Company H, 29th Indiana: Asa Jones of Clay Township, and the open case of David Keller

1861 – 1865

The company: the county's men in Company H of the 29th are printed twice — Chapman's roster of 1880 and Howard's of 1907 carry the same company, name for name in the lines that matter here: twenty-six men as Howard lists them (John Ault, Charles D. Allen, Andrew Adams, Charles Buckley, John Becraft, Jefferson Conover, William Delaney, Frederick Flagel, George Francis, Ezra Green, John Green, Alexander Goodrich, Parkinson F. George, Edward Harding, Henry Holwell, Asa Jones, David Keller, Nelson Laughton, Lewis Laughton, Oscar P. Lefevre, Joseph J. Haskins, Henry Lapp, Amos H. Roberts, John E. Usher, Seth Vader, John A. Ocker) and seventeen recruits after them. Two of the twenty-six belong to this section.

Asa Jones, Corporal — Clay Township: the county veterans index carries "Jones, Asa — Co. H, 29th Regiment, Indiana Volunteers — Corporal," and attributes him to Clay Township, with his burial at Ullery. Two printed rosters put him in the company; the index puts him in the township and gives his rank and his grave. That is the whole of his record as reached: no biography, no battle list, no dates. He stands in this section at exactly that strength — one of the township's two certain enlisted names of the war outside the Irvin party — and the settling sources for the rest of his course are Terrell's Company H remarks column, which prints each man's fate against his name, and his pension record.

David Keller — the open case, printed with its proof problem: the same two rosters carry David Keller, private, Company H. Chapman's Roll of Honor carries a David Keller too: "Keller, David — Died at Savannah, Tenn., April 15, 1862" — Savannah being the Tennessee River landing below Pittsburg Landing, where the 29th had come ashore for Shiloh eight days before, and where its sick and wounded lay. And Chapman's Clay Township chapter carries a Keller family on Section 20 of Clay: Jacob Keller and his wife Rosina (Beyrer), whose sons George (born Ohio 1841, came to the county about 1858, 330 acres on Section 20) and Jacob (born Ohio 1835, came 1856, 180 acres on the same section) were farming there when Chapman wrote. Whether the David Keller who died at Savannah was a son of that Clay Township house — a third brother, between George and Jacob in age — no source read says. The name, the company, the place and date of death, and the township family all stand; the joining of them does not, and this section will not join them on a surname. The settling sources are Terrell's Company H remarks (which would fix the roster man's fate against the Roll's date) and the 1860 census of Clay Township (which would fix the Keller household's sons). Until one of them is read, David Keller stands in this section as the Roll's dead man and the roster's private, with the Clay Township family beside him, unmerged.

Sources:

1. Chapman (1880), ch. VII — the Company H roster; the Roll of Honor for David Keller's death at Savannah.
2. Howard (1907), vol. 1 — the Company H county list.
3. Chapman (1880), Clay Township biographical sketches — the Keller family of Section 20.
4. The St. Joseph County veterans index — Asa Jones's attribution, rank and burial.