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The Enlisted Men of the Illinois Infantry in the Civil War

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The Enlisted Men of the Illinois Infantry in the Civil War Illinois Wesleyan University Digital Commons @ IWU Honors Projects History Department 1987 Lincoln's Boys: The Enlisted Men of the Illinois Infantry in the Civil War Peter R. Wells Illinois Wesleyan University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/history_honproj Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Wells, Peter R., "Lincoln's Boys: The Enlisted Men of the Illinois Infantry in the Civil War" (1987). Honors Projects. 46. https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/history_honproj/46 This Article is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Commons @ IWU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this material in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This material has been accepted for inclusion by faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ©Copyright is owned by the author of this document. LINCOL N'S BOYS The Enlisted Men of the Il linois Infantry in the Civil Wa r Peter R. Wells April 27, 1987 Hi s tory 450 Dr . Michael Young Dr . Ro bert Bray Mr . Robert Frizzell Dr . John Heyl Tabl e of Contents Ackn owl edgments v Introduction 1 1. Te nting on the Ol d Camp Gr ound 5 2. Hard Cracker s 19 3. We eping Sad and Lonely 30 4 . Gay and Happy Still 41 5. Shoul ders traps, Pimps and Skunks 51 6. Tramp, Tr amp , Tramp 63 7 . The Last Ful l Measure 7 8 8. The Union Foreve r 92 9. A Br others' War 108 10. State Sovereignty , National Unity 124 Endnotes 134 Gl ossary 165 Bibliography 167 v Acknowledgments I woul d like to thank the members of my pr oject committee, Dr . Michael Young , Dr. Robert Bray , Mr. Robert Frizzell, and Dr. John Heyl, for their help in suggesting sources, reading drafts and offering criticism and advice as the project took shape. Special thanks are in order for the committee chair, Dr . Young , for ag reeing to supervise a project outside of his own area of expertise. Thanks are also in order for several persons no t directly involved in the pr oject. Mr. Paul Bu shnell helped make the necessary arrang ements for my research in Springfield and Chicago. Dr. Jack Fields offered muc h-needed assistance with the wo rd processing used in the project. Mr . Baxter Fite III of Peoria, Illinois, brought Levi Ross to my attention and also provided other th useful insights concerning the 86 Illinois Infantry . Finally , I would like to thank my pa rents for allowing me to pursue my interest and letting me drive around Illinoi s doing research during January . Peter R. We lls Bloomington, Illinois April 12, 1987 1 Introduct ion "Co. B are all Old Ab es Boys," wr ote Frank Cr owe ll about the 1864 election. 1 Frank and his comr ades were also Lincoln's boys in another sense. They we re the soldiers wh o enforced Lincoln' s authority. This is a study of the enlisted men who served in the Illinois infant ry reg iment s during the Civil Wa r. The boys we re the ones wh o faced the Confederates on the field of battle. Wit hout them, all the speeches Lincoln ever made would be me aningless. This study att empt s to explain how the boys lived and at e, marched and fought , and died . It also looks at their opinions on the impo rtant subjects of the issue s involved in the wa r, their leaders , their enemies and themselves. Th is is not a study of nameless ma sses, though. Th e boys I use as sources have name s and personalities. They were all boys, too , regardless of ag e. Day Elmore told his brother and sister about an informal asso ciation of soldiers , called a "mess," to which he belonged. "[T]here is 10 of the best boys in our me ss I Ever got in with, thay are not all boys. [T]hare is one 4 0 years of ag e • • • and Another 35. ,, 2 Consequently, I refer to the enlisted men as "the boys" throug hout the paper. A number of the boys are excellent sources and are used wit h great frequency throug hout the paper. Pe rhaps the best is Levi Ro ss, wh o wa s a school master from Princeville, Illinois. Levi wrot e numerous letters and also ke pt a detailed diary . Furthermore, he gave clear, logical explanations of his feelings on many issues. Ot her excellent sources are Ed and Frank Cr owe ll , two farm boys from Marion township in Og le County. Both men were extreme ly open and straight forwa rd in their letters to their parents. They wrote about att it ud es and behaviors that most other soldiers would not want to discuss with their 2 families. Also both possessed a good sense of humor, wh ich makes them very pleasant to wo rk wi th. Frank Cr owe ll wa s determined to enj oy himself despite the wa' r. Consequently he is indespensible to Chapter 4 , "Gay and Ha ppy St ill." Lyman Needham is another frequently cited soldier. Wh ile there is nothing particular about him, he wrote many letters on a broad variety of subjects. Lyman had some thing to say about almost every subject discussed in my paper. Allen Geer wa s a good-natured young teacher who wa s very observant and noted much of wh at he saw and did in his diary. Like Ly man, Al len is cited in almost eve ry chapter. Day Elmore is another fantastic bu t un fortunately tragic source. He wa s incredibly patriotic and dedicated to the cause of the Union. He enlisted at ' ag e seventeen as a drumme r. By eighteen he wa s a corporal , by nineteen a sergeant . By the ag e of twenty he wa s another num ber on the long list of casualties. He wa s mortally wo unded at the battle of Franklin, Te nnessee. A number of other sources were also used . In fact, the boys represent a small sampl e company , wi th Levi Ro ss as the first sergeant , Ed Crowe ll as the teamster, and John Tallman as the drummer. A number of other sergeants, corporals and pr iva tes round out the company . Al l of the boys in my paper were enlisted me n, but three did become officers when the war was essentially over. On April 20, 1865, both Levi Ro ss and Al len Ge er we re commissioned as a captain and first lieutenant, respect ively . 3 Ano ther, Joseph Ward, was 4 promoted to second lieutenant on October 16, 1865, after the wa r wa s over. Mo st of the manuscript sources came from two archive s which I visited dur ing January 1987. The Illinois State Hi storical Library in Springfield has a nu mber of interesting and useful collections of soldiers' documents, includ ing the collections of Levi Ro ss and Lyman Needham . Day Elmore' s 3 letters are located at the Chicago Historical Society , which has a smaller collection of manuscripts concerning Illinois soldiers than does the Illinois State Historical Library . The Crowell letters are part of my personal collection. Throughout the paper, I have left the soldiers' eccentric spellings intac t in the quotes. However, I have frequently modified the punctuation in order to make the passages easier to read . These modifications are not indicated in the paper. Other modification are indicated by brackets. The soldiers' capitalization of letters wa s random at best, and often wo rds wh ich began sentences had to be modified . Finally , I would like to address the similarities between my study and Bell I. Wiley's The Li fe of Billy Yank. Wiley's classic wo rk wa s the inspiration fo r my pr oject, but there are several important differences. My study is much more limi ted in scope than Wiley' s. I deal only with soldiers who served in the Illinois infantry regiments. (Mounted infantry , wh ich we re essentially highly mobile infantry and distinc tly different from cavalry , are included.) Also, all of my sources are enlisted me n. Na turally some similarities do exist. Soldiers from Illinois ate the same rations as other Union troops, for example. However, I have tried to approach these similar topics from a different angle. Regarding the topic of food, for exampl e, I did not itemize what the boys foraged b� t concentrated , instead , on how they rationalized their foraging . I have also tried to explore di fferent topics. Wi ley did not includ e / chapters on attitudes about officers, marching or the soldiers thoughts about the issues involved in the wa r, althoug h these topics did receive some attention in various chapters. One great difference exists between Wiley 's 4 findings and my own . He claimed that mo st Federal soldiers disliked the South--i ts peopl e, climate and land . I have found just the opposite. My study focuses on the enlisted men of Illinois and how they experienced the Civil Wa r. I hope it does these brave men justice. The Il linois boys were volunteers, and the war in which they fought was the bloodiest in American history .
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