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1861–1865 · EVERY REGIMENT AT COMPANY GRANULARITY
Company I of the 9th and Company F of the 48th have their articles in this section. They were not the county's whole war. Chapman's History of St. Joseph County (1880), compiling the Adjutant General's reports company by company, opens its military chapter with the frame: among the regiments "formed in part of St. Joseph county men were the 15th, 29th, 35th, 48th, 73d, 87th, 99th, 128th, 138th and 155th Infantry, 4th and 12th Cavalry and 21st Battery," with full sketches "where a full company is represented from the county." What follows is each of those regiments at the granularity Chapman gives it — the county's companies, and the stand or the loss that carries the regiment's name.
15th Indiana — Company B: St. Joseph County was represented by Company B entire, and by one member in Company A. The regiment was organized at Lafayette in May 1861 and mustered June 14, 1861, with George D. Wagner as colonel. Company B's own account, as Chapman prints it: "Company B lost in killed six men, while twelve died from disease or of wounds received in battle." The regiment's stands were Stone River, where it lost 197 officers and men killed and wounded out of 440 engaged, and Mission Ridge, where it lost 202 out of 334 engaged — over sixty percent. Its Company B captain, Alexander Fowler, was promoted colonel of the 99th Regiment, which is the 99th's county tie.
29th Indiana — Companies C, F, G, H and K: Chapman prints county rosters across five companies of the 29th — a handful of privates in Company C, full companies or strong rosters in F and K, a partial roster in G and the recruits of H — while the county Soldiers' Monument at South Bend credits the regiment's Companies F and H; the two granularities are printed as each source gives them. Mustered at La Porte August 27, 1861, with John F. Miller of South Bend as colonel, the 29th was under fire more than five hours at Shiloh on April 7, 1862, and fought at Stone River and both days of Chickamauga with heavy loss. Chapman's accounting of the county's companies is the regiment's Mishawaka-side ledger: "five laid down their lives upon the field of battle, one was drowned in the Tennessee river, four died in Andersonville prison, and 28 others died from wounds or disease, among the latter being Capt. Frank A. Hardman."
73rd Indiana — Company C: One full company, C, with a few county men in other companies. The regiment was organized and mustered at South Bend on August 16, 1862 — one thousand and ten strong, raised in less than three weeks — with Gilbert Hathaway as colonel. The county's loss was 26 men: "two were killed in battle, two accidentally killed, one killed in military prison, and the remainder died of disease or wounds received in battle." The regiment's stand is Stone River, where on December 31, 1862, it fought twenty minutes at very close range on the army's extreme right, lost more than a third of the number engaged — 22 killed, 46 wounded, 36 missing, its whole color guard except the color bearer killed or wounded — and drew General Rosecrans's personal compliment on the field. Its second stand is Streight's raid: at Day's Gap and Crooked Creek in April–May 1863, and at Blount's Farm on May 2, where Colonel Hathaway fell mortally wounded at the head of his men, the day before the brigade's surrender at Cedar Bluff. In October 1864 the regiment held Decatur, Alabama, against Hood's investing army.
87th Indiana — Company K: Company K was the county's, with a few men besides in Company G; De Kever's city history names Company K as a Mishawaka company, raised in the summer of 1862. Organized at South Bend August 28, 1862, the regiment's county loss, by Chapman, was twenty men: "four killed; five died from wounds; one died in Andersonville prison; and ten died of disease." Its stand is Chickamauga, September 19–20, 1863, where it lost 40 killed, 142 wounded and 8 missing — "more than half of all the officers and men engaged," eight of its officers among the killed. Chapman's closing regimental account reads: killed in action 47, wounded in action 198, died from wounds and disease 214, and it is printed as he gives it. The 87th stormed Mission Ridge in the front line of its brigade and marched with Sherman to the sea and through the Carolinas.
128th Indiana — Company D: Company D "was made up entirely from St. Joseph county," with further county men in other companies. Rendezvoused at Michigan City and mustered March 18, 1864, the regiment went through the Atlanta campaign — Resaca, Dallas, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kennesaw, Atlanta, Jonesboro — then Franklin and Nashville, then to North Carolina, where on March 8–10, 1865, at Wise's Forks below Kinston, it "took an active part in this fight, losing severely in killed and wounded" — the same Kinston fight in which Company F of the 48th lost Henry Lahman, as this section's Company F article records. The county's whole loss in the 128th was 22 men: "only one of the foregoing number was killed in battle, two were killed by railroad accident, and nineteen died from wounds received in battle or from disease." The regiment was mustered out in 1866, the last of the county's infantry to come home.
138th Indiana — Company H, the hundred-days men: The 138th was a hundred-days regiment, mustered May 27, 1864, and out September 30, 1864. Its Company H was St. Joseph County's, under Captain James K. Gore — and De Kever names it as Mishawaka's own: "more Mishawaka volunteers formed Company H, 138th Indiana Regiment in May 1864, and they were sent to Tennessee before being discharged in the fall." Chapman prints Company H's muster roll without a loss line, and none is claimed for it here.
155th Indiana — Company I, the one-year men: The war's last county company. The 155th was composed of men enlisting for one year; Company I "was composed principally of St. Joseph county men," under Captain Calvin R. Stillson, with further county men in Companies G and H. Organized at Indianapolis April 18, 1865 — after Appomattox — the regiment did provost and garrison duty from Dover, Delaware, and was mustered out August 4, 1865. "The loss was only one, Francis Sauls, who died at Indianapolis May 6, 1865." One name, printed whole, is the company's whole death roll.
12th Cavalry — Company H: Company H of the 12th Cavalry "was composed of men from the county of St. Joseph," under Captain Amos DaHuff. The regiment was organized at Kendallville March 1, 1864. Company H's loss was eleven men, "of whom five died from wounds, and the remainder from disease." Companies C, D and H of the regiment held Huntsville, Alabama, against Forrest's attack on October 1, 1864; the regiment fought in the defense of Murfreesboro that December, campaigned against Mobile, and rode Grierson's eight-hundred-mile raid across Alabama into Georgia in the spring of 1865, mustering out at Vicksburg on November 10, 1865.
21st Battery, Indiana Light Artillery: The battery "was made up principally from St. Joseph and La Porte counties," and Chapman prints the St. Joseph County names as the Adjutant General credited them. The county's loss in the battery was eleven men "who died from wounds or disease." Mustered at Indianapolis September 9, 1862, the battery fought at Hoover's Gap, Chickamauga and in the storming of Mission Ridge, and stood under fire before Nashville on December 15–16, 1864. Its whole-service losses, as Chapman closes the account: two killed in action, one died of wounds, two died "from injuries received by explosion of ammunition," twenty-one died of disease.
At pointer size: Three of Chapman's dozen stand in his list without a county-company sketch, and their county ties are printed at the size he gives them: the 35th Indiana, whose regimental band the county Soldiers' Monument names among the county's own; the 99th, whose colonel was the 15th's Company B captain, Alexander Fowler; and the 4th Cavalry, named in Chapman's frame with no company of the county's shown. The 48th's other two county companies, B and E, stand with Company F in this section's existing article, which carries Chapman's joint account of the three: "the loss of the companies from this county were 8 killed, and 48 died of diseases or of wounds received in battle."
Sources:
- Charles C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880), Chapter VII — read first-hand in full: the regimental frame, the company rosters as compiled from the Adjutant General's reports, and each regiment's service narrative and loss account as quoted.
- Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — Company K of the 87th and Company H of the 138th named as Mishawaka companies, and the Mishawaka volunteers' course through the war.
- St. Joseph County Soldiers' Monument, South Bend (erected June 25, 1905; HMdb marker record) — the monument's company list, including the 35th Regiment's band.