Page Five
From the "Memoirs of James K Wells, Son of William M. & Hilly Ann Wells" Submitted by Jana Trace
But soon these cheerful and peaceful homes must be blighted by the cruelties of men and the mad reckless rioting of war. The scenes of 1861 to 1865 brings to our minds the record of war, which was destined to blacken the fair pages of American history. It brings to our minds the time when our people were aroused from their reverie by the voice of the news boys, crying fall of Sumpter- the Presidents Proclamation, call fro 75,000 men to put down a rebellion.
This announcement started us our imagination portrayed the coming struggle with all its faithful magnitude, War, civil war, with all its horrors seemed inevitable, and even then was ready to burst like a volcano upon the most happy and prosperous nation the Sun ever Shone upon.
The contemplation of this sad picture filled many an eye with tears, and many a heart with sorrow.
The objector to wars says: Instead of this being a peaceful world, such as God intended and have contemplated in its creation has been blighted by the cruelties of men, and the mad reckless rioting of war, I will admit all this and more too has been the history of war.
It is an easy thing to advocate that war ought to cease and it is wrong and draw pictures of beauty and prosperity that would exist if it were not the death, suffering and cost of war being brought on. It is an easy thing, for designed men to make speeches against each war as it occurs, and to speak literally against those who are to be responsible for its prosecution.
It may be a beautiful thing to organize peace societies and cry for peace at every time war is declared. But it is well to remember that something more is required and necessary to secure a lasting universal peace on earth, than beauty of peace on earth, or the beauty of speeches against the horrors of war.
There has been causes for each war and before wars can be made to cease, the evil, passions and evil things must first be abolished. Evil passions have led nations to oppress and override weaker nations, and cruelties practiced that have led other nations to visit and furnish them.
The late Civil War of 1861 to 1865 was a war to test whether that government planted by our Forefathers on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among them are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The war of 1861-5 was to test whether that nation so dedicated could long endure.
The rebellion was an armed protest against constituted and recognized government.
The war for the unions had its inspiration in love of country and devotion to popular government. The silent but (?) Thought and force behind the patriotic sentiment of country and flag was the maintenance of law and social order. If there was any purpose in fighting and dying for a United Country it was that the law should be Supreme and where the end of legislation should be the enactment of laws which secure the enjoyment of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
On April the 12th, 1861 the first hostile gun was fired by the Confederates on Fort Sumpter and the National flag. A waive of patriotism as mighty as it was suddenly swept over our land and nation, until almost 3,000,000 Union men answered to the call to put down the rebellion.
Among that number were some of the sons of the old heroic men of Jefferson Township in Owen County, Indiana, whose names are as follows:
Joel Dillon, George Smith 11th Regiment and
Armor Needy Indiana Volunteer Inf.
Gabriel CherryHolmes 19th Regiment, Ind. Vol. Inf.
Abraham Slough
John Dean
Bradlet Kelley
Lysander D. Trent
William Williams, Jr.
John Williams
Samuel Goodwin
Hiram Antibus
James Needy
John Hubbell
John Bush, 60 I. 19th Ind. Vol. Inf.
George Bush, 60' I. 19th Ind. Vol. Inf.
David Bush
James Bush 15th, Indiana Battery
31st Indiana Volunteer Infantry
Steven S. Haviland Company B
1st Sergeant Promoted to 1st Lieutenant
James K. Wells, 5th, Sergeant Promoted to 2nd Lieutenant
David Wells Company A, 31st Reg. Ind. Vol. Inf. a veteran; died June 29th, 1864, wounds received at the battle of Rocky face (?)
John Aug Co. B, 31 Ind. Vol Inf.
Young Bowen Co. B, 31 Ind. Vol. Inf.
William K. Daniels Co. B, 31 Ind. Vol. Inf
David Denny
Eli Haimlin
Abraham Hamilton
George Horn
John E. Hochstetler Co. B 31 Ind. Vol. Inf. Died April 30, 1862 of wounds received at the battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, April 6, 1862.
Edward J. Bartin Co. B31 Ind. Vol. Inf. discharged on account of wounds received at Shiloh, TN on April 6, 1862.
John W. Needy Co. B 31 Ind. Vol. Inf.
John Roderick
Simon T Nihart Co. B 31 Ind. Vol. Inf. Died July 7, 1862 at Farmington, Miss.
Simon Seidle Co. B 31 Ind. Vol. Inf. died at Nashville, Tenn September 24, 1862
Augustus Smith Co. B
Michael Shaneman Co. B
John Infield Co. B
John H. Johnson Co. B
William W. Jones Co. B
Elijah Kirby Co. B
33rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry
John Slough Company H Promoted to Captain, Phillip Winklepleck Company B, 33 Ind Vol Inf. Benjamin White Company G Ind. Vol. Inf.
43rd Indiana:
Benjamin F. Maxwell and David Landis
59th Indiana Volunteers Infantry
William A. Bartholomew Company A 59th Reg. of Indiana Volunteer Infantry promoted to 2nd Lieutenant
Abraham Slough Company A 59th Reg. Indiana Volunteer Infantry was 1st Sergeant and died February 16th, 1863 at the Overton Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
Other members of the 59th Regiment from Jefferson Township were:
Cor. Eben D.E. Dyar, John W. Padget, Musician, Alpheus Dillon, Private Foster Benjamin, George W. Dyar, George Dyar, Thomas J. Dyar, William W. Dyar, Benamin F. Dyar, Calvin F. Dyar, Ebenezer Fiscus, Jacob Fiscus, Martin L. Fritz, John A. Goodnight, Albert W. Middleton, Jacob A. Spease, Andrew J. Tipton, Emsley W. Vaughn, James West, Harry Wells, Ayers K. Winters, William K. Winters, Sylvester Winters, Isaih P. Winters, Harrison J. Griffith
71st Regiment Indiana Volunteer Inf.
Samuel Bond, Elijah Bivens, Finley L. Wilson, John E. Henseley and Newton S. Padget
85th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry
William H. Slough, Aaron L. Slough, Elisha Roe, Isaac Welcher, Wilson Filbert and John G. Hochstetter.
97th Indiana Volunteer Infantry
Zachariah Dean Captain Company F died August 7, 1863
George Elliott promoted Captain of Company F, John Dickson, 2nd Lieutenant died January 12th, 1863.
William Crain Sergeant, Samuel Dickinson Sergeant, Samuel Fritz Corporal, George F. Heaton Corporal, Jacob Slough, Wagner,
Privates: Obediah Arney, Adam Conder, Soloman Conder, Andrew Bush, James Hiligas, Samuel Hiligas, George Smith, John Goff, James Dyar, Fenton Dean, William Dean, John Deberry, William Decker, Collin C. Duling, Thomas Dyar, Samuel L. Dyar, Daniel Firebaugh, David E. Fulk, Emanuel Fulk, Francis M. Fulk, Abraham Harstein, Isaih Haton, John Haton, Alexander Haxton, Edward Hines, Legrande B. Herod, Henry E. Hubbell, Abraham Landis, George Miller, W. H.H. McCollum, Noah Stants, John J. Terry, George Trent, Daniel Williams, Hiram R. Wells and Frederick Blair.
115th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry
James Herod Co. G 115th Ind. Vol. Inf.
Theodore Williams Co. G 115th Ind. Vol. Inf.
Amos W. Littlejohn Co. G
Isaac M. Littlejohn
David Landis Second Enlistment Co. G 115th Ind.
John Hubbell Second Enlistment Co. 149th Ind.
We had four years of war, four years of weeping homes with dear ones absent, engaged in the great conflict of war, four years of strife on the great bloody battlefield, not with a foreign foe, but with our own misguided and infuriated brethren of the South in our own land and nation. Four years of marching in exposure in weary marshes under the scorching rays of a Southern Sun. Four years of hospitals filled with gangreens and contagious diseases. Four years of famines, skeletons started and lives tortured out of brave men, in rebel prisons and four years of wounded and mangled corpses.
But swiftly have sped the years since then, the boys that ore the blue came proudly home from the great battlefield carrying under tattered banners and bronzed hands the ark of the covenant of our Republic, is, Safety out of the bloody baptism of the war and to be saved forever. When they marched away to battle in their youth were they. But now when they meet we (?) They are turned gray. Their locks whitened.
In that great conflict of war, from 1861 to 1865 was paid the price for our Nations immortality. And to make of the American people a single Nation for that purpose was the blood of the Union Soldier shed. Other results of our civil war were incident to that, and so they died no less to save the South and its people than for the people of the North, for the American people undivided, indivisible. Their lives were sacrificed to establish forever the brotherhood of one flag of our country a relationship so great that it cannot see Sectional lines within the boundaries of the Republic. That purpose they accomplished. Devotion to our Nation is today the first principle of all Americans. In our recent war were the soldiers that wore the gray the sons of those who met the sons of those who wore the blue, and such were the men that wore the arms over the great battlefields where many thousands died. The giving of life means a great deal.