The 40th Indiana Infantry Ended Their Service in Texas

Several weeks have passed since I last featured one of the Union regiments from William F. Fox’s list of “300 Fighting Regiments” that served at some point in the trans-Mississippi. This will mark the third and last Indiana regiment to be featured as part of this series. The 40^th Indiana Infantry compiled an active combat record during its four years of service. After serving as part of the Army of the Cumberland, the 40^th Indiana was dispatched to Texas to finish out its service. Far too many people think that with the surrender of the Confederate armies, all Union soldiers were swiftly mustered out. There were a significant number of volunteer soldiers who continued serving into late 1865 and even into 1866 before being mustered out; in the case of the 40^th Indiana, they were finally sent home in December 1865. Earlier in the war, these Indiana soldiers had served in Philip H. Sheridan’s division, and they were reunited with Sheridan when they served in his Army of Occupation.

For more information about the 40^th Indiana see the following:

40^th Indiana Infantry: A creation of Scott R. Busenbark, this is a blog that also contains pages of information about the unit. Additional features include a roster, photographs, primary accounts, etc.

“Wagner's Brigade —Sheridan's Division--Fourth Corps.

(1) Col. William C. Wilson.

(2) Col. John W. Blake.

(3) Col. Henry Leaming.

Companies.		killed and died of wounds.			died of disease, accidents, in Prison, &c.			Total Enrollment.
		Officers.	Men.	Total.	Officers.	Men.	Total.
Field and Staff					2	2	4	19
Company	A	1	21	22		14	14	140
	B	1	19	20		16	16	136
	C		12	12	1	24	25	149
	D		14	14	1	27	28	159
	E	1	11	12		23	23	139
	F	1	17	18		25	25	164
	G	1	15	16		24	24	152
	H		12	12		18	18	146
	I		10	10		11	11	137
	K		12	12	1	22	23	132
Totals		5	143	148	5	206	211	1,473

148 killed=10 per cent

Total of killed and wounded 551

Battles	Killed and M. W.
Shiloh, Tenn., April 15, 1862	1
Perryville, Ky.	1
Stone’s River, Tenn.	10
Lookout Mountain, Tenn.	2
Missionary Ridge, Tenn.	39
Resaca, Ga.	4
Adairsville, Ga.	1
Dallas, Ga.	9
Pine Mountain, Ga.	7
Kenesaw Mountain, Ga.	4
Assault on Kenesaw	37
Peach Tree Creek, Ga.	8
Siege of Atlanta, Ga.	4
Franklin, Tenn.	17
Nashville, Tenn.	4

Present, also, at Corinth; Jonesboro; Lovejoy's Station.

Notes.--Organized at Lafayette, Ind., in December, 1861, and ordered immediately into Kentucky, where it went into a Camp of Instruction near Bardstown. In February, 1862, it moved with Buell’s Army on its various campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee, having been assigned to Wagner's Brigade of Wood's Division, in which it was present at Shiloh, but not under fire. Wood’s (6th) Division participated in the campaigns of the Army of the Ohio in 1862, the occupation of Tennessee, and the retreat into Kentucky. The regiment was engaged at Stone’s River, where it lost 4 killed, 68 wounded, and 13 missing. The brigade was absent at Chickamauga, it having been detailed just at that time on duty at Chattanooga, and left behind as the army passed through. Upon the re-organization of the Army of the Cumberland, October 20, 1863, the regiment was assigned to Wagner's (2d) Brigade, Sheridan's (2d) Division, Fourth Corps, in which command it fought at Missionary Ridge, where it sustained a loss of 20 killed and 138 wounded; total, 158. During the Atlanta campaign, General Newton commanded the division, and in the unsuccessful assault on Kenesaw Mountain the regiment met with another severe loss, the percentage of casualties being very large. At the battle of Franklin, General Wagner commanded the division, and Colonel John Q. Lane the brigade. After the battle at Nashville the regiment remained in winter-quarters near that city until the spring of 1865, when, the war having closed, it was ordered to New Orleans. From there it went with the Fourth Corps to Texas, where it joined Sheridan 's Army of Occupation, remaining there until December 21, 1865, when it was mustered out” (Fox, page 352).

One Of My Favorite Things: Shopping at Bookstores

With the rise in popularity of digital books, I envision a future with fewer bookstores. Hopefully, my prediction does not come to pass because shopping at bookstores, particularly used bookstores, is one of my favorite pastimes. A couple of years ago, I purchased a Kindle and have found it great while traveling, but doesn’t it seem like digital books are just not as fun? Yes, you can have instant gratification by downloading a book, but personally I find it more satisfying to order a book the old-fashioned way or discovering it in a store or even borrowing it through interlibrary loan. There’s something about anticipating the arrival of a book that is thrilling. I can’t deny the convenience factor of being able to download books or view books online, but still I can’t help be saddened by changes in the book world.

Happily, I visited the Dickson Street Bookshop in Fayetteville, Arkansas, recently and came away with what I thought were some wonderful finds. They are:

Barber, Lucius W. Army Memoirs. reprint ed. Time-Life Books, 1984. (hardcover) Barber served in the 15^th Illinois Infantry, a unit that served in Missouri and then in the western theater.

Frost, Griffin. Camp and Prison Journal. reprint ed., Iowa City: Camp Pope Bookshop, 1994. (hardcover) This is the account of a Confederate soldier confined at several prisons including Camp Gratiot Street (St. Louis), Alton, Camp Douglas, and Camp Morton.

Mahan, Russell L. Fayetteville, Arkansas In The Civil War. Bountiful, UT: Historical Byways, 2003. (signed by the author; softcover) Since I travel to Fayetteville regularly, this will be an interesting read for me.

Scott, Kim Allen. The Fighting Printers of Company E. reprint ed. Johnson, AR: Kinnally Press, 1987. (softcover) First published in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, this article reprinted as a booklet, is about Company E of the 11^th Kansas Infantry. The piece deals mainly with the publication of the Buck & Ball newspaper by the “fighting printers” at Cane Hill, Arkansas. On the inside back cover the following appears: “This entire booklet was letterpress printed, the same method used by the printers in Company E…The presswork was performed by the author on a hand fed 1903 model Chandler and Price platen press.” Neat!

Symposium Announcement

The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and the National Park Service will be hosting a symposium titled An Empire In Extent: The Civil War West of the Mississippi from August 9-11 at the University of Arkansas Global Campus in Fayetteville. The sponsors have lined up the following speakers: Ernesto Chavez, Bradley R. Clampitt, William C. Davis, Wilma King, Carl Moneyhon, Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Linda Reed, Daniel Sutherland, Jerry Thompson, Mary Jane Warde, and Steven E. Woodworth. These scholars will be presenting an array of enticing talks plus there will be a tour of the Pea Ridge battlefield. Go to the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial website to register and to check out the full schedule. Hope to see you there!

Heavy Union Regimental Losses in the Trans-Mississippi

Many people assume that regiments serving in the trans-Mississippi suffered inconsequential losses in the battles fought there. But not necessarily….William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses In The American Civil War  (1898) contains a grim table titled “Maximum Of Regimental Loss In Killed And Died Of Wounds In Particular Engagements.” For some unaccountable reason, the table did not include notable losses by two regiments serving in the trans-Mississippi; these regiments have been included by me and are denoted by asterisks. Here is the revised list of the ten Union infantry regiments that suffered the highest losses in particular engagements:

*39^th Missouri Infantry: 123 killed (Centralia, Missouri)

5^th New York Infantry: 117 killed (2^nd Manassas)

15^th New Jersey Infantry: 116 killed (Spotsylvania)

*79^th U. S. Colored Infantry [1^st Kansas Colored]: 111 killed (Poison Springs, Arkansas)

49^th Pennsylvania Infantry: 109 killed (Spotsylvania)

15^th Massachusetts Infantry: 108 killed (Antietam)

1^st Kansas Infantry: 106 killed (Wilson’s Creek, Missouri)

1^st Missouri Infantry: 103 killed (Wilson’s Creek, Missouri)

9^th Illinois Infantry: 103 killed (Shiloh)

18^th U. S. Infantry: 102 killed (Stone’s River)

Fox’s table continues on for several more pages. Here are some other unusually high losses sustained by regiments serving in the trans-Mississippi:

20^th Wisconsin Infantry: 88 killed (Prairie Grove, Arkansas)

32^nd Iowa Infantry: 86 killed (Pleasant Hill, Louisiana)

7^th Iowa Infantry: 74 killed (Belmont, Missouri)

9^th Iowa Infantry: 74 killed (Pea Ridge, Arkansas)

19^th Iowa Infantry: 72 killed (Prairie Grove, Arkansas)

26^th Indiana Infantry: 52 killed (Prairie Grove, Arkansas)

Later in his book, Fox included some tables listing high casualty rates for cavalry regiments and artillery batteries:

3^rd Iowa Cavalry: 27 killed (Pea Ridge, Arkansas)

 2^nd Massachusetts Battery (Nims): 1 killed, 18 wounded, 1 missing (Mansfield, Louisiana)

*1^st Independent Battery, Iowa Light Artillery (Jones): 3 killed, 14 wounded (Pea Ridge, Arkansas) [* indicates that Fox did not include this battery in his listing]

My suspicion is that there are other units (particularly cavalry and artillery) that should be included in this listing. The losses of Confederate units in the trans-Mississippi are more difficult to determine, but at some point I will work on assembling such a list.

Controversy in Lecompton, Kansas

A couple of weeks ago, I drove north on a research trip; my destination was Topeka, the site of the Kansas Historical Society. This was my first time to conduct research at that facility, and I enjoyed my time there. Not far from Topeka is the small town of Lecompton that was the site of a number of controversial actions in the late 1850s. When I teach American History to 1877, I spend quite a bit of time talking about events in Lecompton. Of course, I had to visit.

Although there are several historic buildings in Lecompton, the Constitution Hall State Historic Site was my favorite. Constructed in 1855, the building served as a Land Office as well as the meeting place of the territorial legislature. 

The Kansas Territory became the focal point for the struggle between proslavery and antislavery supporters. Would Kansas become a free territory or a slave territory? The national media flocked in to report on the action in Lecompton. In Constitution Hall, legislators drafted the Lecompton Constitution, a document that offered protections to slavery. Following a boycott by many Kansans of the referendum on the proposed constitution, the controversy spilled over into the U. S. Congress. After heated debates, a compromise was devised that required the Lecompton Constitution to be resubmitted to Kansans; Congress made it clear that if the Constitution was rejected then statehood would be delayed. Kansans rejected the Constitution by a wide margin and elected a number of free-soilers to the territorial legislature. The tide had turned.

Constitution Hall is a frame building that rather remarkably still contains much of the original flooring. It was a neat experience to walk on the same flooring as many prominent (and not so prominent) Americans of the 1850s. To see some additional photographs of Constitution Hall, including that flooring, check out the Kansas Sampler website.