regiment was especially distinguished, alone supporting a battery that was three times charged by the enemy, repulsing each attack, and finally capturing a full rebel regiment larger in point of numbers than its own strength.
It aided in the capture of Little Rock. At this place, January 1, 1864, the regiment reenlisted, numbering about 400. Next it was in the battles of Elkins' Ford, Jenkins' Ferry, Camden and Marks' Mills, near Saline River. At the latter place, April 30, the brigade to which it was attached while guarding a train of 400 wagons returning from Camden to Pine Bluffs, was furiously attacked by about 6,000 of Marmaduke's cavalry. The Forty third lost nearly 200 in killed, wounded and missing in this engagement. Among the captured were 104 of the re-enlisted veterans.
The regiment next came home on veteran furlough, but while enjoying this vacation they volunteered to go to Frankfort, Kentucky, which was threatened by Morgan's cavalry, and where they remained until the rebel forces left Central Kentucky. For the ensuing year it guarded the rebel prisoners at Camp Morton, near Indianapolis. After the war was over it was among the first regiments mustered out, being mustered out at Indianapolis, June 14, 1865. Of the 164 men captured from this regiment in Arkansas and taken to the rebel prison at Tyler, Texas, ten or twelve died.
Company A of this regiment was exclusively from Vermillion County. Andrew J. Dowdy, of Clinton, was Captain; Robert Bales, of Clinton, First Lieutenant; William O. Norris, of the same place, Second Lieutenant, killed at the battle of Richmond, Kentucky; Joseph Hasty, from Newport, succeeded him as Second Lieutenant; First Sergeant, William O. Washburn of Clinton; Sergeants -- Francis D. Weber of Newport, Johnson Malone, Alexander M. Staats and George W. Scott, of Clinton; Corporals -- Joseph Brannan, Richard M. Rucker, Lewis H. Beckman, Larkin Craig, Daniel Buntin, Reuben H. Clearwaters, John L. Harris and Charles Blanford; Musicians, George W. Harbison and James Simpson. Most of these were credited to Clinton, though some of them, as well as many of the privates, which were accredited to Clinton, and some to Newport, were from Helt Township.
The Colonel of this regiment was James Biddle, of Indianapolis.
The Seventy-first was first organized as infantry, at Terre Haute, in July and August, 1862. Its first duty was to repel the invasion of Kirby Smith in Kentucky. August 30 it was engaged in the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, with a loss of 215 killed and wounded, and 347 prisoners. After the latter were exchanged, 400 men and officers of the regiment were sent to Muldraugh's Hill to guard trestle work; and on the following day they were attacked by a force of 4,000 rebels under command of General John H. Morgan, and after an engagement of a an hour and a half were surrounded and captured. The remainder of the regiment then returned to Indianapolis, where they remained until August 26, 1863.
During the ensuing autumn, with two additional companies, L and M, they were organized as a cavalry regiment, and were sent into Eastern Tennessee, where they engaged in the siege of Knoxville and in the operations against General Longstreet on the Holston and Clinch rivers, losing many men in killed and wounded. May 11, 1864, they joined General Sherman's army in front of
Dalton, Georgia, where it was assigned to the cavalry corps of the Army of the Ohio, commanded by General Stoneman. They engaged in the battles of Resaca, Cassville, Kenesaw Mountain, etc., aided in the capture of Alatoona Pass, and was the first to take possession of and raise the flag upon Lost Mountain. In Stoneman's raid to Macon, Georgia, the Sixth Cavalry lost 166 men.
Returning to Nashville for another equipment, it aided General Rousseau in defeating Forrest at Pulaski, Tennessee, September 27, and pursued him into Alabama. In the engagement at Pulaski the regiment lost twenty-three men. December 15 and 16 it participated in the battle at Nashville, and, after the repulse of Hood's army, followed it some distance. in June, 1865, a portion of the men were mustered out of the service. The remainder were consolidated with the residual fraction of the Fifth Cavalry, constituting the Sixty Cavalry, and they were mustered out in September following.
Company D, of this regiment, was made up from the southern portion of Vermillion County. William Reeder, of Rockville, was Captain until June 10, 1863, and thenceforward Caleb Bales, of Toronto, was Captain, being promoted from the rank of Second Lieutenant. The vacancy thus made was filled by Elisha Pierce, of Clinton, who was promoted from the position of First Sergeant. The Sergeants were James W. Taylor, of Toronto, William A. Richardson, John A. C. Norris and David Mitchell, of Clinton; and the Corporals were Brazier E. Henderson, Ben White, Samuel Craig, James Andrews. Valentine Foos, Harrison Pierce, Joseph Foos and Wesley A. Brown. Musician, Andrew J. Owen and John A. Curry.
The Colonels of the Eight-fifth were John P. Baird, of Terre Haute, to July 20, 1864, and Alexander B. Crane, of the same city, until the mustering out of the regiment.
This regiment was organized at Terre Haute, September 2, 1862. Its first engagement was with Forrest, with Colonel John Coburn's brigade, March 5, 1863, when the whole brigade was captured. The men were marched to Tullahoma, and then transported to Libby Prison at Richmond, amid much suffering, many dying along the route. Twenty-six days after their incarceration the men were exchanged, and stationed at Franklin, Tennessee, where they fought in skirmishes until Bragg's army fell back. The following summer, fall and winter the Eighty-fifth remained in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, guarding the railroad from Nashville to Chattanooga. It participated in every important engagement in the Atlanta campaign being in the terrible charge upon Resaca, and in the battles at Cassville, Dallas Woods, Golgotha Church, Culp's Farm and Peach Tree Creek. At the last mentioned place it did deadly work among the rebels.
This brave regiment then followed Sherman in his grand march to the sea, and back through the Carolinas, engaging in several battles. At Averysboro it was the directing regiment, charging the rebel works through an open field, but suffered greatly. It destroyed a half mile of railroad in forty minutes, corduroyed many miles of wagon road, and after a twenty-mile march one day it worked hard all night making a road up a steep, muddy bluff, for which they were highly complimented by Generals Sherman and Slocum, who had given directions for the work and were eye witnesses to its execution. After several other important movements, it had the pleasure of looking as proud victors upon Libby Prison, where so many of them had suffered in captivity in 1862. Marching
to Washington, it was mustered out of service, June 12, 1865. The remaining recruits were transferred to the Thirty-third Indiana, who were mustered out July 21, at Louisville, Kentucky.
containing Company K from Vermillion County, was recruited from the Tenth Congressional District during the winter of 1863-'64, redezvoused at Michigan City, and was mustered into service March 1, 1864, with Charles Case, of Fort Wayne, as Colonel, and Charles A. Zollinger, of the same city, as Lieutenant Colonel. Of Company K, John Q. Washburn, of Newport, was Captain; Joseph Siimpson, of Highland, First Lieutenant, and the Second Lieutenants in succession were Thomas C. Swan, of Clinton, Joseph Simpson, of Highland, William F. Eddy, of Warsaw, and James Roberts, of Clinton. Henry J. Howard, of Toronto, was Sergeant. Corporals -- Jasper Hollingsworth, Granville Gideon and John W. Nixon, of this county, besides others from other counties.
After marching a great deal, the first battle in which the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth regiment engaged was the severe contest at Resaca, opening the celebrated campaign of Atlanta. This was a great victory for the Union troops. The next battle was that at New Hope Church. Before and after this, however, there was almost constant skirmishing, in very rainy weather. July 19, 1864, the regiment was engaged in a severe fight near Decatur, Georgia, where they lost heavily. Soon afterward they were in the fight at Strawberry Run, where they lost twenty-five men, but enabled General Hascall to turn a position which our forces, a brigade of General Schofield's corps, had failed to turn the day before.
Thence, until mid-winter, the regiment were kept busy guarding and engaging in skirmishes. November 29 occurred the battle of Franklin, where the enemy were repulsed with great loss. During the latter portion of the winter they were marching and skirmishing around near the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, and engaged in the battle of Wise's Forks, where the enemy met with signal disaster. The regiment ws engaged in provost duty about Raleigh during the summer of 1865, and August 29 was mustered out of the service.
The foregoing is of course but a meager outline of what the brave patriots of Vermillion County did for their country during the last war; and those who did not go to the battle-field did their duty also, in giving moral support to the Government and laboring with heart and hand in raising material supplies and comforts for those in the field. Soldiers' aid societies, county and township levies, etc., were forthcoming in due time, and the people of this division of the commonwealth were not behind in those noble and terribly self-sacrificing offices which a gigantic insurrection devolves upon them.
It would be a pleasure were we able to print here a list of the soldier dead of Vermillion County in glowing colors; but a list only of those in Vermillion Township has been compiled, and we concluded that unless we could get all we had better not print any. It is to be hoped that the Grand Army of the Republic in this county will be able in the course of time to complete the list.
CHICAGO EASTERN ILLINOIS.
Although railroad lines running east and west through Vermillion County
were projected as long ago as 1847, the north and south line was first
completed, is the most important in the county, and will therefore be
our first topic under this head.
The division from Evansville to Terre Haute was built as early as 1853-'54; but the link through this county, connecting Terre Haute with Danville was not completed until it was taken up by Josephus Collett, Jr., in 1868-'69. This wealthy and enterprising gentleman, with the assistance of O. P. Davis, Nathan Harvey, William E. Livengood, Joseph B. Cheadle and others. held rousing mass meetgins throughout the county, when they explained the advantages of the road and the feasilbility of building it with a very light tax. But little opposition or indifference was manifested. All the townships in the county, in 1869, voted for a two per cent tax -- the limit of the law -- or, rather, one per cent. in addition to the one per cent. voted by the county, provided it should be needed.
While this enterprise was pending, a few men elsewhere organized themselves as the "Raccoon Valley Railroad Company," ostensibly to build a road from Harmony, Clay County, to a point on the State line near the road-bed of the old "Indiana & Illinois Central Railroad Company," passing through Clay, Parke and Vermillion counties; but it was generally supposed by the citizens here that that was merely a ruse, just prior to the vote to be taken on the north and south line, to defeat the latter. Additional discouragement was also derived from other projected east and west lines, notably the narrow-gauge route through Eugene Township, in which the people along the line felt much interest.
The ensuing election, however, gave a decided majority for aiding the north and south line, then called the "Evansville, Terre Haute & Chicago Railroad." This, under the management of Mr. Collett was completed in 1870, to the great joy of the peo-