USA > New York > The Ninth New York heavy artillery : a history of its organization, services in the defe battles, and muster-out, with accounts of life in a rebel prison, personal experiences, names and addresses of surviving members, personal sketches and a complete roster, pt 2 > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
He started back to the regiment in October, and on his arrival found a major's commission awaiting him, but he was not mus- tered for several weeks. He was home on leave of absence when Lincoln was assassinated, and, thinking the war practically over, he resigned his commission May 17, 1865. Till his death, April 16, 1879, he continued to reside in Ira. His widow, Mrs. Ellen Squyer, resided for several years in her old home, but latterly has made her home with her daughter in Athens, Greene county, N. Y. The veterans of the Ninth remember with pleasure the interest that Mrs. S. takes in the annual gatherings of the men who were so long associated with her husband. She holds the veteran soldier in the highest esteem.
Alfred E. Stacey .- He is a native of Elbridge, where he now resides. He was born Jan. 20, 1846, and through all his life has been a citizen of this town. Not only has he been a citizen in the ordinary sense of the word, he has been active, energetic, straightforward, and always identified with the town's best interests.
He was one of a family of seven children, all of whom were reared in Elbridge, and all remained in the county except James, who went in 1867 to Missouri. As a school-boy Alfred E. was educated in Munro Collegiate Institute, under the instruction of Prof. T. K. Wright, one of the foremost educators of the country.
Upon quitting school at sixteen years of age, he accepted a clerkship with A. Wood & Sons, general merchants in Elbridge. After a service of two years in that capacity, he resigned, and enlisted as a private in the 9th Heavy Artillery, serving till the close of the war. He was the youngest member of his company, and in point of size probably the smallest, as he then weighed only 106 pounds. Three of his brothers were also his comrades in the Civil War: Anthony in the 19th N. Y. Infantry, after- wards changed to the 3d Light Artillery, after serving his term of enlistment and being honorably discharged, re-enlisted in Battery L. 9th Heavy Artillery, with George. a member of the same company; and James, in the 15th N. Y. Engineers.
Alfred, Anthony and George were with Sheridan at Cedar Creek, and afterwards with General Grant at Petersburg and
----
HON. ALFRED E. STACEY, COMPANY L.
443
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
Appomattox. As a result of this service at Cedar Creek, Mr. Stacey received two gunshot wounds.
After his discharge from the army in 1865, he returned to El- bridge, and again entered the Munro Collegiate Institute. While Alfred E. Stacey has been active and successful in building up and conducting his business affairs, he has also given much valuable time and service in the interest of public affairs. Every plan that has been on foot for the betterment of the town and county has found him in hearty sympathy with its advance- ment. As a result of his energy and regard for the best interests of Elbridge, Mr. Stacey has built up the industries of the vil- lage not only by increasing those of his own, but by inducing other manufacturers to locate at that place.
In politics Mr. Stacey has always been an earnest, active Re- publican, always zealous in its interests, and ever faithful to the trusts that the party has imposed upon him. He has been honored at home by having been chosen as president of the village as well as its clerk for several terms. He has also been its postmaster, and was instrumental during his term in introducing the money-order system, and increasing its mail service, thereby more than doubling the receipts of the office. Few state or county conventions have been held in recent years in which he did not represent his town as delegate.
In 1886 he was elected to represent the 2d Onondaga District in the Assembly, and was re-elected in 1887 by a majority of nearly 600 over Hon. W. B. Kirk, after one of the hardest con- tests on the part of his opponent that was ever waged in the district. During his service as member he was successful in securing the passage of the law which removed the necessity of indigent soldiers or sailors of the Civil War applying to the poormaster for aid. or being confined in the poorhouses of the state. This equitable and just law is still in force in New York state. Mr. Stacey was in the Assembly at the time Frank His- cock was elected United States senator, and, like Grant's famous "306," he was one of the eleven who stood firm and unwavering till it resulted in his candidate's election. He served upon the Committee on Railroads, and was also chairman of the Com- mittee on Charitable and Religious Societies.
The Anthony Stacey Post. G. A. R., named in honor of his brother, was organized through Mr. Stacey's efforts, and it was through his influence it was located in Elbridge. Mr. Stacey
444
NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
has taken a deep interest in this organization. He is also a prominent member of the Odd Fellows, in which lodge he has occupied all the chairs; has been its noble grand, and elected to represent the lodge in the state conventions.
Nelson F. Strickland .- Company B's 1st lieutenant, at the muster-in, was a native of Walworth, a son of one of the very first settlers, born Nov. 14, 1815. In 1840 he moved to Adrian, Mich., where for six years he was foreman in an iron-foundry. Next he was on a farm in Adrian for three years; coming back to Wayne county in 1853, he built a saw-mill in Lincoln, town of Walworth, which he ran till 1857, when he returned to the home farm, and was on that till 1862.
In 1865 he was instrumental in getting a post office at Lin- coln, and was made the first postmaster. He held this office till 1872, when he again went back to the old farm where he was born and where he died April 29, 1885.
In 1840, October 21, he was married to Miss Lodema Sherman of East Palmyra, N. Y. He was a member of the Baptist Church, and in 1879 was superintendent of the Lincoln Free Baptist Sunday-school.
Philip Sturge .- Lieutenant Sturge, long resident in Weeds- port, N. Y., writes that, by the order of Major Snyder, com- manding, he was made adjutant Oct. 14, 1864; but served as such only a few days, since he was severely wounded on the 19th day of October at Cedar Creek. He thus alludes to the seemingly fatal wound received as above: "The ball entered in front of the left ear, passed under and out between the large cords in the back of the neck. The later-day explanation of this is that a Johnnie Reb gave it to me in the neck."
George W. Swift .- Now a clergyman, he is able to say that during his enlistment he was never sick a day nor absent from service once. Enlisting as private, he held non-commissioned rank, and then was commissioned 2d and 1st lieutenant, for some time commanding his company.
After the war, he continued his militant services, though not with carnal weapons, since he is and has been for several years pastor of the Baptist Church in Stockton, Cal.
Though very far removed from his former haunts, he retains all his old-time interest in the Ninth.
Edward P. Taft .- The first major of the regiment was born in Lyons Sept. 10, 1832, the son of Newell and Jane (Sterrett)
445
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
Taft. The father was an early settler of Lyons, coming thither from Goshen, Mass., in 1816, and soon established an iron- foundry, the first in the county and one of the most successful in the state. Possessed of great bodily vigor, he was a business man for more than forty years, dying in 1874, having survived his son. That he was of good New England lineage is evident in the name that he gave this son, for Edward Payson, the Portland (Maine) divine has had as many boys among Congre- gationalists and Presbyterians named after him as John Wesley ever had among the Methodists.
Possibly the father intended that his preacher-named son should himself be a minister, since he sent him to the Mills School in South Williamstown and at Easthampton, Mass., to be prepared for college. He entered Williams College in 1851, having as classmates many men subsequently to achieve dis- tinction, among them John J. Ingalls, to be, at a later date, U. S. senator from Kansas, and James A. Garfield was in the class immediately following. Ill health, however, compelled him to leave college in 1853, but Williams, in recognition of his services for the nation, later conferred upon him, in course, the degree that he would have had could he have stayed to the end.
He entered business with his father and so continued till September, 1862, when he threw himself into the plan of rais- ing a new regiment in the district. His zeal and success in this enterprise secured for him the position of major, and as such he went with the regiment to the Capital. In the sequence of events, he succeeded Lieutenant Colonel Seward in his rank. and later was promoted to the colonelcy of the Ninth, though he did no more active service with the regiment. In all that makes the soldier, Colonel Taft excelled, and no one was earlier than he upon the breastworks at Cold Harbor, cheering his men to their deadly work. He was with us through the tedious marching to Petersburg and on the excursion to Monocacy, where, on the afternoon of the 9th of July, he rode his horse into the thickest of the fray, and in the performance of duty was wounded. so that he not only lost his leg, but his health was permanently shattered.
At first borne to the hospital in Frederick, he suffered ampu- tation of the wounded leg, but illness resulting from the same he was never able to return to the regiment; instead he served in New York as a member of several courts-martial. Follow-
*
446
NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
ing his discharge from the service in 1865 he was appointed U. S. consul at San Juan del Sur, the Pacific seaport of the city of Nicaragua, but fever incident to the climate soon seized his already weakened body, and he was obliged to return, and in his old home, Lyons, he died Jan. 30, 1867, still a young man. His body rests in the beautiful cemetery of that village.
Colonel Taft was married Oct. S, 1856, to Miss Josephine L. Avery of Waterville, N. Y., who with a son and two daughters survived him. Mrs. Taft afterwards became Mrs. Medbury of Ballston Spa. N. Y., where she now resides.
Our colonel did not survive the war long enough to have time work in his face and figure the changes so noticeable among his associates and followers who are alive to-day. He went to his grave with all the indication of young manhood that we must ever associate with the major and lieutenant colonel whom we saw on parade, with whom we marched, and whose place in the battle-line we vividly recall. With unblanched hair, his body has been sleeping in Lyons burial-ground, though the leg shat- tered in battle, years before with other and kindred clay, was resolved into its elements, near the field where the wound was received. which won for him in the college records the words. "Pro patria mortuus est," or, "He died for country."
Frank Tallman .- In the slip of a boy who came down to the defenses in the spring of 1864, no one would have thought there was the future tireless statistician and painstaking secretary of the regiment in the coming years, but such was the case.
He was born in Scipio a couple of years later than his enlist- ment-paper would indicate, and though he was not large, when the rebels gobbled him at Monocacy, he was smaller still when he saw York state again after a winter's stay with the Johnnies. Looking on his solid figure to-day it requires a stretch of imag. ination as well as confidence in Frank's word to realize that he was sent home weighing only seventy-eight pounds. Dan- ville was not a good boarding-place.
For many years he labored at the paper-hanger's trade in Auburn, but ill health has prevented his doing much in that way recently. If, however, any one wishes an answer to a ques- tion concerning the Ninth, just drop Tallman a line.
Abram H. Vanderbilt .- Arcadia, whose chief village is New- ark, was not one of the towns contributing largely to the Ninth. but some good men live there, and among them is Comrade
447
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
Vanderbilt, who is one of the regulars at reunions, and is the president of the association in this current year, and his village is to entertain the gathering.
The enterprise of the town is proverbial, and the very best of meetings is expected.
Charles S. Warn .- Few regiments furnished more officers for colored regiments than the Ninth, and one of the men thus placed was Comrade Warn, who had been advanced from pri- vate to 1st sergeant of Company D. He was a Newark boy, one of the farmers' lads that Wayne county furnished in such abundance, born there March 18, 1843.
Jan. 29, 1865, he was ordered to report to the headquarters of the 13th U. S. Colored Troops in Smithland, Ky .; served with the same till the following November, when the regiment was mustered out. He was offered a similar place in a regular regiment then raising, but declined. He was recognized as an excellent drill-master in both infantry and heavy artillery, and an expert marksman.
With the exception of seven years spent in Port Huron, he has lived in Capac, St. Clair county, Mich., of which he has been county clerk for six years.
George R. Watson .- Lieutenant Watson was twenty-two years old when he was mustered in as 1st lieutenant in 1864. The most of his service was upon the staff of General Seward. He resigned in June, 1865. Soon after the war he went to Detroit, engaging there in the hardware business. Afterwards he became the agent for the "Brush Estate Heirs" of that city. discharging successfully his duties till failing health compelled his return to Auburn, where, in his mother's house, he died Oct. 26, 1891.
Joseph Welling .- The first colonel of the regiment was a resident of Lyons at the time of organization, actively engaged in the practice of law. It is extremely unfortunate that more specific data are not at hand concerning his early life, but dili- gent search in several directions has been absolutely bootless. Seemingly, those who might were unwilling to impart informa- tion, and those whose dispositions were good had nothing to give.
In an obituary notice appearing in a Lyons paper near the date of his death. it is stated that he came to Lyons from Clyde in the carly fifties, and immediately became prominent in his
-
448
NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
profession. He was one of the prime movers in the resuscita- tion of Humanity Lodge of Free Masons, and was its first sec- retary. Later for eight terms he was the master. As stated in the earlier pages of this volume, he had a very prominent part in the formation of the 13th, and was always a popular officer with the men. His age and long experience with men gave him an excellent presence, and it would seem that the ac- tive campaign of his regiment ought to have resulted in fame for the colonel.
As we know he accompanied the regiment only to Belle Plain, and some recall seeing him and the lieutenant colonel going down to the boat which bore them to Washington. It was our last view of the graceful, pleasing officer, at least in regimentals. He returned to Lyons and to the practice of his profession, and very likely his leadership of the Wayne county bar was never seriously disputed. Later he went to Rochester, or at any rate opened an office there, and for a number of years was as suc- cessful as he had been in his Lyons practice.
As age crept upon him he felt its weight, and giving up his practice both in Rochester and Lyons, he retired completely from his old associations, spending the later years of his life in Delaware, dying finally March 19, 1897, in a Philadelphia hos- pital. His age was given as seventy-six years, which would practically agree with that stated in the muster-in roll of 1862, where he was down as forty years old.
Colonel Welling was an exceedingly well read man, and pos- sessed a large and carefully studied library. As a member of the social circle, few men were more popular. He had a bound- less source of wit and anecdote, making him the life of the place in which he might find himself. His wife and daughter who accompanied him to the camp near Fort Simmons won the thorough respect of all. The latter, now Mrs. Lane, resides with her widowed mother in Lyons.
Sidney J. Westfall .- Though he left an arm at Cedar Creek. Comrade Westfall has made an exceedingly good county clerk for old Cayuga, besides serving as loan commissioner for the county and water commissioner for the city of Auburn.
Hiland H. Wheeler .- Lieutenant Wheeler began this life in New York city June 26, 1845, thoughi a considerable part of his boyhood was spent in Butler, to which place his ancestors had come early in the century, and of which his father, the late
-
BRVT LT. COLONEL A. S. WOOD, Commander N. Y. Dept. G. A. R., 1898-1899.
449
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
H. H. Wheeler, was long an honored citizen. He had entered Amherst College before his enlistment in Company A, and when the war was over, he came back and finished the course in the class of 1868. Afterwards he taught school in Vermont and Massachusetts, was in Columbia Law School for a time, and studied law with Gov. P. T. Washburn and Judge James Barrett at Woodstock, Vt. Again he taught school, was in business, was clerk in Superior Court, Chicago, and settled in Lincoln, Neb., 1876.
There he has been assistant attorney general; department re- porter; clerk of Supreme Court, and state librarian. He was assistant to the attorney general and had charge of the Land Department of Idaho in 1890-'93. He is the author of the Com- piled Statutes of Nebraska, 1881 to 1899. He has seen a deal of variety in life, but, apparently, is only a little older grown from the very young man who was by the writer's side at Monocacy.
In 1885 he was married to Miss Grace, daughter of Chief Justice O. P. Mason, and is the proud father of two sons and a daughter.
John W. Whitbeck .- Every one in Company A remembers the Whitbeck boys. After the war, George wandered across the sea and became a soldier in the British army. Dr. John W. is a prosperous dentist in Watkins, N. Y., looking almost as youthful as in the days of Virginia tramping. Evidently life does not wear upon him as it does on some of his old associates.
Anson S. Wood .- "Colonel" Wood, one of the best known figures in the county if not in the state, was born in Camillus, Onondaga county, Oct. 2, 1834. His father, Alvin, was of Eng- lish descent, while the family of his mother, Fanny Wood- worth, was from New England. In the childhood of Colonel Wood, the family removed to Butler, in whose schools and in the Red Creek Academy his early education was had.
He began the study of law in Syracuse in 1853; later he was in the offices of C. D. Lawton and Judge L. S. Ketchum of Clyde. During his law studies he taught school one winter, and in the fall of 1855 he attended the Albany Law School; in De- cember of the same year he was admitted to the bar. Residing in South Butler, he was elected, early in 1856, town superin- tendent of schools. In July of that year he removed to Lyons, where he formed a law partnership with the Hon. William
29
الصخرة
450
NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
Clark, with whom and the Hon. DeWitt Parshall he practiced law till September, 1862, also serving as town clerk in 1858 and '59.
When the 138th Regiment was projected, he was one of the early volunteers and was commissioned 1st lieutenant of Com- pany D. Later he served as adjutant, and in May, 1863, he was promoted to the captaincy of Company M, and was on detached service in Elmira in connection with the draft rendezvous there: for a time he was assistant adjutant general of the post. In May, 1864, at his own request, he was returned to his command and was with the regiment throughout the campaign upon which it was then about entering.
In October he served on the staff of General J. B. Ricketts, commanding the 3d Division, 6th Corps, and after the general's severe wounding at Cedar Creek, Captain Wood continued on the staff of General Truman Seymour as judge advocate, Sey- mour having succeeded Ricketts. Promoted major, he returned to the regiment and partook of its vicissitudes till after the surrender. Then considering the war over, he resigned his com- mission in May, 1865, with the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel.
Having purchased a farm in Butler, he immediately became prominent in local affairs, and in 1866 served the township as supervisor; the following year he was assistant assessor of inter- nal revenue, and continued to hold the position till the fall of '69, when he resigned to accept the nomination for Assemblyman in one of the Wayne county districts. He was elected, and the following year he was sent again. In the mean time he had resumed the practice of law, locating in the village of Wolcott.
In January, 1872, G. Hilton Scribner, secretary of state in Albany, made Colonel Wood his assistant or deputy, and he con- tinued to hold this place for two years. Then with General Joseph B. Carr, he served in the same capacity six years from 1879. In 1883 he was one of the secretaries of the Republican State Committee. In 1SS5 he was unanimously nominated sec- retary of state, but with all the names on the Republican ticket was defeated.
Then followed a single year in Albany, after which he re- sumed his law practice in Wolcott, having his residence on Wood's Island in Port Bay. At present he is associated in his profession with the Hon. George S. Horton. At all times Col- onel Wood has been a prominent man in local affairs. He has
451
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
been justice of the peace, trustee of the Wolcott Union School, president of the village and supervisor of Huron. He has many times been a delegate to Republican state conventions, and-as a speaker in political campaigns he has few rivals in popu- larity. His old comrades-in-arms believe that the future has yet many honors in store for him.
He was a prime mover in the formation of the G. A. R. Post in Wolcott, of which he has repeatedly been commander, and he has been a member of the New York Department staff. In 1898 he received the honor of election to the command of the depart- ment, and for the ensuing year went up and down the Empire State looking after the interests of this great organization, re- flecting credit upon himself and the regiment that had sup- ported him so loyally. For a number of years he has been at the head of the Wayne County Veteran Association, which holds an annual meeting in the month of August at Bonnicastle on the eastern side of Great Sodus bay, and he has succeeded in giving to the same a reputation which goes far beyond the confines of the county. His extensive acquaintance throughout the state has enabled him to present a large array of talent from year to year, which the dwellers in this lakeside county thoroughly appreciate.
William Wood .- "Major" Wood, as he is best known in regi- mental circles, was born in that part of the town of Butler where the people go to Westbury for post office favors. His father was Horatio N. Wood, long one of the most prominent and respected farmers in the town. He sent the future major, who was born Aug. 1, 1830, to Union College at Schenectady. where he was graduated in 1856 along with the famous writer, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, the late Maine Congressman Seth L. Milli- ken, and many others who in the intervening years have achieved distinction.
The next year he was graduated from the Albany Law School, and for two years practiced law with the Hon. Jacob E. Decker. who in 1858. '50 and '60 was district attorney. But the genera- tions of soil-tillers behind him drew the lawyer back to the paternal acres, and there the war found him. No man was more efficient in the raising of Company G, and he was naturally its first captain, a position that he worthily filled till he was called to a higher grade. As major, commanding one of the battal- ions of the Ninth, he was ever conspicuous for his attention
452
NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
to duty and for meritorious services. He came home with a brevet lieutenant coloneley; indeed Governor Fenton, Dec. 27, 1864, commissioned him as lieutenant colonel, but he was never mustered.
Since those troublous times he has dwelt quietly on the farm, always finding time to attend the regular Ninth reunions and to rear his family of five children. In 1886 his fellow citizens thought so well of him that they sent him to Albany to repre- sent eastern Wayne in the Assembly.
To-day, in a green old age he looks back over times of peril and forward to a happy reunion with the many who have pre- ceded him to fame's eternal camping ground. For ages, history has sung the praises of Cincinnatus; America's story has that worthy multiplied by thousands, and in that proud number we include the name of our Butler farmer and lieutenant colonel.
"It is an old belief, That on some solemn shore Beyond the sphere of grief, Dear friends shall meet once more.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.