USA > Wisconsin > An illustrated history of Wisconsin from prehistoric to present periods : the story of the state interspersed with realistic and romantic events > Part 23
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The first white men that came to this place with the view of perma- nently settling, were Colwert Pier and his younger brother Edward. They started from Green Bay, on February 16, 1836, with a horse and sled, ostensibly with the object of locating at the head of Lake Winne- bago, if the country suited them. The first night they stopped at the site where the Stockbridge mission was afterwards established. They staid with a Stockbridge family, named Jordan, who had a small cabin and a shed. The next day they arrived at the spot on the Fond du Lac river which was so long occupied as the residence of George McWilliams, where they camped for the night. They were here met by Doty, Dr. Satterlee, Lieutenant Merrill, and a soldier named Collins. After locating some land, the two brothers started out on their return trip to the Bay, which they reached the second day. At the close of May, Mr. Pier started on horseback from Green Bay, to establish the first settle- ment in Fond du Lac county. His wife, in company with Mrs. Robean, followed Mr. Pier in a Durham boat, commanded by Captain Irwin, and propelled by Indians and half-breeds. Prior to the arrival of Mrs. Pier and her companion, the " Fond du Lac House " had been erected by the Fond du Lac Company.
A laughable incident is told of Mrs. Pier's early experience at their new home. Upon their arrival, she immediately took hold, helped put
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up the stove, and was getting the house in good order, when a squaw came in, and by signs made Mrs. Pier understand that she desired to exchange feathers for flour. Mrs. Pier made the desired trade with the Indian woman, but, within half an hour, her room was literally over- flowing with squaws, wishing to "swap" feathers for pork. That afternoon, Mrs. Pier bought sufficient feathers from the squaws to make two good-sized feather-beds, and paid for them in that valuable commodity, pork and flour.
From June, 1836, to March 11, 1837, Colwert Pier and his wife were the only residents in Fond du Lac county. Upon March 11th, Edward Pier arrived at the "Fond du Lac House," bringing with him his wife and two daughters. On June Ist, the same year, Norman Pier, from Vermont, and Albert Kendall, from the same state, arrived. On the 17th of the same month, Miss Harriet Pier, who afterwards became Mrs. Alonzo Raymond, arrived here.
The first great sadness which afflicted this little colony was the death of Mrs. Colwert Pier, who died on the rst day of March, 1838, after a short illness. The funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Cutting Marsh, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians. The funeral was held on March 3, 1838.
The Patriot Dead
BY MAURICE Mc KENNA
How meet that we garner the rarest of flowers To honor alway these dead heroes of ours ! No holier shrine on the land or the wave Enriches the earth than a patriot's grave. Oh ! bright be the sunbeams and soft be the breeze Over hill, plain, or valley, or far on the seas, Wherever the stream of our memory flows, Wherever his ashes in silence repose.
Ye who have suffered, a nation to save, Our country's defenders, the strong and the brave, Receive through the vistas of fast fleeting years The incense of sighs and the tribute of tears. The worship of millions shall lighten the gloom And lift the dark clouds from the soldier's lone tomb, Bequeathing, as meads of an endless renown, The symbols of glory, the cross and the crown.
Green be their garlands and bright be their bays, And hallowed the anthems we chant in their praise. We who enjoy the rare gems of the free, Think what they suffered for you and for me- They who were lost in the wild crush of strife, In their blossom of youth and their vigor of life. Their sorrows are over, their labors are done, -- Ah, lovingly yield them the laurels they won !
Brave heroes asleep in the sanctified mold, Surviving companions grow feeble and old, But affectionate memories ever shall flow While a comrade remains with a tear to bestow. The blossoms are bright on the brow of the year To enwreathe the green graves of these dead-ah, so dear !--- And all nature's beauties are out on parade To deck each lone grave where a soldier is laid.
THE PATRIOT DEAD.
All over the world, let fond echoes ring Of the love we intone and the praises we sing, While reverence sweetens the soul with a sigh And holier grows, as the seasons sweep by. Chaste birds of the woodlands, come join in the hymn To heighten their glory that nothing shall dim. These are our altars. Keep blazing their fires, Ye patriot children of patriot sires.
Many a brave heart eternity keeps, And only the angels can tell where he sleeps Far in the wilderness, drear and alone,- Not e'en a poor tablet to mark it " unknown." No monument rises throughout this glad land Commanding an homage so chaste and so grand, No grave shall have honor more kingly than he From ocean to ocean and sea unto sea.
They gave us our country, and glory sublime Shall be their reward through all annals of time. Sleep on, ye brave cohorts, in silence to-day, Wherever the breezes of freedom shall stray. Your sorrows are over, your victories won, To glisten forever in history's sun. But the wreaths of your fame are forever secure As long as the stars in yon sky shall endure.
OUR FRIEND'S STORY,
OR
HIS TRIALS IN WAR AND PEACE.
BY J. A. WATROUS.
CHAPTER I.
It was an intensely interesting story. Did I not know that it was true I would mark it as one of the most pathetic and romantic stories I had ever listened to.
One day last week a gentleman with whom I had been acquainted for more than thirty years, made me a visit. We had not met since 1880. After the greeting and a few common-places my friend said:
" Prepare for a startling surprise. "
" What! you have surrendered, have you? Married at last, are you? Let me congratulate you. "
" Married? Me? Well, if the court has kept track of herself, no. "
" Engaged, then? When were the bans published?"
" No, not even engaged, but a man whom you and I used to know- to honestly love-is married. Guess who it is. "
" Now please excuse me from guessing. I'd rather miss a train than guess. I can't take a bit of comfort guessing. Lots of people like to guess. I don't; I despise it."
"Charley Fowler. "
" Are you crazy?"
" No. "
" Don't you know that Charley Fowler has been dead for fifteen years-that he was slain with Custar?"
"Oh, I heard that report the same as you did. Do you know it was true ?"
" I always supposed it was. Have never heard that it was not true. "
" Then I can give you some news; I know he was not killed with Custar. I know he was not killed at all; he was not with Custar. "
" How do you know? "
" Because I am fresh from a two day's visit with him and Mrs. Fowler. He is rich, has a charming home on Michigan Avenue, in Chi- cago, and his wife is one of the sweetest, prettiest little black-eyed,
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
brown-haired, rosy-cheeked women you ever saw. Young, too. Charley, you know, is about our age-fifty-two. His wife is not twenty- five. They are as happy as two lambs in the spring time, in spite of the fact that they have been married over a year. "
" Indeed, you have given me a surprise, a startling one. How could Charley have become rich and be in Chicago, without our knowing some- thing about it-without our knowledge at least that he was alive instead of a bunch of crumbling bones out in the Little Big Horn country?"
" It's a long story. He told me all about it. As you know, Charley was broken in spirit when he was mustered out of the service in 1865. He spent a day or two at the old home and then suddenly disappeared and we never heard anything from or about him until the Custar battle, and nothing since, until I ran onto him in Chicago three days ago. I knew him the minute my eyes caught sight of him. That limp our Southern friends gave him at Fitzhugh Crossing, when our brigade charged across the Rappahannock and drove the enemy out of his breast works, could not be mistaken; and the mark put upon his right cheek by a bullet tearing through it at Antietam, also helped me to the courage required in stopping a man I had not seen in almost twenty-seven years, on a busy street and to ask him if his name was Charley Fowler.
""' No, sir," was his prompt, but not harsh, answer. I begged his pardon, but walked along by his side. I took another sharp glance at the Antietam scar and again carefully noted the Fitzhugh Crossing limp. It was not much of a limp, just a hitch of the left leg. You remember it, and that he could march with the best of us a year later, when Grant began his wrestle with Lee. Then I looked him squarely in the face."
" Then what?"
"Well, then I knew, beyond all possibility of a doubt, that it was our old tent-mate, lion-hearted Charley Fowler, who came home from the war broken-hearted. What did I do? I angled. I said to him that I had had a soldier friend with a scar on his cheek just like that, pointing to his cheek, and that it was presented to him by a Southern gentleman, at Antietam, where they were stopping temporarily, on the 17th of September, 1862. He also had just such a limp as you have, a limp he had had from the time a chunk of lead was dug out of his leg after a hasty boat ride, early one April morning, in 1863, at a point sev- eral miles below the ancient Virginia city, Fredericksburg. Just then we reached his place of business. Turning to me he said:
""' Stranger, come into my office. I want to talk with you.'
" I followed him to the office, confident that I was right, the more so because I recognized the voice. My three proofs-the scar, the limp, and voice, filled my heart with a gladness I had not known for years. We did not stop in the first room, but passed on to his private office. He closed the door and flew at me as a school boy does at his mother upon his return home from the first quarter at college: 'I'm hungry for
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
you, Tom, and have been for twenty years.' He clung to both of my hands and looked at me through a pond of tears in each eye, for, it seemed to me, half a lifetime. Both of our voices seemed to have sus- pended payment. But we resumed. He did no business that forenoon. We talked until lunch time, talked while lunching, and then went back to the office and talked until it was time for him to go home to dinner. I'm prejudiced against stopping at private houses, but Charley would not listen to my going back to the hotel. I must be his guest as long as I remained in the city. The clock noted three o'clock before we retired. We recalled and talked about all of the good souls in the company and many others in the regiment and our brigade. He had not kept track of the boys for the reason that when he left home in 1865 he went to Montana, changed his name and remained there until three years ago, when he brought to Chicago his share of the profits in a mine, and put- ting half a million into a bank's stock, was made its first vice-president, and virtually president, for the president is an old man in feeble health and spends but little time at the bank.
" How hungrily he asked about the boys. When I told him the old captain died, poor, almost in want, last year, his eyes took another plunge in the tear ponds. ‘Brave Captain Bill deserved a better fate,' said he. 'Refused a pension, did he? Just like him. The captain went in as a private in 1861 and because he felt that it was his duty. But he ought to have had a pension. He earned it a thousand times. Saw a good many getting pensions who did not earn them, did he ? Well, that was no reason why he should not have the pension the gov- ernment is anxious should be placed in the hands of such men as our old captain, who did something for it and who needed it. Have the boys placed a monument at his grave?'
"Not yet. But they are raising a fund with which to do so."
"Then Charley took out a pocket check-book, tore out a leaf and handed it to me as his contribution. It was $100.
" 'If you want more from me, draw at sight. Dear old Captain Bill, I wish he knew how highly I esteemed him,' ran on this man who had been killed twice and was then with one of his old company for the first time since July, 1865. 'Tell me something about all of the boys you have met and kept track of during the more than quarter of a century that I have been dead to them. Where is Lime Black?"
" Died of heart desease a year or two after the war."
" Poor old Lime, what a genius he was; afraid of nothing, as ready with wit and a reply as an Irishman; full of nerve in battle as Hank Jaycox was of commissary whisky whenever he struck a rich vein of it. Do you remember when Lime stuck a mouldy piece of beef on a bayonet and took it to our first captain, fighting Little Bulger, who afterwards became a brigadier general? ‹ Look here,' said Lime, omitting the cap- tain's title, ' may be you came down here to eat such damned stuff as
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
this, but I didn't, and what's more, I won't. Our mess wants something better than this, and it wants it right away."
"Go back to your quarters, Private Black, and I'll see what I can do,' said little Bulger.'"
"Ten minutes latter there was a war of words between our captain and the quarter-master."
""Look at and smell of that,' growled Bulger, as he threw Lime's contribution of spoiled meat at the feet of the enraged quartermaster. ' My men must have something fit to eat, and it is your duty to see that they have it. I'll give you half an hour to get some decent meat up to company E. If it isn't there when that time's up l'll make it my busi- ness to dog you out of the army.'"
" 'I can see just how the little under-sized captain, with his head leaning toward his right shoulder, and his homely army cap drawn down so as to almost cover his eyes, swung about and stalked off to his tent. Within twenty minutes a new supply of wholesome meat was laid down at the tent of the ration sergeant. In a minute the whole company of ninety-three men knew what had taken place and how it had been brought about.
"Three cheers for Lime Black and Captain Bulger,' bawled red- headed Dick Foster.
""' I move that Sergeant Jansen and Private Black be made a com- mittee to go over to the captain's quarters and give him the company's thanks for getting justice and decent meat for us,' said Harry Baker. The rest of us followed the committee at a respectful distance, rather expecting to hear a speech from Captain Bulger. Black was spokes- man. I can see him, now, as he pulled the tent flap back, touched his hat, and stammeringly said : ‹ Captain Bulger, the boys have sent the sergeant and me over to thank you for doing the right thing about that nasty meat. '"
""' I said the company rather expected a speech from the captain. He made it. I remember it very well, and also what Lime said after he got a few feet from the captain's tent. Bulger stuck his head out of the tent and said, in that slow, penetrating manner I so easily recall: 'Go back to your quarters; when I want you I'll send for you.'"'
""'When Private Black found his voice and himself out of hearing of the Captain he consigned Bulger to a place too hot for a winter resort. None of us, at that time, had learned much about soldiering, and could not understatd why it was not proper for the captain of a com- pany to make a speech to his men telling them how he had forced the quartermaster to make quick time in carrying out his instructions. I am sorry Lime is gone. Do you remember the time Lime went to Bulger when he was commanding the brigade, and made complaint because the paymaster had not been around for four months, and wound up by asking the general to lend him five dollars until payday? There
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
was not another man in the company who would have dared to do such a thing. Tell me about some of the other boys."
"You will have to excuse me, Charley," said I.
" And why?"
"Life is too short. As soon as I tell you about one of them you take the matter out of my hands and proceed like a prairie breeze, to sweep the whole field, to bring up old memories, to reminiscences, to parade the old scenes so vividly that I sit like a child, open-mouthed, astonished, delighted, captivated."
""'There, there, you are forgetting that I have just come to life, and am hearing about the men I loved, tented, growled, marched, drilled, picketed, and fought with, for the first time since I went West -buried myself from them and other Wisconsin friends."
" I told him something about ten or fifteen of the men. The sighs he drew and the 'too bads' he uttered when I spoke of the death of this and that brave volunteer of 1861, moistened my eyes more than once. It was at our second noon day lunch when I reminded him that I must start home the next day, and that he had promised to tell me the story of his life."
""' I'll begin after lunch," he replied.
" And he did."
CHAPTER II.
"I will tell the story to you as nearly as possible as Fowler told it to me. My heart ached for him, as yours will, when you hear the recital. He said:
"I shall tell you some things I never mentioned to another living soul. Much of what I say may sound silly to you, but let me say it without protest.
"Like most of the boys in our company, I left a girl behind-a lovely, lovable, loved girl. We had been acquainted but a few months when the war began. I think she was as much in love as I was, but it did not seem right for me to ask her to be my wife under such circum- stances. I might never meet her again, or I might not return for years, so we parted without being engaged. When the company marched to take the train for Madison, Lillian joined the throng. While lovers, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters were saying tearful farewells, I took her white, soft hand in mine and told her I would write and asked her to give me the pleasure of hearing from her. Her face was pale, so pale that her big black eyes made their impress upon my mind and my heart. The last moment came. Mothers and girls were sobbing those war-day good-byes, the only good-byes of the kind I ever heard. The train rolled up and the order was given to get aboard. The last kisses were being given. Up to that time I had not dared to kiss my little angel in public, but the trembling good-bye had hardly left our lips when they met-well, met as all lovers know how.
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
"Amidst the cheers which mingled with unrestrained grief, the flourishing of handkerchiefs and the saucy crack of a double shotted anvil, the train pulled out, crawled through the deep cut and swung around the hill, and the sorrowing throng at the station was out of sight; and the first company from F- was on its way to war-long, bloody, horrible war.
" That first day in Camp Randall was the longest I had experienced up to that time. I tried to make myself feel that I had done right in volunteering, but every time I thought of that soft, white hand, and those big black eyes, it was dreadfully hard work. I wrote her a long letter and two days later received a still longer one from her. Her words were far more comforting and satisfying than the Camp Randall fare.
"But my story will be too long if I attempt too many details. As often as I wrote came an answer, and such great, fat letters-just the kind that used to do us all so much good. Do you remember that I did a great deal of writing in the army? I guess no man wrote more fre- quently than I did, and many of them did not do half as much of it. Well, that loved girl was the only one I wrote to. I had no relatives to write to- none I cared to write to-so long as she was willing to send me such an uplifting answer every time I wrote. You know my parents died when I was a little boy in England.
" When I was wounded at Antietam the papers said I was danger- ously injured. Two days after the battle, while I was in the Keedy barn, then our hospital, where scores of wounded men were suffering, I heard my name called by an attendant. I raised my hand, for I could not speak with that ragged rip in my face. He placed a dispatch in my hand. It read:
'FOND DU LAC, WIS., Sept. 19th, 1862 .- Charles Fowler, Keedysville, via Hagerstown, Md .:- If you are dangerously wounded, I shall go to you. Answer. I love you. LILLIAN.'
" The thought of that sweet girl putting in an appearance at such a place, and such a time, fairly horrified me. As best I could I made the attendant see that I wanted pencil and paper. The first telegram I ever wrote read:
"KEEDYSVILLE, HOSPITAL, MARYLAND, Sept. 20th, 1862 .- Lillian Wood, Fond du Lac, Wis .- Only a little wound. Don't come. And I love YOU. CHARLES.
"I remember wondering how they could underscore the words I wanted emphasized.
" I told a big one about that wound. Besides tearing my face in an ugly, painful manner, it knocked out four of my teeth and took a slice from the side of my tongue. It laid me up until the following December. I got back just in time to take a hand in Burnside's Fredericksburg battle, which commenced on the 13th.
"I wish I had kept the letter which came to me in answer to that telegram. It was worth dying for. I wonder if the girls they left behind
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
exerted as much influence over the rest of the boys as the letters and thoughts of Lillian did over me! She and her blessed words were a constant source of delight to me. I was a happy man all through, until Laurel Hill.
"When that piece of lead which gave me this limp, by which you dug me out yesterday, sent me to the hospital for the second time, I sent my second dispatch. I'll never forget it. There are some things we can't forget, however hard we may try.
"FITZHUGH HOUSE, VIA AQUIA CREEK, VA., April 29th, 1863 .- They gave me another spat. Am all right. Don't worry. CHARLES.
"Ten days later a box of good things, prepared by her, reached me in the hospital. As I looked at the delicacies, and thought of the dear one up in Wisconsin who had sent them, it seemed to me that she con- stituted pretty much everything there was in the world. No man was ever more in love.
"That Fitzhugh Crossing shot kept me out of Gettysburg. I have often wished it had been saved for that, the greatest battle of the war.
"Well, well, I'm making this too long; yet I haven't fairly begun. You insisted upon the story and I must insist upon telling it, painful as a portion will prove."
" I told him to take his own time and not to leave out anything worth telling, and he resumed:
" What a shout of joy there was in the letter she sent in answer to the one I wrote early in 1864, telling her I expected to spend a month in Wisconsin that winter. I did not tell her that in order to have that month for a visit with her I should have to hold up my right hand and swear into the service for another three years, or during the war. I am afraid the shout would have been something else had I done so. Do you recall what a glad time it was for our regiment the cold night we marched to the Culpeper station and took freight and cattle cars for Washington, on our way home to enjoy the veteran furlough -a furlough given to all who re-enlisted for three years more of marching, camping, standing guard, picket, fighting, and suffering? Of course we can never forget the journey to Wisconsin and the happy days with relatives and friends. Nor can we ever forget the tugging at our hearts when the time came for us to assemble at Milwaukee and go back to Virginia. My thirty days in Fond du Lac were about as nearly perfect as days ever were. When we parted that time it was as lovers who had made a solemn bargain. We were engaged, and the marriage was to take place soon after I should come home to stay, which would not be until the war was over.
"We wrote each other twice a week until Grant's great closing campaign commenced in May. I sent Lillian my last letter the night we moved out of camp with our faces Wildernessward. There was no chance to write from that time until Laurel Hill. You know all about my being shot there, and left on the field from which our brigade was forced to retreat
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
-without burying the dead or carrying off the wounded. You don't know the ten thousand deaths I suffered from two ghastly wounds, from lack of care and medical attendance; from hunger when I got so I could eat; from neglect and hunger at Andersonville. I was more dead than alive from that day at Laurel Hill until I was sent to the Union lines from Saulsbury, in the spring of 1865. But for her I would have died."
" Poor old Fowler stopped talking for some time. You can guess why. You know he was reported dead at Laurel Hill and was so carried on the company roll. We all mourned him as dead. Miss Wood was prostrated. Wisconsin papers said many kind things about him."
"About the first man I saw after reaching Washington was Captain Bill, who was hobbling around on crutches because of a wound received at Hatcher's Run, the February before. He would not believe it was I for some time. For nearly a year I had been counted as dead. That was the first time I had heard of the report. How my heart sank when it dawned upon me that to my company, to Lillian, to the world up North, I had been across the river for almost a year. Dear old Captain Bill did not seem to want to talk about my misfortunes. I thought it was strange, then, but subsequent events made it plain why he desired to keep silent. He knew of the awful shock in store for me. That day I wrote Lillian. No answer came. Then I wrote a newspaper friend at Fond du Lac. He sent me two copies of his paper, one dated May 15th, 1864, in which was my obituary. The editor spoke feelingly of me, said I had been one of the best soldiers in Company E, and that every man in the company deplored my death. The notice closed with an extract from a letter by Captain Bill, and this from General Bulger:
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