Chapter 2
Students to Soldiers
In the legislature at Springfield, Democrats and Republicans wrangled during the opening days of the 1861 session. Party and philosophical differences colored debates over secession, abolition, and the matter of providing militia for future military action. Republicans had a 41 to 34 edge over the Democrats in the House, although they held the Senate by just one seat. The partisan divide reflected the divergence of opinion throughout Illinois.1
Democrats controlled the elected offices around Peoria. In the 1860 presidential election, Republican Abraham Lincoln lost the presidential vote in Peoria County, albeit by narrow margins. It was one of just 24 counties in the North that Lincoln did not win. He lost the Peoria vote again in 1864. With very few exceptions, Democrats triumphed in national, state, and local races throughout the area during the war years.2
Somewhat ironically, Peoria provided the setting for one of Lincoln’s most significant speeches. In October 1854, prominent citizens from the town had invited the former congressman, then practicing law but seeking a return to elected office, to visit Peoria and make some remarks. The speech provided some of the earliest indications of Lincoln’s view on slavery. Lincoln told his Peoria audience that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent,” and said this was “the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism. When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism.” Lincoln meant this to include both black and white Americans. “Few American politicians in 1854 ventured so boldly,” wrote historian Lewis Lehrman.3
In 1862, Illinois Republican governor Richard Yates commented on the state’s difficult internal situation in a revealing letter to Lyman Trumbull, a prominent Democrat who had sided with President Lincoln. “Secession is deeper and stronger here than you have any idea,” reported Yates. “Its advocates are numerous and powerful and respectable.” Some of these advocates believed that Illinois itself, or at least southern Illinois, should secede and join the South.4
Even with this strong secessionist sentiment, Peoria supplied 2,700 men for the Union, 241 of whom never returned home. While many of Peoria’s citizens were ambivalent, at best, about the war effort, the city’s central location and its site on the Illinois River made it an ideal training and assembly area for troops. Once the Civil War began, the city transformed its sprawling fairgrounds into a military camp named Camp Mather, in honor of Illinois’s adjutant general, Thomas Mather.5
When the boys from Monmouth arrived in this city of conflicted allegiances, the romance of military life Robert Duncan had written about while back in Monmouth started to dissipate. They reached Peoria on the evening of April 29 to find that no arrangements had been made for their reception or accommodations. The men were marched to the fairgrounds and “housed in open cattle sheds without covering at night and only straw for bedding.” Unaccustomed to such conditions, many fell ill from the exposure and close proximity of so many other men. An epidemic of measles swept the camp and killed several young soldiers before they had fired a shot in anger. Ironically, it was often the hardy backwoods country boys who were the most susceptible to childhood diseases like measles and mumps (and some cases, smallpox), since they had not been exposed to them the way men from cities had been. In due course, a second wave of sickness, dysentery and diarrhea, struck. When the men moved south into hotter and more humid climates, malaria would also take a toll. The courage an individual expected to display in battle was of little help in fighting these debilitating and so often deadly diseases.6
Hamilton J. Herbert enlisted in April of 1861 in Company F of the 17th Illinois Infantry. Author
Once Monmouth folks heard about the sufferings of their hometown boys, they began a collection to buy “nice gray army blankets from Chicago,” wrote Duncan. The city council appropriated $2,000 for clothing (the company’s first uniform), which Duncan described as “gray pants and red and gray shirts.” At this early stage, uniforms were not simply Union blue or Confederate gray. According to another member of the 17th Illinois, “A greater variety of hats and caps could be found in our western armies than in all the country beside.”7
Some of the original 105 enlistees had been rejected for medical and other reasons, so the remaining 93 members of the Monmouth Union Guards were sworn into state and then Federal service on May 25, 1861. Captain John Pope of the Regular Army swore the men into Federal service. An 1842 graduate of the West Point, Pope was a distant relative of Lincoln’s wife Mary. Two months earlier he had accompanied the president-elect from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration amid rumors of assassination plots. According to Sergeant Duncan, Pope demonstrated “the meanest cussing by note of any man I ever heard try it.” Most of the Monmouth men agreed to serve for the duration of the war (officially a three-year term), but some enlisted for three months. Pope went after these short-timers, claimed Duncan, for he “commenced a momentary cussing for their benefit—it was very abusive—I could not have received such abuse.”8
James S. Herbert enlisted in April of 1861 in Company F of the 17th Illinois Infantry. James was not related to Hamilton Herbert. Author
Once inducted, the Monmouth Union Guards became Company F of the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. On paper, a full regiment totaled 1,000 men, made up of 10 companies of 100 men each. Three to six regiments formed a brigade, two to six brigades formed a division, and two or more divisions a corps, with one or more corps organized as an army. These numbers and structures varied between the Union and Confederate armies and changed throughout the war.9
The commander of the new 17th Illinois was Col. Leonard F. Ross. A veteran of the Mexican War, Ross trained as a lawyer and served as a judge. Along with Company F, his regiment included nine other Illinois companies from seven different counties. Companies A and B were local, having been formed in the city and county of Peoria. The 1st Lieutenant of Company A, Abraham Ryan of Peoria, became a friend of Josiah’s and later the regiment’s adjutant. Ryan was one of the few men in the regiment with any kind of military experience, having served in a local militia group called the National Blues. The commander of that unit, John Bryner, would later become the colonel of the 47th Illinois.10
Now sworn into service, the 17th Illinois began its military training in earnest. According to Duncan, he and his comrades “drilled on the march each day from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 1 p.m. till I am heartily sick of such proceders.” Duncan was hardly alone in his negative view of daily drill. Most recruits wanted to immediately sweep south and forcibly haul their wayward countrymen back into the Union. However, they first had to be molded into a cohesive fighting force. The military tactics of the time relied on linear warfare, with regiments and brigades advancing in a line one or more ranks deep. The men marched elbow-to-elbow with the ranks separated by only a short distance. Doing this correctly required a significant amount of training even before the men received weapons. It required endless hours of drill for a green soldier to learn how to move in concert with the man on his left and right and how to quickly shift from a marching column into line of battle.
Reveille was typically sounded around 5:00 a.m., followed by breakfast and other daily functions. Drill began shortly afterward, and became part of their regular routine throughout their service, curtailed only during active campaigning. Writing of his daily routine, one Pennsylvania soldier said, “The first thing is drill, then drill, then drill again. Then drill, drill, a little more drill. Then drill and lastly drill. Between drills, we drill and sometimes stop to eat a little and have a roll call.” The men first learned the School of the Soldier—how to properly stand, face, salute, and so forth. From there, they advanced to marching and turning—first in small groups, and then in progressively larger units. Eventually, the soldiers received weapons and learned how to load and shoot a rifled musket, which had an effective range of about 300 yards. A veteran soldier could load and fire about three times a minute under ideal conditions.11
Abraham (or Abram) Ryan
Ryan served as the captain of Company A of the 17th Illinois Infantry and as the regiment’s adjutant. This image was taken late in the war when he was the colonel of the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry. There is no photographer’s backmark but the reverse is dated February 3, 1865 at Lewisburg, Arkansas, and inscribed “To my old comrade in arms, Capt. Josiah Moore 17th Ills Vols Monmouth Ills.” Author
The monotony of camp was bad enough for the Monmouth boys, and their delayed pay only made matters worse. On May 30, 1861, Colonel Ross had to write a letter to Illinois’s Governor Yates. “Can we get paid?” he begged. “Our men are very much in need of a little money.” An attempt to break the tedium of drilling proved deadly for one individual in Camp Mather that summer. Maurice Dee of the 47th Illinois died when he put too much trust in a comrade’s marksmanship. Dee placed a tin cup on his head so his friend could shoot it off. The man missed the cup.12
The camps also provided a breeding ground for intrigue and rumor. Josiah wrote that “several spies were apprehended while passing the road outside the camp,” and noted a need to post an extra guard by the spring “lest some of the enemy should get in and poison the well.” Such stories were due to the normal skittishness found amidst new troops, but they could also be traced to the recognition of the uneasy coexistence between pro-Union and pro-Southern populations in central Illinois.13
James L. Shaw enlisted as a musician in Company F, 17th Illinois Infantry, in April 1861. Author
The Peoria location did have some benefits. According to Duncan, “The ladies of the city favored us frequently with a smiling countenance encouraging us in our death like work, also favouring us with delicacies more palatable than Soldier’s fair.” One of these ladies caught the eye of Duncan’s captain, Josiah. The young lady was 19-year-old Jennie Lindsay, the daughter of one of Peoria’s more prominent citizens.
Nothing in Josiah’s or Jennie’s letters indicates how they first met. In the spring of 1861, Jennie lived with her family on property adjacent to the camp, but it is highly unlikely that she visited on her own. Customs of the time dictated that men chaperoned women to shield them from “an impertinent glance” or “an unwelcome compliment.” In addition, women would attend only functions considered “proper for their status.” If Jennie and Josiah did meet in the camp, it is almost certain that Jennie was accompanied by her father and/or other citizens of the town. In addition, the Victorians had a prescribed method for introductions. It was considered vulgar to approach someone with whom you were unacquainted without being formally introduced. Lord Chesterfield, the author of behavior manuals of the time, wrote that “when a gentleman is to be first introduced to a lady, her permission must first be privately obtained by the introducer.” Perhaps Josiah obtained an introduction through Abraham Ryan, the Peoria man who was one of his comrades and appeared to know the Lindsay family. Once properly introduced, the couple could exchange calling cards or carte de visites—paper photos about the size of a modern index card. With the woman’s consent, the couple could begin formal correspondence, an important part of a nineteenth-century courtship.14
Jennie’s father, John Lindsay, was born in 1818 in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, where his father, a veteran of the War of 1812, operated an inn. The elder Lindsay died in 1835, and the next year his wife and son moved to Peoria. Young John rose to prominence in his new surroundings. He became a member of the “Old Settlers Union,” open only to those who arrived in Peoria prior to 1840, as well as an attorney and a member of the Peoria Board of Trade. He was one of the citizens who had invited Lincoln to speak in 1854, and he served for a single term as a Republican member of the Illinois House from 1858 to 1859. By 1860, John had amassed real estate holdings of $22,500 and a personal estate of about $10,000—amounts comparable today to $575,000 and $256,000, respectively.15
Lindsay married Sarah Belle Patton, another Pennsylvania native, in 1839. The couple had six children, five of whom were still living in 1861. (A son, James Columbus Lindsay, had died in 1852 at the age of four.) John and Sarah’s oldest child, Maggie, born in 1840, had married George Updike in 1858. They moved to Chicago sometime between the 1860 census and July 1861. William Patton Lindsay, born in 1845, and John Thomas Lindsay Jr., born in 1851, lived with their parents. Another son, James Andrew, known as “Andie,” lived with Maggie and George in 1860 but probably returned home after Maggie moved to Chicago. The Lindsays also had two servants, 18-year-old Mary Galt and 16-year-old Peter Cady, both natives of Ireland. John’s mother Jane still lived with them, as did six-year-old Sarah Barr, the daughter of John’s younger sister Cynthia, who had died in 1859.16
We know very little about the 19-year-old Jennie. From the evidence of her letters to Josiah, she was obviously well educated, which is not a surprise given her father’s social status. Her letters also show a maturity that belies her young age. We do know that Josiah and Jennie spent a good deal of time together until the 17th Illinois left Peoria. Josiah invited Jennie and her family to social functions hosted by the regiment’s officers, including an event at Wood’s Hotel in May 1861.17
After roughly six weeks at Camp Mather, orders finally arrived for the 17th regiment to leave Peoria. Before its departure, the regiment hosted a farewell party on June 14. The “party” committee was composed of Colonel Ross, Lt. Col. Enos P. Wood, Maj. Francis M. Smith, and Adj. Abraham H. Ryan. The Transcript Steam Printing House printed formal invitations. One was sent to “Mr. J. T. Lindsay and Family.” Although no records remain of the event, it is easy to imagine that Jennie had a pleasant but sobering evening with her new friend in blue, knowing Josiah’s time in Peoria was coming to a close and his return uncertain.18
The men of the regiment marched out of Camp Mather on June 17 to the boat landing at the foot of Main Street. Their destination was Alton, Illinois, a town on the Mississippi River about 125 miles below from Peoria and not far from St. Louis. There, the 17th Illinois was slated to receive additional training.19
Frank Peats, who was promoted to captain and now in command of Company B, wrote about the irony of the townspeople telling the men to take care of themselves when those men were soldiers “armed with instruments of death who were going out to meet men similarly armed and each to meet the other in deadly combat.” A band playing “The Star Spangled Banner” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me” led the regiment to the boat landing. “The streets were lined with friends, wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, all wishing us God-speed and a safe return,” wrote George Smith of Company F, an 18-year-old farmer from Monmouth.20
Almost a year and a half would pass before Jennie and Josiah would once again set eyes upon one another.
1 Ronald White, A. Lincoln. A Biography (New York, NY, 2009), 75; Jennifer L. Weber, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (Oxford, 2006), 17; Russell McClintock, Lincoln and the Decision for War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2008), 126-127.
2 George May, Students History of Peoria County, Illinois (Galesburg, IL, 1968), 92-94; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 232.
3 Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2008), 57.
4 May, Students History of Peoria County, Illinois, 94; Weber, Copperheads, 28. Lyman would go on to co-author the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
5 Newton Bateman, et. al., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Vol 2 (Chicago, IL., 1902), 160.
6 Monmouth College, Oracle, 11; Duncan, Company log. George O. Smith, A Brief History of the 17th Illinois Volunteer Regiment, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois; Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York, NY, 1987), 115-116.
7 Peats, Recollections, 6.
8 Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 659; Stashower, The Hour of Peril, 113, 160. (Shortly afterward, Pope was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and experienced some success in Missouri before being sent east to command the Army of Virginia. The Confederates soundly thrashed him in the summer of 1862 at the Second Battle of Bull Run.)
9 Wagner, Gallagher, Finkelman, Civil War Desk Reference, 374-376.
10 Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 709; Cloyd Bryner, Bugle Echoes The Story of the Illinois 47th (Springfield, IL, 1905), 11.
11 Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 45-54; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 472-477.
12 Duncan, company log; Letter from Colonel Leonard Ross to Governor Yates, Illinois State Archives, Official Regimental Papers of the 17th Illinois; Bryner, Bugle Echoes, 14.
13 Josiah Moore, “A History of the 17th Illinois,” Author’s Collection; Cloyd Bryner, Bugle Echoes, 24.
14 Root’s City Directory, Peoria, 1860; Patricia L. Richard, “Listen Ladies One and All: Union Soldiers Yearn for the Society of Their Fair Cousins of the North,” in Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller eds, Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front (New York, NY, 2002), 148-149.
15 Ernest E. East, Abraham Lincoln Sees Peoria: An Historical and Pictorial Record of Seventeen Visits From 1832 to 1858 (Peoria, IL, 1939), 24.
16 Eighth United States Census, 1860.
17 Original invitation in collection of the author.
18 Original invitation in collection of the author.
19 Illinois Adjutant General’s Report for the 17th Illinois Infantry. wwwcivilwar.illinoisgenweb.org/history/017.html.
20 Peats, “Recollections,” 3-4; George O. Smith, A Brief History of the 17th Illinois Infantry; Illinois Adjutant General’s Report.