Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 49: Houston County in the War of the Rebellion - Names Op Soldiers Who Participated, 1882

Chapter 49: Houston County in the War of the Rebellion - Names Op Soldiers Who Participated

out, in April, 1861, Minnesota was but three years old as a State, and had but two oongressional districts. Houston county was in the first, and it included the following counties: Houston, Fillmore, Mower, Freeborn, Faribault, Martin, Winona, Olmsted, Brown, Steele, Waseca, Blue Earth, Bice, Le Sueur, Nicollet, Scott, Sibley, and Dodge. The several calls by the President for troops were apportioned between these two districts.

The scenes which were presented all over the North, as the call to arms was flashed to every town and hamlet, were duplicated here, and the facility with which men changed the implements of the mechanic and of husbandry for the instruments of death, was indeed remarkable. The response here will bear favorable comparison with other communities similarly situated. In the account here presented, it is not claimed that all the incidents which took place, or even, perhaps, the most interesting among them, will be related, but the attempt will be made to rescue from oblivion the salient points of the local struggle for the preservation of the Union. Two thirds of an allotted generation has already passed since the heat of that struggle was extant in the land, and many things which an earlier historian might have found fresh in the public memory, have already grown dim in the average recollection.

In February, 1861, while the southern States were endeavoring to carry out their programme of peaceable secession, Col. Samuel McPhail issued a call in Caledonia for the organization of a regiment. The Colonel had lived in the South ; he appreciated the temper of the fire-eaters, and knew that if resisted they would fight.

The first war meeting recorded in the county, was held in the town of Houston, on tne 28th of April, 1861. The meeting was addressed by Messrs. Kennedy, McSpadden, Pidge, Scott, and others. Resolutions were passed affirming the indissolubility of the Union. Much earnest feeling was manifested, and $255 in currency and $25 in gold and seventy bushels of wheat were subscribed to assist in raising a company, and thus was the Union ball set in motion.

On the 30th, two days afterwards, another rousing meeting was held. George W. Baboock was President, and Nathan Vance, Secretary. The committee on resolutions consisted of Bev. Ed. Wright, Hon. D. C. Case, and Hon. H. E. Kennedy. Dr. Wilson and others addressed the assem-

In May, 1861, a vigilance committee was formed in the county, to put the categorical question to the editor of the uPlain Dealer" in La Crosse, as to which side of the contest he was on ?

W. G. McSpadden, Captain; E. H. Kennedy, First Lieutenant; and Thomas Conniff, Second Lieutenant. This is supposed to have been the first company in the county.

In September, Winfield Scott addressed a war meeting in Hokah, and in November John M. Thompson opened a recruiting office at the same place. Until August, 1862, there had been enlistments from all parts of the county in Minnesota, Wisconsin and other State regiments.

As an idea of the number already in the field from the county, it was stated that there were at this time, nineteen from Union and thirty-one from Hokah.

At the time of the Indian massacre, Capt. Geo. W. Webber raised a company of Mounted Bangers, to act against the Indians and in that campaign Houston county had twenty commissioned officers.

In December, 1862, the county was divided into fifteen military districts. The town lines were the boundaries of these districts, except Hokah and Union, which formed one of them, and Jefferson and Crooked Creek were also together.

Orders for an election of company officers were given to take place on a given day, but some of the districts, on account of insufficient notice, failed to respond. This was a State measure, but was not a phenomenal success. The county officials as a rule, left the towns to manage military matters.

In May, 1863, Charles H. Lee was appointed provost marshal for this congressional district, and D. L. Clements, of Hokah, as enrolling clerk. In June of the same year there were several musters of recruits in Hokah, where about 100 men at a time would be drilled, by Lieutenant W. F. Webber.

In September, the patriotic ladies of La Crescent organized a Soldiers1 Aid Society, as indeed was done in several other places in the county. Mrs. J. T. Foster was President; Mrs. M. Beardslee, Vice-President; Mrs. Wm. Merrick, Treasurer; and Mrs. W. H. Lapham, Secretary, with a score of the other prominent ladies of the place as active members.

The impending draft in Minnesota, in the fall of 1863, was postponed to January 4, 1864. So many men from this county were enlisted in Wisconsin regiments, that early in January, 1864, David House, of Hokah, was sent to Madison to secure credits for them, as without these the county would have to furnish more than its share of the calls for so many hundred thousand more.

On Saturday, the 6th of February, 1864, the citizens of Spring Grove extended their hospitalities, and gave a complimentary dinner to the veterans who were on a re-enlistment furlough. Among the veterans present were Sergeant F. H. Brown, Ole Oleson, and John Amundson, of Spring Grove; Mathew Halverson, of Wilmington; Jesse and Smith Phillips, of Hokah; Sergt. James Tom, of Caledonia, and one hundred citizens. They met at the store of Mons Fladager, and with music marched to the Ridge House, where the dinner, the toasts, the cheers for the flag of the Union, for Grant, and for the soldiers, were hugely enjoyed. The address of welcome was by J. G. Prentiss, Esq., and speeches were made by Messrs. Rollins, Aiken, and others.

The impending draft, that terrible^engine with its red jaws of destruction, ready to swallow up fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, was again postponed to the 10th of March, 1864.

There was much anxiety in relation to the draft, and the ever enterprising Col. McPhail, in Caledonia, got up an insurance company, to insure against the draft, agreeing to stand between the policy holder and the government by the payment of the $300 commutation, in case he should be a victim. Knowing the number liable to draft from, and the number required, it was easy to get at a per cent, that would give a margin.

When the ominious 10th of March arrived the draft was indefinitely postponed, but on the 14th of that month, in addition to the February call for 500,000 men, 200,000 more were required, and this created quite a flutter.

The quota was 687; men already enlisted, 319; leaving a balance of 369 due the government on previous calls. The new call added 234 more, making a grand total of 602 men to be enlisted, and to do this, only twenty days were allowed.

It may well be imagined that when the full force of the situation dawned upon those who were so much more anxious to fill the quota than to recruit our armies, that there was a subdued kind of consternation, and town meetings were called and bounties voted with the feeblest kind of opposition.

The county was too far behind to save itself from the draft, and it took place, while the birds kept on singing, the sun rose and set at its appointed time, and the shock was not so profound as the timid ones apprehended.

The names of those who were thus politely invited to serve their country in its hour of peril will not be given, for if they actually served, their names will appear elsewhere. The number from each town were as follows:

Up to the 21st of June, 1864, the amount paid in the First Congressional district for commutations, was by 341 men who contributed an aggregate of $102,300.

On the 10th of August there was a war meeting in Hokah, to see what measures could be taken to fill the quota, and thus avoid the draft. The quota for the whole state of Minnesota for the draft of July, 1864, was 5,561, and the first district was 2,768.

Minnesota passed a law allowing soldiers in the field to vote, and commissioners were sent out to receive and bring home the returns, but out of the hundreds from this county who went to the front, not over fifty votes were received.

The "Hokah Chief," in September, 1864, declared that among the men who were drafted in June, sixty-five had, to use a word coined about that time, "Skedaddled.".

In February, 1865, there was an ejection in Caledonia to raise a special tax of two and one-half per cent., to pay bounties, and the sum was made up to $250 apiece for the number required, twenty- six. Spring Grove paid $500 each to recruits, for eight more than were actually required.

The operations of the draft called forth much feeling, as there were great inequalities caused by improper exemptions. One town, with 181 votes, had six men only to draft from, another town, with forty-four votes, had forty-four to draft from, men in positions and out of them would trade on the necessities of the country and the anxieties of the citizens. The dissatisfaction became so out- spoken, that the exemptions were set aside by a general order. In March, 1865, was the last draft of the war. The final quota in Caledonia was filled through the energy of Sprague, Abbotts, Buell and others.

Great care, has been taken to make this list as nearly complete as possible, but it is not unlikely that some defenders of their country, who had a greater regard for their duty than for preserving their records, may have been omitted.

The following list embraces those from Houston county, who were enlisted in Wisconsin regiments, and for whom credits were given by the authorities at Madison, but ft is reasonable to infer that the number is not exaggerated :

W. Snure was in the 12th Illinois Regiment; Dr. C. S. Cranson, of Sheldon, was in the 18th Michiigan Light Artillery; Cyrus Ballou, of Mound Prairie, was in the 8th New York Heavy Artillery.

There are quite a number of persons in the county, who did honorable service for the Union, but who have come since the war from other counties or States, and from the very nature of the case, it would be utterly impossible to furnish their names. Unquestionably, the names of Union soldiers here presented will create a more lively interest as time goes on, and, as one by one they are called to enlist in an army, in relation to the tactics of which so little is known, the institutions they have helped to preserve will be more affectionately cherished by the remaining few.

Company

to oaptain. John A. Birdsel, Sergeant. Lorenzo Curry, " Francis S. Brown, " Charles H. Forrester, Sergeant. Andrew I. Shaw, " Amos E. Glanville, "