The Nine Soldiers of Lakeville Cemetery

Howard's cemetery Roll of Honor, p. 735 · the War of the Rebellion

Nine soldiers of the Civil War rest in Lakeville Cemetery, on the county history's own cemetery roll — and under the claim rule they are claimed here plainly, as men buried in this town. Howard's war chapter closes with a Roll of Honor of its second kind: "the names of soldiers of all wars, from the war of the Revolution to the war with Spain, whose bodies are interred in St. Joseph county cemeteries." Under the heading "Buried at Lakeville Cemetery" it prints nine distinct men (ten name-tokens as the transcription carries them — the two-column page interleaves, and the reading below is the disentangled one, with its one uncertain pairing stated): Capt. Thomas Henderson; Paris Henderson; Dayton Henderson; Robert Anderson; Anderson Moon; Robert James; Jacob Wynn; Ransom Shamp; John Riddle. The heading carries no war sub-heading of its own; in Howard's arrangement the list falls inside the War of the Rebellion sequence — the section's Revolutionary, 1812, and Mexican burials are listed separately at its head, all in South Bend cemeteries — so the nine stand as Civil War soldiers on the arrangement of the carrier, veterans who survived the war included, as Howard's section by its terms includes them.

The cross-checks the record allows are printed with the names. Anderson Moon is the anchor: Chapman carries him as John Moon of Union Township's son, two years in the 128th Indiana, died at Lakeville in 1872 — a Lakeville Cemetery burial fits exactly, and it is that fit which supports reading the interleaved page's stranded "Moon" as his (probable, not certain; the page image is the settler). Jacob Wynn was a corporal of Company K, 29th Indiana, in Howard's roster — the township's own company — and survived the war to stand on the South Bend Grand Army post's rolls in later years; his is a veteran's burial, not a war death, and the distinction prints because Howard's list keeps both kinds. Paris Henderson was a private of the same Company K. Whether Captain Thomas Henderson and Dayton Henderson are of that company Hendersons (the roster carries an E. Henderson, a D. Henderson, and an R. J. Henderson besides) is not stated by any carrier read. John Riddle bears a first-settler surname — Henry and John Riddle stand among the township's first settlers in Howard's township section — but no service record for this John Riddle was found in the carriers read, and the settler namesake is not merged into the soldier. For Robert Anderson, Robert James, and Ransom Shamp no service record was found in the carriers read; the adjutant general's rosters, residence columns and all, are the settler for five of the nine. The page number and the subject are real; in the carriers read they belong to Howard. The conflict prints whole's register, and the list stands on Howard's authority alone.