USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 84
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When it comes to the time in the family history that more of its members are sleeping in the cemetery than sitting around the freside at home, relatives and friends - so many times the remnant of a once large family-are impressed with the duty of keeping their memories green, and God's Aere will always be sacred to them. While there is no consecrated ground the Catholies bury in local cemeteries, but the Jews carry their dead to Wabash for interment. The Indians have all been buried at the Indian Village cemetery, and many negroes are buried at Weaver. There are few noteworthy inscriptions on Grant county tombstones, and the epitaph hunter would never visit local cemeteries in quest of the unusual, love of the dead in most instances manifesting itself in the form of suitable markers at the grave. Better than epitaphs is this :
"Let us bring to the living the roses, And the lilies we bind for the dead And crown them with blessings and praises -- Before the brave spirit has Hed."
LXXXVI. MILITARISM- GRANT COUNTY IN THE WARS
Why write a chapter on wars when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan is seeking to federate all the nations of the earth in a peace pact, and many of them have already accepted his conditions? The plan is that each nation stop and count ten, think before it aets, and arbitration is the hope of the nations. Mr. Bryan would convert the nation's war vessels into merchant marine, and his prophesy is that
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belligerent powers will soon be an obsolete expression amony the nations of the world. The nations are all becoming too highly mailised for atrocious murder to prevail. The wars of the past are sunt blot on civilization.
Former Indiana Governor J. Frank Manly has lately invaded Grant county and given utterance to the assertion that war is never right. in his "International Peace" address delivered before the Quakers assim bled at Fairmount, at a regular Sunday morning worshop hour. the Quakers of the community having been stirred up over the attitude of the militarists who advocate increasing the strength of the army and navy in this country. Mr. Hanly characterized war as the oldest sin of the nations, and be regrets former president Theodore Roosevelt's attitude toward the question. Roosevelt would have other nations afraid of the Puited States, while Hanly claims that respect both of fear is never real-never gommine. He calls war scientific, international suicide, and most people remember what General William Teenmisch Sherman said about it : "War is hell."
While the Quaker of today may differ outwardly from the grand old type of the past, inwardly he seems to be about the same, and arbitra tion always has been Quaker doctrine. While the Quaker of the past argued against war, and was for the Freedom of the slaves, he got what he wanted, but not in the way that he desired it. While amalgamation has changed his outer garb, the Quaker of today has not lost all of his vital characteristics, and he is still opposed to bloody encounter. Mr. Hanly expressed the Quaker conviction when he said war does not deter- mine the merit of any question. "In time of peace prepare for war." has been a powerful slogan, and its teaching is at eross purposes with the policy of arbitration. The Prophet Isaiah said: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into priming hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn War any more," and in the face of all this Grant county has had its part in several conflicts.
In its sheath the saber is now rusted, and the canton's lips are now grown cold, and the plowshares and the pruning hooks have played their part in advanced civilization. The "bloody shirt" is no longer waved in Graut county polities, and war is certainly a thing of the past. With the present day munitions of war, a pitched battle would not last longer than a June frost, and there would be none left to bury the dead. Civilization has advanced too far for war-fare ever again to sway this country. When one contemplates the horrors of war -nation against nation- he wonders how so many centuries went by before the awakening to arbitrary methods. The public mind is changed, and in future the battles of the world will be fought with ballots rather than bullets. The sudden breaking up of the great and powerful Miami con federacy on the banks of the Mississinewa, elsewhere detailed in this Centennial History, was certainly the first military movement in the territory long since recognized as the domain of Grant county.
Since local civilization is the outgrowth of a struggle, why should not Grant county citizens respond to the nation's call for men ! While the battle of the Mississinewa bad the same significance for surrounding territory, Grant county was the scene of the encounter. While There are none living today who tell the story, many talked with Meshin- gomesia, and thus this first military engagement seems real to them. The Indian himself is now a fading memory in the minds of the oldest inhabitants, although some still cherish stories heard from them. Wil- liam Por nga related his own feeling of Americanism when he laid down the life ofthe blanket Indian and became an American citizen in all that
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citizenship implies to the Red Man of the Forest. When Peconga's name was placed on the tax duplicate of Grant county he visited a Marion tailor and had his blanket made into a coat, and all the young Indians then living in the Reserve followed suite, and they were all Americans when they had on American garments they were then ready to follow the flag. The battle of the Mississibewa was the Indian's requiem.
Through its patriotic Revolutionary sons and daughters and the graves of its patriots, Grant county has direct contact with the war that established the United States a nation, and it is itself the direct result of a war of extermination. Through all its vicissitudes the spirit of 1776 has been kept alive, and there must have been a divine purpose in it all. The spirit of the colonists has been transmitted and e pluri bus amint is the result. One realizes that time is passing when he stops to enumerate the wars through which his ancestry and contem- peraries have passed, and one wonders how long it has been since he listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence on a fostal day. An enthusiastic exile, Mrs. Amanda Sanford Barlow, writes : "I wish that I might hear the good old Declaration of Independence read again at an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration in Grant county. When read in the spirit in winch it was written, it is a master piece in literature. It was the document of the century. Handrum reading kills it, but when it used to be part of every Fourth of July celebration there were always orations dripping with patriotism fol lowed it. and how we always enjoyed it.
"If the American eagle had swooped down on one of those mixed gatherings when there was old time oratory and music, he would have rifled his feathers, preened himself, spread his wings and with one mighty flap. would have given the world to understand that he was Uncle Sam's bird of freedom- nothing Turkish about him at all. There were always patriotic songs on those occasions, and that was what had the young fellows all at fever heat when Lincoln's call for volunteers was heard -the songs of that day were all heard in Grant county. " Some one has said that if he could write the hymns of a nation he would stand responsible for that nation's religion, and the same rule is doubly true with reference to its patriotism. The hyum writer traches the morals of the nation, and such war songy as: " Three Cheers For the Red, White and Blue," "The Army and Navy, Forever, " and " Hail Columbia." enable the people to come up to Bunker Hill and Lexington and the later struggles, fully understanding their significance
There must always be a planting of moral and patriotic ideas before persons, or nations advance, and the human voice in appealing song has most telling effect in moving people to action. The New England Puri- tan conscience was aroused by William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua R. Gid- dings. Wendell Phillips, John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Julia Ward Howe, and the printed page, poems and song-the winged arrows of God's truth were unlimited in their effectiveness. There was a revival of the feeling of accountability to God as a result and it spread all over the country, Grant county being in line with the rest of the world, and when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's great story: "Uncle Tom's Cabin," made its serial appearance there were men and women in Grant county who needed never to read it again. It had carried its message to their hearts. Some of the war songs of the past were as effective m the way of promoting enlistments and arousing men and women to deeds of sacrifice and heroism as the telling patriotic addresses from the recruit-
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ing officers; sometimes it is necessary to inspire optimism to tide a nation over a crisis.
The early Indiana laws fostered the military spirit, and all able bodied men were required to drill and master military tactics. The settlers all had guns and they were skilled in the manual of arms. There were muster days and all classes of people were attracted to theill. A long period of peace finally caused these mister days to become like holidays, and the Declaration of Independence was so long that it sagged in the middle before the waning enthusiasm of the younger generation, and finally it was never read in public again. On training days all were exempt from arrest, and sometimes boisterous hilarity prevailed in sedate Grant county. The Fathers and mothers have heard the story that tights were frequently unplanned parts of such programs. and the social atmosphere was somewhat of that nature from the begin ning until the Mexican war period, when active militaria again pos sessed the country. Indiana bad only had statehood one generation then, and Grant county was still in swaddling clothes an infant commonwealth.
The story goes that some of the munitions of war used in Is1 were sunk in the pond back of the John Dunn house in Pleasant. and Lavend Lake garden had its name from it. Tradition is all that some of those interesting stories amount to in fact, and when the Mississinewa Battle Ground Association completes its commission, the vicinity of Battle Ground farm will take on additional interest. It would be fine to know the names of those who lost their lives in this halian encounter along the Mississinewa. but there is no such roster m existence and only the war department record is available, and system had not then been introduced into such things. It is well understood that the live Indiana regiments in the Mexican war in 1816 were taken at a disadvantage, and Jefferson Davis started the story that they run when they were driven back at Buena Vista. " Remember Buena Vista." became a slogan and the watchword always has inspired patriotism.
It is said there was considerable Grant county representation, con- sidering the fact that the county was then only sparsely populated, there being two Grant county companies under different enlistments. More is known about the first company to go, although when they first offered themselves in 1816 they were not needed and were not accepted. In 1817 there was another call for troops, and since the organization had been maintained, it then became Company A in the Fourth Indiana Regiment of Infantry. There may have been Grant county men at Buena Vista. Some of them were in Mexico at the time The sultry weather there was trying on northern men, and as these words are written the whole country is again watching the results in Mexico. It seems that the ignorance of the common people there makes them dupes, and it looks like it would be a long while before a stable government and economic conditions will be established there. Mexico is still a problem the United States may be compelled to solve on the ground of humanity to mankind. The United States took Texas from Mexico, and California was onee Mexican country, and it looks like that country would have to be "spanked" again before it settles down to Christian civilization.
A generation ago Mexican soldiers were frequently pointed out, and two who enlisted from Grant county, William Morehead and John N. Hicks, who lingered longest, have lately changed their residence, Mr. Morehead going with his son, O. H. P. Morehead, to Tennessee, and Mr. Ilieks with his wife entering the State Soldiers' Home at Lafayette. Mrs. Elizabeth Williams of Sims is the last Mexican soldier's widow
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in Grant county, being the widow of Garrett Williams. Tums Shupe, William Dawson, William Price, Pant Miller, John M. Wallace, John W. Dodd, Nmeych Berry, Firm Carmichael, Aaron Lawson. Thomas Marshall, Oliver 11. P. Cary, Ebenezer G. Cary and Thomas Jefferson Samuel Stephen Decatur (Alphabet) Cary- three pioneer family brothers who went to Mexico, and of these brothers only O. II. P. Cary returned, and General David Shank, later the best known military man in Grant county. It has only been as people would speak their names that this Mexican record has been obtained -perhaps there are other Mexican soldiers just as well known to present day citizens. John Vetor who was several times introduced with Mr. Morchead and Mr. Hicks at the Octogenarian meetings, was a Canadian and did not enlist in the Mexican war from Grant county.
The soldiers of all wars have been favored by D'ucle Sam in the way of homesteads, and the bounty to Mexican soldiers was a quarter section of land, Paul Miller coming from Ohio and entering eighty aeres in Sims township, and thus he was not enlisted from Grant county. The colonies engaged in the Revolution did not extend as far west as Indiana, and only wild animals and Indians inhabited the wilder ness now known as Grant county. While there were only a few Mesi can soldiers, all are agreed that some of the best citizenship marched to the Rio Grande when the call was heard men wanted -and Latin America is still belhgerent. While at that time many of the Miamis still lingered, they were peaceful and law abiding as far as they were citizens and amenable to the United States government. Some of the Indians had then gone west to the reservations, but why discuss the justice or ingjustice of the plan when the tide of immigration so soon submerged the others. History shows many conditions through which the human race has passed in the long and painful onward march of civilization. All those names in the Old Testament stand for people who had homes and who sometimes found it necessary to defend them, and the same qualities seem to have been transmitted into the Grant county posterity of Bible characters.
While the pioneers were interested in military taeties, the twentieth century sentiment is squarely against militarism. While character may be developed in a hurry, while there may be emergency expedients. solitude is essential to the stable growth of talent and ability. No one develops a towering character without a mastering incentive. Loyalty comes from heredity as well as environment. The farms have given their quota to everything, and some of the world's best soldiers have bailed from the country. While Grant county had its birth in war, and while hostility has always been a slumbering virtue, and there may have bren frontier skirmishes after the battle of the Mississinewa, there was no serions outbreak, no desperate encounter until the Mexican war, and the civil discord of 1861 was the first outburst well remembered by Grant county citizens of today. There were always fifers and drimm mers in Marion and Jonesboro, and the training days in early history developed some of them. The martial music on gala days always swayed and inspired those in attendance. The sound of the stirring drum always did and always will awaken enthusiasm. The high fal- setto of the fife as it shrilled : "Yankee Doodle, " " The Road to Boston," and "The Girl I Left Behind Me," stirred patriotism no matter what the occasion.
Mrs. Barlow writes: "There were always dinners spread promiseu- ously from everybody's baskets-there were long improvised tables, and all ate together. No one knew who furnished the pig or who roasted it on those gala training day occasions, or from whose farm came the
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roast turkey, or from whose coops came the ingredients of the chicken pies-the people simply brought as they had been prospered, and nobody missed what they contributed all had plenty and all were happy." It was long ago demonstrated that the best way to reach a man's better nature is through his grosser senses, and something incul- cated a love for home and country Mrs. Barlow further says: " There were always raised platforms for speakers and singers on training days, both in Marion and Jonesboro but there were too many Quakers al Fairmount for martial muste to be heard there. In Marion there wite processions across Boots creek to White's woods, or to Met Iure's woods cast of Branson street, and in Jonesboro they always went across Back creek and outside of town. They always kept the military spirit alive in the community.
"Some of the early training day oralors were : Judge R T St. Juli. Colonel Asbury E. Steele, and Howell D. Thompson." At Jonesboro Alfred L. Barnard and Jabez Moore always looked after reading the Declaration of Independence, and keeping alive the spirit of it, but all that is changed- patriotic songs are seldom heard, and peace and arbitration methods prevail in the community. While the Declaration was long and in the hands of a poor reader it may have sagged in the middle, it would be wholesome to hear it again. Why not set yourself the task of again reading the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and note the effect on your own forl- ing of enthusiasm and patriotism? A writer in the Centennial history said privately that the problem of the high cost of living has not yet been set to music, or the people would sing their way to victory. Mis. Barlow recalls one of the gala day Ints at Jonesboro in the John C. Fremont campaign in 1556, when there was a full rigged ship built under direction of William Grilly, a retired sailor who lived in the town, and which was manned with Republican patriots in sailor costume.
This ship of state was placed on a wagon and bauled about the country, easily the most unique feature of the campaign that year when the nation was being agitated from center to circumference, and martial music was at its height in this country. When Cassins M. Clay of Kentucky spoke in Marion that year. Mr. Crilly and his big ship, drawn by six horses, headed the Jonesboro procession. Followed by a log cabin on wheels and filled with singers, and while David Shunk, then known as a hero of the Mexican war, did not sing at all. he could yell "yip" louder than anybody when there was martial music in the air. This ship of state was much in demand and was taken across the country to Lafayette while the war cloud was lowering, and for a few years people did not know what a day would bring Forth in Grant county and in the whole country. The country was drifting surely toward Civil war. The North and the South had different inter mais. The industrial situation was dividing the country. The south was flourishing under the system of slave labor, and the north did not approve of the institution of slavery. Anti-slavery sentiment was strong in Grant county. The liquor question is now a parallel situation as far as public sentiment goes. Families were dividing on the question of human slavery-fathers and sous seeing the matter differently.
While the new born Republican party bad not taken a direet stand against the slavery question, its leaders were among the avowed oppo- ments of that institution, and many abolitionists were identified with the organization. When Abraham Lincoln declared that the country could not exist half free and half slave, there was response in Grant county. The south accepted his election as a menace, and the doctrine of states rights as paramount to national control was openly taught by John
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C. Calhoun. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the mitiative and passed a secession ordinance, which movement was followed in rapid succession by other states, and autonomy was the rule until in 1861, when a peace commission met in Baltimore with the far reaching purpose of safeguarding the Union, but Jefferson Davis was chosen president of the Confederacy. No president of the United States ever assumed his duties under more frying circumstances than did Lincoln. There were strained relations among the people of the whole country. All over the north there was a difference of opinion in regard to the canse and the responsibility of this attempt to sever the Union.
While meetings were being held all over the country, and the methods to pursue relative to secession were being discussed, the gun was fired that was heard round the world- the attack had been made on Fort Sinter. There were no railroads, no telegraph wires in Grant county then, and yet the echo reached every hearthstone. The news came from Wabash by stage that South Carolina had not only seceded from the Union but had already opened hostilities that on April 12, 1561, an attack had been made and Civil war was inevitable. Lincoln had just been inaugurated and the people of the south would not live under an abolition president. Some have called it the War of the States, and it was worse than war against foes outside the common fold the same community of interests. It was domestic strife, men and brothers light- ing against each other, worse than fighting against a common enemy- - foes outside the camp of Israel-the same household of faith. It was war to the finish among the people of our nation with common interests and the question raised was whether or not it was to remain one nation or be a nation rent in twain.
When this gun was fired at Fort Sumter every household in Grant county was alert. had its car to the ground for news from the front. and the arrival of the hunkering stage coach every day was the event of the twenty-four hours between Wabashtown and Andersontown. There were rumblings of war, and some who read these lines have heard the ominous sounds more than once, have heard war's alarms twice and thrice, and have given of their best in the defense of their country When Fort Sumter was fired on the loyal hearts of the north wel .. united in the defense of the Hag, and when Lincolni's call for a million men to strike the shackles off of human slavery was heard, Grant county responded-sent her quota to the front. On April, 1861, came the first ninety-day enlistment, and from that time on Grant county knew the full, awful meaning of war destructive warfare. The first honor roll was established then, and while local hearthstones were represented in many regiments, the Fifth Indiana Cavalry, often called the Nie- tieth Regiment, the Eighth Indiana Infantry, the Thirty-fourth, Fifty - fourth, Seventy-fifth, Eighty-ninth, Que Hundred and First, and the One Hundred and Fifty-third Regiments were made up largely from local soldiers.
While Indiana furnished 155 regiments and twenty-seven batteries, the information necessary for a complete military history is not always forthcoming, but it is estimated that more than 2,400 soldiers went out from Grant county. The state adjutant's report contains rosters of enlisted men of all Indiana regiments, but the names are not enrolled by counties and it would be an endless task to separate and tabulate them. Some of the township historians furnished them, making spe- cial effort to enroll all. Terrell's Report, a doenment so valuable on account of its military history, is in eight volumes, made up from official rolls, returns, report of hospitals and rebel prisons and all other accessible sources of information. An effort towards accuracy in nantes.
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dates and facts about what breanne of enlisted men has been made, and later the families of soldiers have had track of them. Many a mother has had final news of her son, that he died or was discharged through the reports of W. H. H. Terrell. adjutant general of Indiana, during the "times that tried men's souls." It was not until 1-63 that the general government look charge of the enlistments, and made an effort to keep a complete war record of each soldier. The work of the states had not been thorough, and it was an important feature.
No state was more prompt in furnishing troops than Indiana, the war governor, Oliver P. Morton, inspiring the citizens to loyalty. Grant county was alert and the work of the recruiting officer was all easy matter. "The battle is to the strong," but the cause was right, and many L'entennial History subscribers have inserted war records of which they are proud; all the world loves a lover and a soldier, and the man in uniform always attracts attention. While there may be fewer births in Families under twentieth century civilization, and some claim greater intellectuality, the boys of 'til had the courage that made them the "bone and the sines of war." There was a determined feeling in the north, yes, in Grant county, that slavery should be restricted to the states that had it, and the Missouri Compromise measure and the Kansas situation were understood by all. The people road The New York Iribum and The Cincinnati Queath, and at the first call to arms they were ready.
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