Company D, Third Regiment: the city's one Guard company, 1891–1892

1891 – 1892 · Third Regiment of Infantry, Indiana National Guard

Pratt's entry, whole: The one company of the standing forces that Mishawaka ever kept is carried in Pratt's town-by-town roster of the Third Regiment, and his entry is short enough to print entire: "Mishawaka's only company was organized in the spring of 1891, and was assigned to the Third Regiment as Company D February 3 of that year. The company served until the latter part of 1892 only, when it was disbanded. The officers were: Captains — Grant D. Needham, H. H. Hosford and E. Forstbauer. First Lieutenants — Hugh H. Hosford, Edward Forstbauer and W. McIntosh. Second Lieutenants — Edward Forstbauer, W. McIntosh and Charles Ely." Pratt's own sentence carries both of its dates — an assignment dated 3 February 1891 and an organization placed "in the spring" of that year — and they are printed here as he gives them, unharmonized. The officer lists read as successive holders of each grade across the company's two seasons, and the ladder is visible in them: Edward Forstbauer appears at all three grades, second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain in turn; H. H. Hosford climbs from first lieutenant (as Hugh H. Hosford) to captain; W. McIntosh climbs from second lieutenant to first. No enlisted roster, no strength return and no muster roll for Company D is printed in Pratt or in any record reached for this section.

The regiment it joined: The Third Regiment of Infantry was the Guard's northern regiment, organized 2 July 1883 with headquarters at Kokomo, its companies drawn deliberately from the northern tier of the state. Its headquarters moved as its colonels moved — Waterloo in 1889, Elkhart in 1890, Valparaiso in 1891, Elkhart again in 1893, and South Bend in 1896, where Colonel George M. Studebaker commanded it. Pratt prints the regiment's organization by companies year by year, and Mishawaka's place in it is exactly two lines long. In the organization of 1891 the companies stand: A, Andrews; B, Fort Wayne; C, Valparaiso; D, Mishawaka; E, Elkhart; F, South Bend; G, Rochester; I, Waterloo; K, Warsaw; L, Fowler; M, Indianapolis. In 1892: A, Andrews and Bremen; B, Fort Wayne; C, Valparaiso; D, Mishawaka; E, Elkhart; F, South Bend; G, Rochester; H, Angola; I, Waterloo; K, Warsaw and Auburn; L, Fowler; M, Indianapolis. In 1893 the letter D stands at Plymouth, and Mishawaka does not appear in the regiment's organization again — nor in the organization of any Indiana regiment in the record reached, in any year after.

How it shot: The company's one measurable season is preserved because the Third Regiment's chief interest in 1892, in Pratt's telling, was gallery practice. The company averages for the state were led by Company G of Rochester at 37.2; the printed averages run G of Rochester 37.2, L of Fowler 36.03, H of Angola 27.13, C of Valparaiso 22.67, E of Elkhart 17.62, M of Indianapolis 16.44, D of Mishawaka 14.93, I of Waterloo 12.36. The fall inspection of that year is printed beside it by letter only, on a basis of 100 for perfection in all points — A 71, B 69, C 70.5, D 72.7, E 72.3, F 86, G 76.2, H 71.4, I 71.3, K 76.7, L 47.7, M 67.7 — and in the 1892 organization the letter D is Mishawaka's, which would put the two-season company mid-table in inspection while it stood second from the bottom of the regiment's shooting averages. Both figures are printed as the record gives them: a young company, briefly kept, that shot poorly and inspected respectably, and was gone before a third season.

Its end: "Served until the latter part of 1892 only, when it was disbanded" — Pratt gives no reason, and none is supplied here. Companies of the period lived on their towns' willingness to sustain them, and the regiment's letters were reassigned the following year as a matter of routine; what is documented is the fact and the finality of it. Pratt, writing nine years later with the whole state before him, calls it "Mishawaka's only company," and no record reached for this section contradicts him: it remains, in November 2026, the only company of the Indiana militia or National Guard that the official record assigns to Mishawaka in any century.

Sources:

1. William D. Pratt, A History of the National Guard of Indiana (1901), the Third Regiment chapters and town rosters — Company D's entry and officer lists quoted whole; the regiment's organization by companies for 1891, 1892 and 1893; the gallery-practice averages and fall inspection of 1892; the regiment's organization of 2 July 1883 and its headquarters movements; read first-hand in the full text at the Internet Archive.
2. Indiana Digital Archives, Indiana National Guard Collection (Indiana Archives and Records Administration) — the index of Guard records, 1898–1940, in which the enlisted record of the period stands; Company D predates its span, and the gap is named in this section's closing entry.