueur, Nicollet, Scott, Sibley, and Dodge.

When, in 1862, the local recruiting had become dull, at a time when other localities had begun to pay bounties, the County Commissioners, on the

15th of August, passed a resolution to pay a bounty to every person who would enlist in the Union army. And to show the status of the bounty business at that time, and the restrictions under which the board acted, a full copy is presented.

"Resolved, That we will pay a bounty of fifty dollars to all married men or men having families, and twenty-five dollars to unmarried men who have or may hereafter enlist as volunteers in the United States Service under the two calls of the President for six hundred thousand men; said volunteers being residents of the county; said bounty being payable in loan certificates, to be redeemed by issuing bonds of the county, payable in ten years, with interest at ten per cent, annually, as soon as the Legislature shall authorize the issuing of said bonds; and that the Auditor be and is hereby aiithorized to issue said certificates in accordance with the above, and that said certificate be signed by the Auditor and Chairman of this board.

' Resolved, That J. W. Crees and W. T. Wilkins he and they are hereby authorized to pell said certificates, and J. B. Fraser is authorized to receive the money and pay the same to volunteers, when they shall be entitled to the same.*^

These resolutions were signed by the board as follows: J. W. Crees, G. A. Hayes, B. F. Holman, Lewis Peterson. B. F. Holman, Chairman ; Niles Carpenter, County Auditor.

On the 9th of January, 1863, the resolutions were modified so as to pay each volunteer in county orders, bearing interest at six per cent, per annum from the date of issue until redeemed, which was fibced at one-third in two years, one third in three years and the last third in four years. A provision to meet these obligations was made in the form of a special tax to be levied on the property of the county for three successive years. The Chairman and Auditor were made the committee on bounty claims, and were to be the disbursing agents for the money so appropriated. This, like the other, wan made contingent upon the action of the legislatmre legalizing such a tax. A resolution was also adopted to request the honorable Legislature of the State Uy pass an enabling act.

The Legislature being in session at the time, the Auditor was enjoined to attend to having a certified copy of the resolution sent to St. Paul without unnecessary delay.

No other action of the county board is discoverable as to bounty matters. Each township, as ^heir quota was ahead or behind the inexorable demands of the remorseless draft, would take measures to procure enlistmentst, which, with the $300 commutation, was the only means of averting the drawing, which, unlike an ordinary lottery, the holders of the tickets were anxious should not draw.

The first call for troops was by President Lincoln on the 15th of April, 1861, for 75,000 men, and, as showing the assurance of the southern leaders, the next day the confederate government called for 32,000, taking it for granted that a southerner was a match for northerners more than two to one. On the 10th of July, Mr. Lincoln called for 500,000 more. It may be of interest here to state that the report of the Adjutant General of the army gave the whole number enlisted under the various calls at 2,073,112 white men, and 178,885 colored men; Commissioned officers, 83,935; making a grand total of 2,335,842. As the regular army only had a few thousand men* all this vast military force had to be secured by volunteering, and they had to be armed and equipped, transported, fed, clothed, and educated in the school of the soldier; and those who have been bom since these stirring times, are respectfully invited to think that this war was no holiday affair. It is indeed difficult for one who was not in the stniggle, or an eye witness of it, to comprehend the magnitude of the contest, as it was developed in war's wrinkled front. And those who live in Fillmore county may contemplate with satisfaction the fact that their own county took an active part in the contest to preserve the heritage which the revolutionary^ fatliers pledged their lives and their sacred honor to establish.

Thanksgivino Dinner. - On Thanksgiving day, the 24th of November, 1864, in the village of Chatfield, Mr. Isaac Day, of that place, displayed his loyalty by preparing a sumptuos thanksgiving dinner to the wives of soldiers. The feast was held at the residence of Mr. Isaac Day, and was attended by all the wives of soldiers in Chatfield, about twenty ladies being present whose husbands were absent in the army. The occasion was a i fitting tribute and a just expression of feeling i toward the absent defenders of their country, and will long be remembered py participants as a most pleasant and profitable evening. The banquet was preceded by a most touching prayer, by one of the ladies, for the prosperity of the country, safety of the absent father, husband, and soldier, and that the happiness of home, and its comforts be once more re-instated and perpetuated.

Soldiers in the Sioux Massacre. - At the time of the Sioux massacre, the last of August and first of September, 1862, two companies of mounted rangers were organized and equipped in Fillmore county. Capt. N. P. Colburo, being in St. Paul, secured some handbills, and under instructions from Governor Ramsey raised a company of 120 mounted men, and had them armed and equipped, and marched to the front.

The battle of Bunker Hill, as an incentive to action in the early days of the revolution, was as nothing compared with the news of the Indian massacre. Men dropped their work, sometimes leaving a threshing machine, and mounting the horses would secure rifles wherever they could be found. Those who had no horses took them wherever they could be obtained, and some, whose horses were thus confiscated, were seriously inconvenienced until their return.

The officers of one company were : N. P. Colbum, Captain; William Marsh, 1st Lieutenant; and G. J. Onstine, 2d Lieutenant. They went by the way of Cl^atfield and Winnebago city. This company remained five weeks and were relieved by the 25th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers, when they returned home and disbanded.

From the Adjutant General's report we are enabled to obtain the following list of volunteers who enlisted during the rebellion, from Fillmore coxmty. There is no doubt that many are excluded from the list by incorrect registering, being credited to other counties, and other causes.

Private

The whole number of pensioners in Fillmore county is 127, with an annual payment, including arrears, of $25,783. This number is exceeded only in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. The