Wabaunsee County Military
County Men In The Civil War
From "Reminiscenses of the Early Settlement of Dragoon Creek, Wabaunsee County," Stephen Jackson Spear, 1914:
As a result of the admission of Kansas as a free state and the election of
Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, seven of the southern
states seceded and organized an army in rebellion against the United States
government. April 15, 1861, President Lincoln made the first call for soldiers
to put down the rebellion, and for the war which followed Kansas furnished
more troops according to her population than any other state in the Union.
Dragoon creek settlement furnished a large proportion. All the able-bodied
men were in the volunteer service, the militia against Price and his raiders,
or in the Indian war. The following is a list of the soldiers from this settlement and the regiments in which they served:
John Greelish, enlisted November 5, 1861, as first lieutenant. Company E,
Eighth Kansas; he was promoted to captain the same day; resigned June 6,
1864. Wounded in action at Chickamauga, Ga., September 19, 1863.
Gilmer Young, enlisted in Company F, First Kansas infantry. May 25,
1861, age 32 years. Killed in battle August 10, 1861, at Wilson Creek, Mo.
Eli Walton, enlisted in First Kansas battery, July 24, 1861, age 21 years,
mustered out September 7, 1864.
Merrill E. Cowee, enlisted August 25, 1862, in Company I, Second Kansas
cavalry. Mustered out June 22, 1865.
Samuel B. Easter, enlisted June 19, 1862, in Company F, Second Kansas
cavalry, age 18 years. Mustered out June 22, 1865.
Gary Walton, enlisted July 12, 1862, in Company I, Second Kansas cavalry, age 20 years. Mustered out June 22, 1865.
Paul Bryan, enlisted September 5, 1861, in Company B, Seventh Kansas
cavalry. Mustered out September 29, 1865.
Henry C. Thomson, enlisted in Company I, Eleventh Kansas cavalry,
August 20, 1862. Mustered out September 26, 1865.
Ira Hodgson, enlisted in Company E, Eleventh Kansas cavalry, September
5, 1862, age 16 years. Mustered out August 7, 1865.
George Hodgson, enlisted in Company E, Eleventh Kansas cavalry,
August 1, 1863, age 15 years. Died at Lawrence, Kan., May 26, 1864.
Alonzo D. McCoy, enlisted August 28, 1862, in Company E, Eleventh
Kansas cavalry, age 16 years. Died at Springfield, Mo., February 12, 1863.
Jehu Hodgson, enlisted in Company C, Seventeenth Kansas infantry,
July 16, 1864, age 34 years. Died November 3, 1864.
Henry Harvey, jr., enlisted September 13, 1861, in Company E, Eighth
Kansas infantry, age 20 years. Died at Iuka, Miss., August 30, 1862.
William Blankenship, enlisted September 13, 1861, in Company E, Eighth
Kansas infantry, age 23 years. Died at Chattanooga, Tenn., November 28.
1863.
Lucius P. Calkins, enlisted September 25, 1861, in Company E, Eighth
Kansas infantry, age 18 years. Killed in battle at Chickamauga, Ga., September 20, 1863.
Daniel Spear, enlisted September 13, 1861, in Company E, Eighth Kansas
infantry, age 31 years. Discharged for disability at Louisville, Ky., February
28, 1863.
Andrew W. Harris, enlisted April 22, 1862, in Company E, Eighth Kansas
infantry, age 19 years. He left the regiment at Atlanta, Ga., April 21, 1865,
and died of disease, caused by severe service, some three months later, July
30, 1865.
Haynie Thomson, enlisted October 23, 1861, in Company E, Eighth Kansas infantry, age 23 years. Died at Louisville, Ky., December 2, 1862.
John W. Johnson, enlisted April 22, 1862, in Company E, Eighth Kansas
infantry, age 18 years. Died at Jacinto, Miss., August 2, 1862.
Stephen J. Spear, enlisted April 22, 1862, in Company E, Eighth Kansas
infantry, age 27 years. Mustered out at Washington, D. C, April 22, 1865.
Albert Harvey, jr., went to Ohio, and enlisted in Company L Twelfth
Ohio infantry, June 25, 1861, age 19 years. Transferred to Company B,
July, 1861; appointed sergeant from private, Jan. 1, 1864. Died at Fayette,
W. Va., March 24, 1864.
Aaron Garinger also enlisted in one of the Ohio regiments and was mustered out and returned to Kansas at the close of the war.
Of the twenty-one soldiers mentioned, but nine were over twenty-one
years of age at the date of enlistment.
Of Company E, Eighth Kansas infantry, about one-half were recruited
from the vicinity of Dragoon creek, Elm creek and Wilmington. Of this number but eleven are known to be alive to-day [May 27, 1914]. The total enrollment of Company E, from September 13, 1861, to November, 1865, was
one hundred.
John A. Martin was lieutenant-colonel of the Eighth regiment when it
was organized, August, 1861, but was placed in command by Colonel Wessels
when on February 7, 1862, that officer was ordered to rejoin his own regiment,
the Sixth U. S. infantry. The latter part of the month, February 28, an order
was issued reorganizing a number of Kansas regiments, and under its terms
the Eighth was consolidated with a battalion raised in New Mexico, and
Colonel Robert H. Graham was assigned to the command. Late in May the
regiment was ordered to Corinth, Miss. It rendezvoused at Fort Leavenworth, and on May 28, 1862, embarked on the steamer Emma, starting down
the Missouri the next morning. Colonel Graham was taken sick at St. Louis
and left the regiment at that place, turning over the command to Lieutenant Colonel Martin, who, on November 1, 1862, received his commission as colonel of the regiment, Colonel Graham having died.
The following extracts have been taken from the report of the adjutant
general of Kansas. The largest aggregate strength of the Eighth Kansas
regiment was in March, 1862, when eight hundred and seventy-seven men
were on the rolls, and six hundred and fifty-six were present for duty. The
regiment carried three flags, the first until it went on veteran furlough early
in 1864. Under that flag it marched three thousand six hundred and
eighty-one miles; lost forty-seven men killed in battle, two hundred and
eleven wounded and twenty missing. Under the second flag, carried until
after the battle of Nashville, Tenn., it marched two thousand six hundred
and sixty miles and lost in battle eighteen killed and sixty-one wounded.
Under its third flag it traveled four thousand four hundred and nine miles,
making a total of ten thousand seven hundred and fifty miles traveled by the
regiment during its term of service. There were in the Eighth, from the
organization to final muster out, one thousand and eighty-one officers and
men. The greatest loss in one battle was at Chickamauga, Ga., September
19 and 20, 1863; there were present for duty on September 19 four hundred and six men; of that number two hundred and forty-three were
killed or wounded.
In the battle of Chickamauga Company E furnished the following list of
casualties; killed -- Richard M. Kendall, Lucius P. Calkins, John H. Dunmire, John Salior, William L. Wendell, Woodward Hindman, Thomas Stamp,
David Hardin and Frainy Blaise; total, nine; wounded -- Captain John
Greelish, William Richardson, William Blankenship, Theodore Ingersoll,
Zephaniah Johnson, Amos Reese, Melvin G. Bush, James Stewart, Ferdinand
J. Wendell, Hector Spurgeon, James Nichols and Richard Russell; total,
twelve. At bugle call on the morning of September 19, 1863, the first of the
two days' battle at Chickamauga, there were not over forty members of Company E present for duty. Two of the company were in the band, one in the
quartermaster's department, and three in the pioneer corps. In that battle
the company lost a total of twenty killed and wounded out of the forty present for duty.
The Eighth regiment participated in fifteen battles and eighteen skirmishes. The aggregate loss in battle, killed and wounded, was three hundred
and thirty-seven officers and men, and one officer and twenty men missing --
a total loss of three hundred and fifty-eight men.
Return to Wabaunsee Co. KHHP
|
This website created July 10, 2011 by Sheryl McClure.
� 2011 Kansas History and Heritage Project
|