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WMoHspIO 2/12/10 1:32 PM Page i -^ SPRING 2010 WMoHspIO 2/12/10 1:43 PM Page ii -^ ^miilp^ Remember the Stories of Vietnam m i^ Join the Welcome Home Mmtm TM Celebration! LAMBEAU WELCOME HOME MAY2010 Lambeau Field May 21-23,2010 Welcoming Home Wisconsin's Vietnam Veterans Learn more and sign up for e-mail updates at LZLambeau.org WISCONSIN WISCONSIN DKl'ARTMENT 01- VETER/\NS AFFAIRS HISTORICAL Wisconsin Public Television ^'^S^^ SOCIETY WMoHspIO 2/12/10 1:33PM Page 1 -^ WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Division Administrator & State Historic Preservation Officer Michael E. Stevens Editorial Director Kathryn L. Borkowski Editor Jane M. de Broux IVIanaging Editor Diane T.Drexler Research and Editorial Assistants Jesse J. Gant, Joel Heiman, Mike Nemer, John Nondorf, Andrea Rottman, John Zimm 2 "When will this horrid war end!" Designer r :^i Lancaster's CalhariiK- Eaton on the Zucker Design Civil War Home Front THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534), PUNTAVICTODT published quarterly, is a benefit of full membership in the by James B. Hihhard Wisconsin Historical Society. Full membership levels start at $45 for individuals and $65 for 16 Food Will Win the War institutions. To join or for more information, visit our Web site at Food Conservation in World War I wisconsinhistory.org/membership or contact the Membership Office at 888-748-7479 or e-mail [email protected]. Wisconsin by Eiiknjnuik The Wisconsin Magazine of History has been published quarterly i^ since 1917 by the Wisconsin Historical Society. Copyright © 2009 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 28 More Groovy Than Woodstock ISSN 0043-6534 (print) The Sound Storm Fcslixal of'Aijril ISSN 1943-7366 (online) 1970 For permission to reuse text from the Wisconsin Magazine of His by Michael Edmonds tory, (ISSN 0043-6534), please access www.copyright.com or con tact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA, 01923,978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organiza 42 A Pictorial Class Prophecy tion that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users. Re\isiiino- the Menomonie High For permission to reuse photographs from the Wisconsin Magazine School Class of 1905 of History, identified with WHi or WHS contact: Visual Materials Archivist, 816 State Street, Madison,Wl, 53706. by Andrea Rottmann The Wisconsin Magazine of History, welcomes the submission of articles and image essays. Contributor guidelines can be found on 50 BOOK EXCERPT the Wisconsin Historical Society website at wisconsinhistory.org/ wmh/contribute.asp. Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories Our Veterans Remember The Wisconsin Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. by Sill ah A. Lavseu and Jennifer M. Miller Periodicals postage paid at Madison, Wl 53706-1417. Back issues, if available, are $8.95 plus postage (888-999-1669). 54 Letters Microfilmed copies are available through UMI Periodicals in Microfilm, part of National Archive Publishing, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106, www.napubco.com. 56 Curio On the front cover: Blues guitarist Luther Allison performing at Sound Storm WHI IMAGE ID6623d VOLUME 93, NUMBER 3 / SPRING 2010 -^ WMoHspIO 2/9/10 11:29AM Page2 -^ LANCASTER'S CATHARINE EATON /^^^Z (Xt^G. tu>l^ ' /1_.^ yJ^-^ a II tftr-i^ tr?^~^ WMoHspIO 2/9/10 11:45AM Page3 -^ OPO//^ ^mnk ON THE CIVIL WAR HOME FRONT BY JAMES B.HIBBARD he blast of the engine's whistle could be heard across the village of Bosco- bel, Wisconsin, as the train pulled into town. Among the people waiting at the depot were Catharine and Samuel Eaton and their four children. Samuel, a Congregational minister, had accepted the chaplaincy of the Seventh Wisconsin infantry regiment and on this "pleasant" summer's day, July 29, 1862, his family had gathered at the depot to say goodbye as he left to join his regiment. Catharine Eaton was photographed by Alexander Hesler in August 1863. On facing page: In 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant led the Army of the Potomac into the hardest fighting of the Civil War. That May, as casualty reports streamed in, Catharine Eaton of Lancaster, Wisconsin, wrote, "I watch with trembling our country's destiny. I see among the thousands marching on, only one man; one precious, brave one who is all the world to me." i^ WMoHspIO 2/9/10 11:29 AM Page 5 -^ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY For Catharine, their parting could "calls" on parishioners, entertain not haw been easy. Slie supj^orted guests, or attend a [)rayer meeting. A Samuel's decision to become a chap serious ])erson, she also had a wry lain, but, as she would later write, his sense of humor. After hearing a minis army "ex];)erienee distresses me." On ter's sermon at another church, she this particular morning, however, she remarked to Samuel that "I soon made took comfort in the little details, recall up my mind that we had nothing to ing later that the room where he gave fear from his eloquence." Neat in her "that last kiss, seems very sacred to appearance, her soft eyes gave her me now." After heartfelt goodbyes, countenance a natural serenity. David Samuel boarded the ])assenger train to McKee, a family friend, called her a Madison, Wisconsin, the first leg of a "most estimable lady."' journey that would carry him to the By the eve of the Civil \\'ar, the seat of the war in the east, Virginia. Eatons with their four boys, James Arri\-ing home the next da\- in Lan fourteen, Eddie eleven, Samuel nine, caster-, twenty-five miles south of Bosco- and Charlie seven, lived on a forty- bel, Catharine kept her emotions in acre farm on the southern edge of check mitil sujipcr, when, ])iobably see Lancaster, within walking distance to ing his empty chair, the enormity of town. They had not only become well- sending her "precious Samuel" off to established members of Lancaster soci war finally dawned on her. "I could not ety, but Samuel, with assistance from keep the tears back," she would confide Catharine, had made Lancaster's in a letter to Samuel, "and they will Congregational Church one of the keep coming now'." more innuential churches in soiiihwesl Steeling herself a few days later, Wisconsin. The church, a small frame Catharine reassured Samuel that she building, was located two blocks east of Samuel Eaton, 1864 i^ would "take good care of the children Lancaster's courthouse scjuare. and of the church during your Lancaster itself was not much more absence." Little did she know that his than a sleepy village of about eight absence, expected to last only a few hundred peo]ile. Established in 1837, its months, would turn into a three year ordeal, and that she would courihou.se was surrounded by law firms, shops, a jail, and dirt face alone the trials of raising children, managing a household, streets. Though Lancaster was located in the center of the and kee]iing her church's doors open without a full-time rector." county, it was relatively isolated, lacking railroad or telegraph Catharine Demarest Eaton was born on November 11, service. Being the county seat, however, ensured that it became 1824, in New York City. The daughter of Re\erendJames and the site of many wartime activities. Mary Demarest, she grew up in the city, but also s|5ent time in From the moment President Abraham Lincoln called for Napanoch, a small town on the edge of the Catskill Mountains. seventy-fi\'e thousand \olunteers to put down the rebellion in She met Samuel Eaton while he was attending Yale Divinity A])ril 1861, Grant County res])onded enthusiastically. The vol School, and on May 20, 1847, they were married in Napanoch's unteers, organized into companies, assembled at the court Reformed Church. .After their wedding, they made their way to house and were gi\en a patriotic send-off by local dignitaries. southwest Wisconsin, more s]3ecifically Lancaster, county seal One of the companies, the Lanca.sler Union (Juards, was com of Grant County, where Samuel had begun a ministry the pre manded by the Eatons' good friend, Captain John Callis. At its vious January. cle])arture, Catharine and two other ladies |)resented Callis and Grant County was originally settled by miners who had come his men with a banner The company e\entually became Com up the Mississippi River from Kentucky and Tennessee during a pany F of the Seventh Wisconsin infantry. One year later, it lead mining boom of the 1820s and 1830s. By the last half of the was this regiment that Samuel joined as chaplain. The Sev 1840s lead production declined, and the sculemem pattern enth was part of the soon-to-be famous Iron Brigade, consist shifted to farmers and other artisans moxdng in from the north ing of the Second, Sixth, and Seventh Wisconsin, Nineteenth eastern stales. The Ealons were jjarl of the latter migration.^ Indiana, and Twenty-fourth Michigan infantry regiments. Catharine was a ]3erfect match for Samuel. Raised in a min Samuel's cha])lain work would range Irom assisting in hosjiitals ister's house, she had been imbued with a strong work ethic. As and holding religious services to reading hymns and admon the wife of a minister', rare was the day that she did not conduct ishing the men about playing cards.' SPRING 2010 -^ WMoHspIO 2/9/10 11:29AM Page6 -^ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Samuel's departure left Catharine little time for reOection. Though it was not recorded in church records, it is ob\ious by her actions that she was expected to take a leading role in managing the Con gregational Church and in proxiding ]iastoral care to its parishioners.