The Civil War dead as the rolls give them

1861 – 1865

Company F's dead, from the state roster: The adjutant general's roster of Company F, 48th Indiana, read row by row through the printed volume's fifth part, carries four deaths in its remarks column. Henry Lahman, an original member who had re-enlisted as a veteran, was killed at Kingston, North Carolina, on March 10, 1865 — Chapman's Roll of Honor agrees with the roster word for word. William H. Wilson, a drafted man mustered on December 13, 1864, died in the field in South Carolina on March 3, 1865; the Roll of Honor agrees again. James R. Wedgworth, a substitute mustered on December 26, 1864, died at Columbia, South Carolina, on February 15, 1865; he stands in the state roster alone — the Roll of Honor does not carry him, and his residence column in the roster stands blank, so he is printed as the company's dead, not as a proven Mishawaka resident. The fourth death is a substitute mustered on January 11, 1865, who died at Louisville, Kentucky, on July 13, 1865 — two days before the regiment mustered out in that city — and whose name this history could not recover: the name word at his row is lost in the surviving scan of the volume. His name is the first of this section's named gaps; the printed fifth volume at the Indiana State Library or the man's compiled service record settles it.

The county's Roll of Honor: Chapman's Roll of Honor (pp. 444–448) is the county's own printed necrology — 230 entries as South Bend's pass counted them whole, ten officers and two hundred twenty non-commissioned officers and privates, with the printer's duplication of one name (Roberts) carried openly in that count, so 229 distinct men if the duplication is one man. From it, Mishawaka's share can be read where the record ties a man to this town or to its companies: Captain James Houghton, killed at Shiloh, April 7, 1862; Captain Isaac M. Pettit, died of wounds received in action, March 19, 1863; Lieutenant William H. Criswell, killed at Chickamauga, September 19, 1863; Lieutenant Solomon H. Fountain, died April 9, 1865 — the day of Appomattox — of wounds received in action; Solomon Michael, who "died at Mishawaka, Ind., July 11, 1863," the Roll's own words fixing the town; Jesse Miller, killed at Shiloh; John Vanriper, died at Gallatin, Tennessee, in January 1863; William P. Varney, killed at Missionary Ridge, November 25, 1863; Daniel B. Ungry, killed at Shiloh; Benjamin Bonney, died at Nashville, March 20, 1864; Benjamin Schmidt, died November 7, 1863, of wounds; and Henry Lahman above. The county's first martyr stands at the Roll's head in South Bend's frame and is not Mishawaka's: John Auten, killed July 10, 1861, whose name South Bend's Grand Army post would take.

What the rolls do not do: Neither Chapman's Roll nor the state rosters divide the county's dead by town of residence in any complete form. A whole Mishawaka roll of the Civil War dead therefore cannot be counted from the nineteenth-century record alone — which is precisely the ground on which the city's own twenty-first-century memorial, next, has to be read.

Sources:

1. W. H. H. Terrell, Report of the Adjutant General of Indiana, vol. 5, Company F, 48th Regiment, remarks column, pp. 459–461, read by row reconstruction from the printed volume's coordinate text.
2. Charles C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880), Roll of Honor, pp. 444–448, counted whole in the South Bend pass (230 printed entries).