USA > Wisconsin > Jefferson County > The history of Jefferson county, Wisconsin, containing biographical sketches > Part 56
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AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS FOR 1865.
Acres.
Bushels.
Valuation.
Pounds.
Wheat ..
28,087
268,184
$295,909
Barley
$36
1,830
6,336
Rye ..
1,455
9.704
12,349
Oats
8,905
215,994
99,137
Corn
7.873
238,372
151,510
Clover Seed.
9,343
57.813
llay
21,008
172.422
25.4×6
Potatoes.
109,167
63,116
Butter
72.221
338.587
Cheese
4,523
96,656
Sorghum Molasses.
8,863
Maple Sugar.
10,495
Wool
80,347
102,346
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS FOR 1877.
Bushels.
Bushele.
Whent
409,192
Clover Seed.
7,026
Corn
794,200
Timothy Seed.
205
Oals ..
548,120
Pounds.
Barley
176,642
flops
528.126
Rye .
108,302
Tobacco
92,375
Potatoes
185,377
Grapes
81.617
Root Crops
24,726
Butter
607,125
Cranberries
40
Cheese
1,744,861
Apples
15,256
377
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
WAR RECORD.
When Pericles was called upon to deliver the oration over those who had fallen in the first campaign of the Peloponnesian war (according to Thucydides), he began by extolling Athens, and having expatiated upon her glories, her institutions and her sciences, concluded by exclaiming, " For such a republic, for such a nation, the people whom we this day mourn fell and died." In referring to the "roll of honor " which nearly twenty years ago combined to defeat treason in this our native land, it may not be inappropriate to recur briefly to the condition of that country when the mighty arm of military power was invoked that the majesty of the law might be maintained.
The nineteenth century dawned upon this nation glorious in the promise of a prophetic infancy. Tyranny and oppression, twin offspring of an inhuman parent, had been strangled but a few years before. In 1860, the development of the resources of the States was but just begin- ning, and, under an acceptable and wholesome form of government, progressing rapidly. The finances of the country, notwithstanding the panic of 1857, were in a healthy and promising condition. Money was plenty. times " flush," to use a suggestive expression of the day ; the factory and loom made music all the day long, and the voice of the husbandman was heard amid the fields of ripening grain. Everywhere and on every side evidences of prosperity were man- ifest. In bleak New England and the Sunny South, at the East and in the city beside the bay whose waters ebb and flow through the Golden Gate, comfort, contentment and happiness was the trinity to be found at every fireside. The commercial and marine interests were were second to no nation on the globe ; its paper was " gilt-edged," to express it commercially. and the white sails of America's shipping were almost as numerous on the seas as the white caps that crested the waves. Immigration from continental Europe landed on our shores in an end- less stream, contributing to the wealth as also to the horny-handed element of strength and industry, without which nations go down to welcome penury and forgetfulness. At every hearth- stone and in every household, when the thoughts of home and country came, a prayer of thanks- giving went up to the Great Father that our love was not lavished in vain, and man was enabled to rise from the sorrows and disappointments of his every-day life as sunset's red glories or the moon's silver hair floating down the broad-breasted mountains.
This was the condition of affairs.
The rumbling of the coming storm had been heard at intervals in the halls of Congress, on the stump, in the pulpit, at the hustings, when a Toombs or a Yancey lifted up a voice in defense of the slave power and its extension into the Territories. But its admonitions came and went as the idiosyncrasies of radical intolerance. As a result, many have gone before, and wait upon the threshold of Paradise for the coming of those loved ones left behind, who have exchanged the feeble pulses of a transitory existence for the ceaseless throbbings of eternal life. Faithful and fearless on the march, in the strife and at the victory or defeat, they at last laid down at the mysterious frontier, leaving the exalted hope behind that, though the world was lost forever, there would be unfurled another realm of unimaginable glory, where they and all whom they loved on earth might realize the promise which the Great Ruler of the Universe has made unto the just.
These "idiosynerasies," as will be remembered, culminated on the 12th of April, 1861, when Fort Sumter, off Charleston, was fired into by the rebels. Notwithstanding this overt aet of treason, this first act in the bloody reality which followed was looked upon as mere bravado ; but when, a day later, Maj. Anderson's surrender was announced, the patriotic people of the North were startled from their dream of the future, from undertakings half completed, and made to realize that behind all there was a dark, deep and well-determined purpose to.
378
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
destroy the Government, and upon its ruins erect an oligarchy, the corner-stone of which should be " slavery." But the dreams of these marplots were doomed to disappointment. Their plans for the establishment of a " Southern Confederacy " were to be overthrown, if not in their inception, before realization.
Immediately upon the promulgation of the news of the surrender. President Lincoln, who but a few short weeks before had taken the oath of office, issued his call for troops in the following
PROCLAMATION.
WHEREAS, The laws of the United States have been, and now are, violently opposed in several States hy com- binations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way, 1 therefore call for the militia of the several States of the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000, to suppress said combination and execute the laws. 1 appeal to all lawful citizens to facilitate and aid in this effort to maintain the laws and the integrity of the perpetuity of the popular government, and redress wrongs long enough endured. The first service assigned to the forces, probably, will be to repossess tbe forts, places and property which have been seize i from the Union. Let the utmost care be taken, consistent with the object, to avoid devastation, destruction, interference with the property of peaceful citizens in any part of the country ; and I hereby command the persons composing the aforesaid combination to dis- perse within twenty days from date.
I hereby convene both houses of Congress for the 4th day of July next, to determine upon measures of public safety, which the interest of the subject demands. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
The gauntlet thus thrown down by the traitors of the South was accepted in a firm, deter- mined spirit of patriotism and love of country. The world knows with what ready assent the people of the North responded to the call for the defense of that Union they hoped to preserve. The world knows how they, in the strength of this hope, struggled and fought with the legions of wrong till the armor of many was caught in the glint and sunlight of eternity, ere the dews had gone to heaven or the stars had gone to God.
War meetings were held all over the county, and the scenes witnessed in the cities and sur- rounding country were not different in any respect from those which occurred throughout the North. The press, the pulpit, the bar and the assemblies of men, both public and private, teemed with well-timed and patriotic expressions in behalf of the enforcement of the law and maintenance of the Union. In the city of Jefferson, meetings were held at the Court House and in the various churches, which were addressed by Gov. Washburn, T. O. Howe, G. B. Smith, Lieut. Gov. J. E. Holmes, D. F. Weymouth, A. H. Van Norstrand and others, and the sentiments of patriotism which here found expression were taken up and borne to the furthermost parts of the county.
At Fort Atkinson, meetings were convened in the Town Hall, the schoolhouses and at other cligible points, at which speeches were made by Thurlow Weed Brown, L. B. Cas- well and others ; funds were subscribed for the equipment of volunteers, and a company, the " Black Hawk Rifles," enlisted for active and immediate service, as Virginia. the last link upon which hung all hopes of a reconciliation, seceded.
What was true of Jefferson and the Fort will apply to the township, villages and hamlets generally. The people throughout the county were keenly alive to the gravity of the situation, and, so far as they were able, contributed to the demands made upon their resources. What was true. in all respects, of the cities mentioned, was true of Aztalan, Hebron, Palmyra, Waterloo, Ixonia, Johnson's Creek, and at less prominent and frequented points. Money was subscribed, enlistments went forward to the field, societies were organized, and the inhabitants seemed each to vie with the other in emulative enterprise for the promotion of the business in hand.
It is impossible for the historian to do that justice to the people their merits deserve. The task of compiling an imperfect record of the part taken by Jefferson County in the contest for national supremacy has been attended with extreme diffidence and embarrassment, and its accomplishment with extreme difficulty. Her soldiers sleep on nearly every battle-field, and, as the slumbers of night enfold us in their embrace, the curtain lifts to reveal to us the white shore against which the pale waters beat-beyond which, in the gleams of a morning-lit land, are seen fathers and brothers and lovers and friends in peaceful, sanctified rest, wondering, if
FORT ATKINSON .
381
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
wonder they can, why mortals cling to their frail clay with sighs, for journey over the beautiful river into the unknown and to those we love, though lonesome, is brief ; many went yesterday, more will go to-day, and there are dews to be shed for the departures of to-morrow. Those who survived returned to the welcome of loving hearts and homes, their faces dimpled as by the fingers of joy. They traveled through strange and weary paths, from trials and toils and defeat and death, to the unutterable happiness of a mother's love, a sister's embrace or the hal- lowed affection of a wife.
As the days of the strife became months, and months lengthened into years, and demands for men and money were repeatedly levied upon the inhabitants of the county, such levies were promptly responded to. The choicest that remained after the constant strain made on these resources replied as cheerfully as they did to the first call to arms, and hurried to the scenes of strife where men died and made no moan and only the wounded were known by their voices. The world never witnessed such an uprising of the masses, such a unanimity of sentiment, such willingness to make every sacrifice for a continuance of that republican form of government guaranteed by the Constitution. Age forgot its crutch, labor its task, to join in the defense of the Union, and all the available sources of supply combined to accomplish the end in view-an honorable peace with that Union preserved.
And what can be said of the volunteer soldiers who bore the weight of battle ? What words can the pen employ to do them justice ? What notes of the most exquisite harmony can sound their heroic valor ? Ilome, with all its sacred associations and comforts, was given up-wives and little ones were surrendered to the care of the State ; fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, like the Gracchi of old, yielded up their blood upon the altar of their country's need, and wept not at the sacrifice. Time has gone on with the living since the sad days when it stood still with the dead, but the widow and the orphan know that the husband and the father, life's shadows ended, will meet them at eternity's gate, and that an exceeding peace will some time succeed the grief that is at times too dark for faith.
Thousands of those brave men are sleeping their last sleep amid the palms and crosses until resurrection day. Visit not their tombs in tears, yet deeply burn in the Pantheon of the heart those memories which bind their lives and deaths. "Smother me with flowers; let the air resound with music, as go I to my eternal sleep," said the Count de Mirabeau eighty years ago. For the dead soldiers let there be songs not sighs, fresh flowers not badges of mourning-neither tears nor clouds, but bright dews and bright dawnings together. Let the memory of their immortal deeds be their monuments, reminding those who survive of the blood they were a part of. In the morning, before the king of day surrenders his golden banners, in the noontide and as the twilight advances through meadow and woodland, let that memory be ever present and impel the American citizen, disarmed of resentment, to a confidence and brotherly love that shall shine with irresistible splendor-a Union restored, reform triumphant and a government vindicated.
Recruiting for the First Cavalry was begun June 30, 1861, and the first regiment of this branch of the service, recruited in Wisconsin, is indebted to Jefferson County for some of its most valu- able material. Companies D, F and I, were commanded by officers and in part made up of soldiers enlisted in this county. Company D was officered by Capt. Nelson Bruett, at that time and still a resident of the city of Jefferson, where he is at present engaged in the practice of law ; the latter companies being recruited at Fort Atkinson, Koshkonong, Hebron and at points more distant, commanded in part by Capt. Newton Jones, who was mustered out as Major of the regi- ment, and Lieut. J. H. Morrison, who resigned March 25, 1862, together with Surgeon Gregory, all of whom were from Jefferson County.
The regiment was organized at Kenosha, during the winter of 1861-62, where, after a period of drill, discipline and preparation, it was mustered into service on the 10th day of March, in the latter year, and proceeded September 17 following to St. Louis, there being quartered at Benton Barracks. A brief halt was made here, when, the troubles in Southern Missouri requir- ing the presence of a force to maintain a more healthy Union feeling, the First was sent thither
E
382
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
for that purpose, and camped at Cape Girardeau. From thence it was dispatched to Bloomfield, where the Confederate camp of Col. Phelan was distributed about the country, the main force, however, fleeing into Arkansas, pursued by the First. The pursuit was attended with the loss of Surgeon Gregory, who, while watering his horse in the St. Francis River, near Chalk Bluff, was shot and mortally wounded, his death occurring a day or so thereafter.
From Bloomfield the regiment was scattered in various directions, meeting with hardships and privations innumerable, until July 8, 1862, when it made a second advance into Arkansas, accompanied by a wagon train. After a campaign which was not altogether free from hair- breadth escapes by flood or field, the regiment went into camp at Helena, where it remained from August 8 to September 22, when it was returned to Cape Girardeau, in a condition of depletion caused by disease and death, almost unprecedented. The regiment did scouting duty until October, 1862, and then put to flight Col. Boone, who, with 600 cavaliers, was encamped in the neighborhood of Patterson.
On the 31st of May, 1863, the regiment embarked for Nashville, where it landed on June 15, and three days after was assigned to MeCook's Brigade, Mitchell's Division. Stanley's Corps, Army of the Cumberland. Previous to this, and in January of the same year, it was detached from Gen. Benton's force and sent to Pilot Knob, thence to St. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau and Bloomfield, where it became a part of Gen. MeNeil's command, with which it participated in the battle of Cape Girardeau. Its first movement after being assigned to the Army of the Cum- berland, was in the direction of Murfreesboro, en route to which point it camped on the battlefield of Stone River, and united with the Union forces at Triune. On the 24th of June. Gen. Rose- eranz attempted to rescue East Tennessee from the possession of Gen. Bragg by an attempt to drive the Confederate forces back into Georgia. As is known, he flanked the rebel chief at Tullahoma, and again at Chattanooga, after passing the Cumberland Mountains, concluding the campaign with the battle of Chickamauga. In all of these marches and countermarches the First Regiment took an active part; after the battle of Chickamauga falling back upon Chattanooga, where it crossed the river under the fire of a rebel battery.
In Sherman's campaign against Atlanta, the First remained attached to McCook's Brigade of cavalry, participating in the battles of Resaca, Dallas, Buzzard's Roost, Kenesaw and else- where.
On the 17th day of October, 1864, the regiment moved to Louisville under orders, where it was re-uniformed. re-mounted and returned to Nashville, going thence to Alabama, engaging in a bont with Forrest and passing through Montgomery, West Point and Macon, where the surrender of Lee and the army of Northern Virginia, previously announced, was confirmed ; proeceding thence in pursuit of Jeff Davis, under the command of Lieut. Col. Hamden. At Abbeville the detachment fell in with a squadron of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry. Col. Pritch- ard, after the same game, but separated, and thereafter succeeded in effecting the arrest of the late Executive of the rebel States, notwithstanding the decision of a committee that his appre- hension was due to the vigilance and untiring efforts of the Michigan troopers.
The regiment remained in and about Macon until May 24, 1865, when it proceeded to Nashville, where it arrived June 14, and on July 19, following, was mustered out and discharged from the service.
The Fourth Cavalry received accessions to its ranks from Jefferson County in the comple- ment of Companies A and I, the former being recruited from Fort Atkinson and the surround- ing country, while Company I included representations from Watertown, Jefferson, Cambridge, Lake Mills, etc., being commanded by W. P. Moore, with S. B. Tubbs and H. B. Lighthizer, Lieutenants. The regiment was organized in June, 1861, and quartered at Camp Utley, where it was mustered into service on July 2 thereafter. Its first experience with grim-visaged war was in the suppression of the bank riot at Milwaukee. At the conclusion of this informal sortie made by frenzied depositors, the regiment was ordered East, and departed at once for the scenes of active duty, arriving at Harrisburg, Penn., about the middle of July, where it was attached to the Eastern Department, with headquarters at the Relay House, near Baltimore,
383
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Md. Here and in the vieinity it remained until about January 29, 1863, experiencing the fatigues of war, when it became a part of Duryea's brigade, and on the 5th of the following March embarked at Fortress Monroe for New Orleans, in which city it became identified with the Second Brigade, Army of the Gulf. From its arrival in the Crescent City to its departure therefrom, on the 25th of June, the Fourth Cavalry became familiar with every phase of life to be experienced in a captured city. On May 2, it occupied the post of honor as guard opposite the St. Charles Hotel, corner of St. Charles and Gravier streets, during the conference between the Commanding General and John T. Monroe, Mayor of the city, who with the Hon. Pierre Soule, and other prominent residents of New Orleans, were granted an audience by Gen. Butler. At its close, the regiment returned to the Custom House, and thereafter did provost duty, guard and other service, until the 8th of May, when it was sent to tear up the track of the Jackson & Great Northern road, afterward serving in Baton Rouge, Natchez, Fort Adams, Warrenton, and elsewhere, until late in June, when it was ordered to Vicksburg, and from the trenches witnessed the bombardment of that beleaguered eity by Davis and Farragut ; also the subsequent operations for its reduction, until the spring of 1863, when the regiment was ordered back to New Orleans, soon after going to the Teche country, where it became engaged in the battle of Camp Besland.
Its next important move was in connection with the Red River expedition. After the retirement of Banks, the Fourth was ordered to Baton Rouge, the vicinity of which city was made the regimental camp-grounds for a season of respite, recuperation and re-equipment as a cavalry regiment, having previously served as mounted infantry. With its reconstruction the regiment resumed active duty, being attached to the cavalry command of Gen. Lee, and serving in the extreme Southwest until May, 1865.
At that date, orders came for its transfer to Texas, to which department it proceeded without delay, by way of Vicksburg and Shreveport, going thenee through Texas, and finally halting at San Antonio. Here the regiment was consolidated into eight companies, and after a cam- paign, lasting until May, 1866, remarkable for an absence of the excitement with which they had hitherto been familiar, the regiment was mustered out and arrived home June 17, 1866, after five years continued and active service.
Companies D and F, of the Twenty-ninth Infantry, were raised in Jefferson County, also. The former company hailed from Fort Atkinson, Koshkonong and the immediate neighborhood. with D. W. Curtis, at present residing in Fort Atkinson, as one of the Lieutenants, while Com- pany F was recruited in Jefferson, Aztalan and that seetion, and officered by Charles A. Holmes and Emil Stoppenbach, both of the city of Jefferson, Captain and First Lieutenant, with John B. Scott, of Aztalan, Second Lieutenant. Captain Holmes was wounded at Champion Hills May 16, 1863, and mustered out June 22, 1865. Stoppenbach resigned July 31, 1863, and Scott May 1. 1865. The regiment went into camp at Madison, where it was mustered in September 27, 1862, and in November following moved to HIelena, Ark., going thence to Friar's Point in December, but returning to Helena, where it was assigned to the Thirteenth Army Corps, and went to Milliken's Bend. On the 16th of April, the regiment crossed the river below Grand Gulf, and proceeded to Port Gibson. The regiment next fought the battle of Champion Hills, and on the 21st of June, 1863, marched to the rear of Vicksburg, participating, in the assault made on the following day. During the remainder of the siege, it was employed against the advanced works, and, after the surrender, fought the second battle of Jackson. The next move was down the river, camping at Carrollton, above New Orleans, but changing its base on September 14, and serving in Southern Louisiana until January, 1864, when it engaged in the Texas expedition, proceeding as far as the Rio Grande, and returning to Algiers in time to take part in the sortie up Red River. After the retirement of that expedition, the Twenty- ninth returned once more to Algiers, whence it went to Port Hudson, Clinton, mouth of White River, Duvall's Bluff, Little Rock and Memphis, reaching the latter city November 28, 1864.
On New Year's Day following, the regiment embarked for New Orleans, in which city it remained until February 5, when it proceeded to Dauphin Island, where it was assigned to the
384
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
First Brigade, First Division, Thirteenth Army Corps, and was the second regiment to enter Mobile after the capture of that city.
On May 26, 1865, it embarked for Shreveport via New Orleans, where it performed pro- vost duty for two weeks, when it was mustered out of service, and returned to Madison, arriving there July 5, 1865, with 465 men.
W. W. Reed, M. D., of Jefferson, declined the commission of Associate Surgeon ; John W. Blake, also of Jefferson, became Adjutant, was promoted Captain September 25, 1863, finally becoming Major of the Forty-second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. L. W. Ostrander, of the same city, was promoted Second Lieutenant, May 3, 1864.
Company G, of the Fortieth Volunteer Infantry, was also, in part, recruited in Jefferson County, as were Companies I, Forty-eighth, and H, Forty-ninth Volunteer Infantry.
Company G was of the hundred-days' service, one of the Lieutenants of which-John K. Purdy-was identified with the educational interests of Fort Atkinson. The company served in Tennessee, repulsed Forrest on his raid into Memphis, and returned to Madison at the expira- tion of its term of service, where it was mustered out September 16, 1864, losing but thirteen Amen during its term of service.
Company I rendezvoused at Milwaukee in February, 1865, whence it was sent to St. Louis, where it was mustered into service and proceeded to Fort Scott. During the monthis of May, June and July, it was engaged in strengthening this station, after which it marched to Lawrence and other points in Kansas, remaining there until February 19, 1866, when the com- pany was mustered out and disbanded.
Company H, commanded by Capt. H. O. Pierce, was mustered into service, and left the State for Benton Barracks March 8, 1865, reaching the latter point March 10. In July, it was sent to St. Louis to perform guard duty. In August, the major portion of the regiment acted in that capacity about Gratiot Street Prison. After the fall of Richmond, the regiment was retained for several months in that line of duty, but finally returned to Madison, where, on the 8th day of November, 1865, it was mustered out of service.
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