Walworth County, Wisconsin - Chapter 12: Military History of Walworth County, 1912

Chapter 12: Military History of Walworth County

The militia system of New York (not to name other states similarly organized for defense and offense) afforded such liberal distribution of martial titles that it might now he wondered how any lawyer, working politician, inn-keeper, or other reputable and prosperous citizen could have escaped one of these marks of favor from the commander-in-chief, without peril of falling into or upon one of the nearly as plentiful judgeships. The grades of general, colonel and major were doubly preferred, for there was this uncertainty about the title of captain that it was no more the right of a real centurion than the possession of a master or ex-master of a canal boat or of a lake vessel of any or no tonnage. Captains, majors, colonels and generals came as early as others to Walworth. Dodge's and Duty's commissions were conclusive as to the genuineness of the fortunate holder's rank.

That there was a Sixth Regiment of Wisconsin Militia, and that as early, at least, as 1S41, is evident from the terms of Col. Edward Elderkin's commission. Other officers now known were Lieutenant-Colonel Urban D. Meacham, Major James Alex. Maxwell, Adj't Abel W. 'Wright. Capts. Lucius Allen. James Harkness, Perry G. Harrington, Joseph L. Pratt.

The earliest statement in detail as to the organization of territorial militia found at the adjutant-general's office shows that in June. 1 S46. men of Columhia. Dane. Dodge. Jefferson, Portage, Rock, Sauk and Walworth, a regiment fnnn each, were brigaded together, and in July the officers of the Walworth regiment were Col. Caleb Croswell of Delavan (a few years later of

William M. (lark I. and Major Thomas Morris Mel high. Tn August. 1846, the men of Columbia, Dodge, Jefferson and Walworth constituted the first Brigade of the Third Division, commanded respectively by Brig.-Gen. John 1 Gilman and Maj.-Gen. John \\ . Boyd.

February 6, 1847. of Major-General Boyd's staff were Eleazar Wakeley, division inspector; Experience Estabrook, judge advocate; while Colonel Croswell's adjutant was Jacob M. Fish, and surgeon, Dr. Harmon Gra

It is probable enough that a few young men of the count) enlisted t'>r service in the war with Mexico in the regular army, and thai a few m were enrolled in one or more of the six regiments of Illinois volunteers for like service. But no official record, except the inaccessible rolls oi the adjutant-general's office at Washington, tells who these men were and how they contributed to the patriotic work of "conquering a peace" with that factiontorn country. A few men who returned from that war as soldiers of other state- came to live in Walworth.

Throughout the fourteen years of peace which followed the Mexii treaty of [847, Wisconsin was prudently prepared against insurrection and invasion. Men of military age in each of the older counties constituted a regiment and thc\ of the newer counties reported as battalions 01 were commissioned and appear in reports as generall) present for dut) but the rank and file were not so generally visible. For an instance, Kdjul General Utley's report for [853 -hows that the sixth of twent) nin< ments was that of Walworth, and was then 3,180 strong on paper. The Sixth Regimenl was then of the Second Brigade (under Brig Gen Philo White of Racine), the First Di\ hat of M. 1 Rufus King of from \ to Q. It- field and staff officers were Col. Erasmus D. Richard of Geneva ; Lieut.-< -1 \dam E. Kay. of Troy; Major Edwin Brainard, Delavan: Xdi't Samuel II. Stafford, of Bl< Thayer, of East Tro on Alexander S. P

In i860 James B. Schrom, of Whitewater, was of the Governor's general staff as quartermaster. Daniel Graham, of Whitewater, and John F. Potter were colonels and aids to Governor Randall. Walworth was now of the Fifth Regiment and Kenosha of the Sixth, the two forming the First Brigade (under Brig.-Gen. J. C. McKesson, of Wheatland) of the Second Division, commanded by Maj.-Gen. Daniel C. Tripp, of Whitewater. (The other brigade was of Jefferson and eastern Rock counties.) General Tripp chose his staff from Whitewater, with two exceptions. All these officers ranked as colonels: Frank L. Riser and Robert Williams, aids: Edward Barber, paymaster; Henry Warne, surgeon; Newton S. Murphey, judge-advocate; William II. McCallum, chief of engineers; L. R. Humphrey, chaplain; John T. Wentworth (Geneva), commissary, ami a Palmyrene as quartermaster. The field officers of the Fifth were Col. Caleb S. Blanchard, of East Troy; Lieut. Col. Charles E. Bird, "i" Linn; Mai. Phipps W. Lake, ni Walworth. Two volunteer companies were attached to tin- regimenl : "Company

A" (so named), of Whitewater, Capt. Lucius A. \\ inchester, and the Geneva Independents. Capt. Daniel C. Roundy. Excepl thai these two companies had each forty men, no further return was made of the Fifth Regiment. \ very few of all these names of militia officers ma) be found in the roster of soldiers of the Civil war, most of them having passed the age limit. Captain Wheeler, a young lawyer, was perhaps the onl) one named in these rosters commonly addressed by his martial title.

Having given to Mr. Lincoln in i860 a majority of 2,319 in .1 total vote of 5.517, the citizens of Walworth noted with interest the quickl) following events, until the affair of Fort Sumter made it certain that the I nion could be preserved only by war. The morning newspapers of April 15. [86l, brought to them the President'- call to arms, and that day's drum beating throughout the county summoned men to the evening's war meetings. Seats and standing places at these assemblages were over filled and speaker- usually accounted dull found willing and applauding listener-. \t such a time it was easy to tip even cool, slow tongues with lire. It was but to let loose the spirit of patriotism and of defiance to foreign and domestic enemies, and to forgel such word as compromise. .Mr. Winsor, of and at Elkhorn, who had voted for Douglas, speaking that evening, did not forget legal precision of term- in the unusually warm flow of his indictment of the nation's enemies. He had neither softer nor harsher word for them than "rebels," and thus the) remain in history. Other speakers racked memory and invention for words and phrases likest to thunderbolts and hence fittest for expression of patriotic wrath. These village lawyers, retailer- and farmer- -poke thai which tl hearers felt, and to one clearly-seen point, the preservation of the I Won by national authority.

to fill three or four regiments. There was nol a compan) of uniformed and drilled men in the county, but a few headlong youths found each his wa) to Camp Scott, at Milwaukee, to enlisl in such compan had nol reached its maximum number of one hundred and ten men. The Second and Third regiments were organized b) state authority, in order that thi Washington might be answered with partly-instn ; more boys of Walworth were enabled to push their w; In lune places were made for two companies nizing the Fourth. Company \ was of Whitewater and Compan) I of Gi tributing to each. Several of the men of thi cre< itei

April; for the record of Wisconsin men's service begins with their acceptance as recruits and not with the often long-delayed mustering into federal service. The interval between enlistment and muster was not subtracted from the term of actual service, but the record of earlier enlistment is honorable, and the state made such provision as it was able to do, for subsistence, clothing and payment of its unmustered soldiers. After the action at Bull Run - in which a few men of Walworth advanced, stood, fired and left the field only at the order of William T. Sherman, their brigade commander, and at no faster pace than his - men of Delavan and Elkhorn joined to form Company A of the Tenth. About the same time Company K, of the Eighth, at Racine, was filling its thin ranks with stout men of Bloomfield and Hudson. Sharon, Whitewater, Lagrange and Sugar Creek respectively officered and manned Companies C, H, I and K of the Thirteenth. A few men of several towns enlisted among stranger comrades in the First and Second Cavalry Regiments. Several of the boys of Hudson and Spring Prairie turned out for service in the Ninth Battery of Light Artillery. Of the Third Cavalry, Company L was raised from the county at large. The towns not thus far named sent their men singly and in squads to regiments and batteries most easily reached at the instant of enlistment. Except the few men in the First Infantry, all these men of ]80i enlisted for three years.

Defeat and retreat in the campaigns on the Virginian peninsula and the Rappahannock brought a new call for troops. The first regiment of Wisconsin, under that call, was the Twenty-second. Company C was taken from the Geneva quarter of the county, including also Elkhorn, and Company D from Whitewater. The Twenty-eighth was but a few days behind, its Company 1) almost wholly of Whitewater. Company E of Sugar Creek and other towns, Company 1 of Lafayette, Spring Prairie and the Troys, Company K less of this county and few of any one town. Delavan supplied a colonel for the Fortieth, a regiment of one-hundred-day men; Delavan. Elkhorn and Walworth gave two captains and three lieutenants to Companies F and I. The men of F were mostly of Delavan, Elkhorn, Sharon and Walworth. Company K. Forty-ninth, was composed of men of Racine and Walworth counties. To this company Delavan gave a captain who became major, and Geneva gave a lieutenant. The First (and only) Regiment of Heav\ \rtillery had a considerable number of our men. unevenly distributed among its twelve companies. The whole enrollment, from first to last, was about -'.750 - slighth more than the sum of the several quotas assigned. Had it been possible to levy all the troops of the ( i\il war within one year the men of Wal- \% . , it 1 1 would have formed three average regiments, \s it was. the circum-

There is another, and in some respects hetter way of setting forth the martial patriotism of Walworth. Wisconsin sent out fifty-om regiments of infantry, four regiments of cavalry, one regiment of heavy artillery and thirteen batteries of light artillery. Men of Walworth were to be found in all these except the Twenty-tirst and Forty-first infantry regiments, and the Second, Eighth. Eleventh, and Twelfth light batteries. Besides all this service in home organizations, regiments and batteries of Illinois and of the regular army, the gun-boat river service, and the navy received each a few estrays from the same source. Walworth men served in eighteen states and territories - in all the states of the Confederacy except Florida, in the border slave states, except Delaware and Wesl Virginia, and in Colorado, fnd Territory, Kansas, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Their enlistments began in April, i86l, and their service continued till May, t866. Distributed among so many commands, the men of Walworth were parted to the far north and to the Gulf, to the eastern sea and to the western ridges of the continent. By her young men Walworth followed to battle nearly every then and yet famous commander, and leaders now half forgotten. She foil, .wed her captains until they became colonels, and her colonels until they exchanged their regiment- for brigades, divisions and corps. She advanced, attacked, besieged, assaulted; she entrenched, Fortified, resisted, retreated, was i tured, and knew Libby and Andersonville from the inside; she preserved lines of communication, garrisoned posts, moved after murderous Sioux. hanged bushwhackers in border states, marched through sullen, ill-wish Baltimore, regulated Xew Orleans, warned awaj the French Co - and, in brief, performed nearly every glorious and inglorious duty that falls to the lot of soldiers. Her men came home to resume for a shorter or longer time their places in the ranks of useful citizens. Many of them went one by one to the no longer trackless and boundless west, and the Grand Army membership in the county whose quotas they had filled is largely of later coming comrades from other counties and stati doubt or question as to their wisdom and necessity. First, there was the burden of the currency of the state banks, nominally secured, in many instances, by dep i e previously depreciated bonds of states wind, pa ordinance's ol sion and of states which wen me time of doubtful fidelity to the union of all the states. Then cam.- the call for their young men to arms, taking away the help needed on farm and in shop; and, too soon, followed news of privation, sickness and death. Xext, the unstable national war currency, its value falling steadily until the return of peace. Throughout all was the variable fortune of armies in the field, when defeat seemed too frequent and success but slowly and feebly pursued. Against all these things, and things unspeakable, men's and women's souls were firmly fortified by their sense of the justice of the national cause, and they held themselves in readiness for further sacrifices. They subscribed to bounty funds, and then voted town bounties in order that quotas need not be filled by conscription. In fact, the district provost-marshal's wheel turned but seldom to make even among the towns the burden of personal service in the field.

The women who met formally and informally as sanitarv aid societies, and as individuals, took upon themselves some duty toward the sick and wounded at field and post hospitals, made no record of their timely and most welcome services. But it is not unlikely that the state will soon publish whatever the uncertain memory of survivors of that period of storm and stress may recall of the good done by patriotic women of Wisconsin, with some note of the doers. Should this be done, the women of Walworth will have a place in the tardy memorial. One name, at least, is not forgotten here, that of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Chesebro) Lee, then of Sugar Creek, a daughter of Ebenezer Chesebro and Anna Griswold, wife of Nelson Lee, and mother of one of the earlier superintendents of schools, Elon Nelson Lee. She took her active part in organizing aid at home, and then went in person to the wounded and sick in field hospitals and in the general hospital at Louisville. What she did can not be told as yet with approach to fulness and accuracy, but her matronly care and skill, so unselfishly and noiselesslv given in that soul-trying time, are yet well and gratefully remembered.

Tlie father-, and mothers bad thought and talked much of the happier time when the boys should come home and take again their old* places on the farm and in the village shop. "Alas! our dreams, they come not true." The boys had grown to manhood and maturer minds amid the quickening impulses of that history-making period, had seen men and cities, and "glorious old Walworth" was no longer all the world to them. They came home, but for many of them, only to go out again. In the spring of 1865 men were already eager to find, each citizen and returning soldier, his own place in the activities of business, so long suspended or maimed by panic ami war. now SO hopefully planned and resolutely pushed: and this before the last dirtvblue regimenl had slouched at the easy gait of veterans through the streets of cities, from one terminal station to another, on its waj to camp of mustering out and final payment. The service-worn followers of Granl and Ingreat lieutenants were fast merging themselves in the "ugly rush" of cities as better-paid mechanics, accountants, students at short-course business schools, or servants of railway companies - all hopeful of rapid promotion, and little minded to drop into the old obscurities and low-paid drudgerii farm and village life, "where nothing happens." \ few enthusiastic patriots, men and women, urged subscriptions to raise local monuments t>> the hi dead, but were not always nor often successful. It was not yet time for monument building - certainly not for a county monument.

In course of time Grand Army posts were instituted, but at first and quite naturally and therefore rightly their efforts and influence were dit to the equalization of the unevenly distributed service bounties and to promotion of more adequate pension rates with more liberal bureau ruling-. In a few more years the steadily dwindling post membership suggested a county comradeship which might include the few men who were not of the Grand Army of the Republic. Occasionally reunion- of men of Walworth and Waukesha counties of the Twenty-eighth and somewhat more general meetings at the Lauderdale lakes and at Whitewater led to the formation of the Walworth County Soldier and Sailors Association in r88o. It- membership i- inexpensive and its proceedings but little burdened with formalism. It- yearly meeting, held late in August, on grassy parks and under friendly tree-, brings together soldiers and citizens in hundreds to " make a day of it"- and a long evening as well. No greal time is wanted for election of officers am of other less pressing business; and soon after dinner the bugler rail- hand and singers,, speakers and hearers to a feast of ex< ellent music and an abund ant flow of oratory, declamation, and plain -peaking - all received in best of humor by the large, sympathetic and unexacting audiei

Among earlv organizers and builders of the Association, now not living. were Col. Edmund B. Gray, an honorary member, a full-minded and ready talker who never uttered nonsense nor was ever dull: Edwin D. - !oe, whom it was very pleasant and good for comrades and decent citizens to know; George W. Wylie, different from tin e >wn way most useful.

Men who had helped I- mal e larger history than that of counties earn. Lieut-Gen. Henry C. Corbin. while yet at tin- head of the regular army Henry Harnden. the captor of Jefferson Davis; Gen. Lucius Fairchild, of the immortal Iron Brigade. National and state comm f the Grand Army general, Forty-ninth Wisconsin Infantry, United States Senator Joseph V. Qnarles, ex-Governors William D. Hoard and William II. Upham, Hon. Alexander E. Matheson, of Janesville, and Jay W. Page, of Elkhorn I natives of the county ). The altar, the pulpit and the bar of the county have not been called upon in vain to lend interest to this county holiday.

In 1907 the board of supervisors appointed a committee of three of its members with two soldiers to consider and report a plan for making a roster of all the county's men in service in the Civil war, to be cast in bronze and placed on an inner wall of the county-court building. This committee was: Capt. Theodore A. Fellows, Genoa Junction ; R. Bruce Arnold. Lake Geneva ; George Renner, Sugar Creek ; Leonard C. Church. Walworth ; John G. Meadows, Lyons; Henry D. Barnes, secretary. In 1908 the committee's plan of bronze plates and a record book was adopted and eighteen hundred dollars was appropriated. The committee appointed two compilers of the proposed roll, with directions to go to Madison and Washington, if needful, and examine adjutant-general's records. In 1909 a third board of supervisors chose from samples of bronze work and appropriated one thousand two hundred dollars more for a worthier design than the one at first considered. Early in 1910 plates containing the names of 2.743 men were secured to the walls of the room previously set apart for the use of Grand Army posts. Provision is made for the few names not yet found and verified. The session of 1910 added three hundred dollars to the sums already appropriated, for the purpose of completing the type-written descriptive rolls. It is noteworthy as indicating the sympathy of the board and it- constituents with the wishes bf living soldiers that these several measures passed without opposition.

This roster, now more nearly complete and more nearly error-tree, and more accessible than ever he fore, was compiled forty-three years after the end of the war, when lew men were living and fewer were within inquirer's reach who could correcl some of the errors and explain some of the seeming anomalies of the fifty-eight large volumes of descriptive rolls of Wisconsin soldiers. These volumes, written by as many hands, were compiled from regimental returns and from the bi-monthly musters of companies. These were often defective and sometimes wanting. Clerical errors are to he found. though corrections, when authenticated, are entered (in red ink). The columns for town and county of each soldier's residence and for the town and county credited with his services are, many of them, par- tially or wholly blank, and even when the name of the town is shown, thai of the county is often wanting. The names of Bloomfield, Genoa, Hone) (reek. Hudson, Lafayette, Linn. Richmond, Sharon, Springfield, Sugar (reek and Troy, all then and all but one now on the map of Walworth, are repealed one or more times in other counties of \\ isconsin. St. Croix count) has four ol these names, and there are four Springfields in the state. Th rolls of the county for [860 determined some of these uncertainties; and the enrollments of 1862, made by the several sheriffs, of citizens subjeel to military service - now a part of the State I [istorical Society's collection of manuscripts - might have helped further had all these returns keen preserved. The invaluable records of the adjutant-general's office at Madison are now securely stored in the east wing of the new statehouse.

The form chosen for the Following soldier list, that by regiments, seems most convenient for this work. A satisfactory list by towns is impossibl the county svstem of the last two years of the war often drew men ol town into service for another town, within or without the county, win each new call for troops offered highest premium. Names of men who served in more than one command are repeated for each such re-enlistment. < rfficers are given their highest rank. It should be noted that officers, on their promo tion, were sometimes transferred to another company in the same or an regiment. Names marked with an asterisk 1 :: 1 are of men who died in sen - ice. Two asterisks mirk names of men killed or mortally wounded in action:

Spanish-American War

For the war with Spain in 1898, four regiments of National Guard were taken from Wisconsin for service in the field. The company at Whitewater, then and now Company C, First Infantry, was filled by recruiting, assembled at Camp Harvey and ordered southward. Its officers were Capt. Leverette H. Persons, First Lieut. William H. Hahn, Second Lieut. Edward T. Weyher. and of its enlisted men, sixty-two were of this county. Besides these, nine men enlisted in other companies of the'same regiment, and sixteen served in Company A, Fourth Infantry. None of these men reached Cuba, but four died in service, namely: Bloxham, September 8, T898: Miller, August 3; Southwick, September 4; Whaley. September 6, the first three at Jacksonville, the last-named at Second Division Hospital. The enlisted men were:

First Infantry Company A, Fourth Infantry

Of these men, Trolle enlisted from Darien ; Lyon, Odell, Protheroe, Shimmins. Smith, Southwick. Wolf, Wrigglesworth, from Delavan ; Concklin, DeProux, Eddy, Gillard, Kelly, McDonongh. Riordan, Tearney, Thornton. Tuke, Willett, from East Troy; Fowlston, Huntress, Lannon, from Elkhorn ; Cooley, Whaley, from Heart Prairie ; Brunet from Lake Geneva ; Ingalls, from Linn; Ames, from Springfield; Derthick. from Spring Prairie; Burns, Dingman. Montague, from Troy Center. Sergeant Tearney had served in Company F, Fifteenth I'nited States Infantry, and Troop D, Seventh United States Cavalry, five years in all. He was mustered out as a quartermaster sergeant. All the other men were credited to Whitewater, forty-nine, including officers.

One more service humbly but honorably useful, in behalf of law and order, was performed by young men of Delavan and Whitewater in [886, when rioting at Milwaukee called thither Governor Rusk and several companies of the National Guard. Our boys were not assigned to Major Traeumer's firing line at Bayview, but threats t" property in other parts of the city compelled some days of guard duty, and the promptly-arriving Walworthians served faithfully wherever they were placed.