CAPTAIN FARQUHARSON’S LETTER

CAPTAIN FARQUHARSON’S LETTER

“They also serve who only stand and wait.” - Milton

Highwill D. Farquharson

 It is the worst duty a soldier has - writing to inform a family and a community of the deaths of their own, but it is especially dispiriting when there is no story to convey of bravery or duty faithfully performed to the last; when there is no smitten enemy hurried to defeat by the soldiers death.  On September 14, 1863, when Captain H. D. Farquharson sat down to write the editor of the Grant County Herald, his employer previous to the Civil War, he had no glory to illuminate and ennoble his lost men, for they had largely died of disease.  A miserable draining torment that Shrunk to skin and bones the stoutest men, and thrust them into eternity like whimpering babes, lying in filthy beds in filthy hospitals while their lives ebbed away.

      From Helena, Arkansas he wrote: "MR. COVER: just one year ago to-day the 25^th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers was mustered into the service of the United States by Major R. S. Smith, at LaCrosse, Wis., to serve three years or during the war, unless sooner discharged; since that time Company C has lost from death by disease, and by discharge for disability, twenty five men, just one quarter of the number present at the date of muster.  I give below the names of those discharged and place, also the name, place and date of those who have died."  He listed them one by one.  There was William Kretzer, who was subject of a prior article.  There was John Mauer, who with eleven other members of Company C had pledged in his home church to convene for prayer each Thursday while away, and to let their “light so shine before the world that our good works may be constrained, thereby to glorify God with us.”  Farquharson could not even give the date of his death.  His men had died in the field and in hospitals at Helena, Paducah, and Memphis, and in the hospital ships Nashville and R.C. Wood.    He continued: “This is about an average of the different companies in the Regiment.  Company F has lost more than any other company in the Regiment, there being only 14 men, I am told, left in the Company, which is now without a commissioned officer and is commanded by a Corporal, and has three men for duty… Company C reports only 23 men at present…I understand that another boat load will be sent North in a few days…this is a good plan and should have been adopted a long time ago.  It is my opinion that five days on Grant County spring water is better and will do a man more good than all the doctors and medicine that can be had in the state of Mississippi.”

     The sorry truth was that for one year the 25^th Wisconsin had engaged in digging works, and doing garrison and picket duty, camped much of the time on Snyder’s Bluff above the Yazoo River. It was here that the numbers of sick exploded.  On the 25^th of July, the regiment was moved by a forced march that nearly killed many of the men to Helena, Arkansas.  They covered two days march in one day, and took up duties as a provost guard (police force) for the district of eastern Kansas. No battles, no glory, just death from the tiny microorganisms that they did not even know existed. 

Captain H. D. Farquharson (pronounced FARKWERSON) of Company C of the 25^th Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers no doubt went into the Civil War expecting all the military pomp of the Fire Company and militia he had joined in the past.  His last name sounded like “Ferguson” to his men so he was known for the rest of his life as “Cap. Ferg.”   As a young man in Rome New York, he had been a member of the Mohawk Hose Company No. 2, and had marched in patriotic parades in uniform.  It was almost natural to a Farquharson, for they were a proud Scottish clan that had involved themselves in many a war. His brother John L. Farquharson was a policeman. His father had worked for a time on the Erie and Black River Canals, which converged at Rome.   

 

     Sometime after 1855 Highwall D. Farquharson (his first name is Spelled “Hivall” in the Wisconsin Civil War Roster) left Rome and went west.  He settled in Dubuque Iowa, probably pursuing his chosen trade as a Printer/Pressman. On May 2, 1859 he joined a militia company called “The Governor’s Greys” in honor of Iowa Governor Stephen P. Hempstead of Dubuque.  They were a ceremonial drill and marching company, magnificently uniformed, and were often accompanied by the “famed” Germania Band in local parades and demonstrations of the military art.  When the Greys, in their Confederate like uniforms, were enrolled in the Civil War as Companies H and I of the 1^st Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Farquharson was not with them.  He had moved to Lancaster to work as a foreman for The Grant County Herald.  His "military" experience amounted to little more than drilling and marching to the accompaniment of a band, but this was more experience than most of the townsmen and farmer volunteers of Lancaster had, so when Company C was formed in August of 1862, he was elected captain.

      After a few weeks in Minnesota helping to suppress the Great Sioux Uprising by building fortifications and doing garrison duty in the small towns of the Minnesota frontier, the company returned and was trained at Camp Randall. They were then sent south to fight with the western army in the southern Mississippi valley.  Swamp fever, dysentery, malaria, and all sorts of other diseases plagued that country.  Now he was writing his sad report to the folks at home.  Eventually, with Sherman they would fight through Georgia and South Carolina, finally seeing fighting which no longer seemed glorious. It all culminated in a grand review in Washington and then back home, with the men's dreams of glory long replaced by a dogged struggle to live through it all so that they could see their loved ones again.  Some died or were wounded, but the story of death for Company C was disease.

     Back in civilian life, most men gave up all military pursuits gladly, with the exception of G.A.R. meetings and marching on the fourth of July.  Farquharson still enjoyed the martial life, so he served as a Colonel in the Wisconsin National guard.    In 1869 Farquharson moved to Boscobel.   He was instrumental in forming a fire company, The Boscobel Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1.  In 1875 he bought the Boscobel Dial.  In 1879 he invented a machine which gummed, cut, and affixed address labels to newspapers automatically.  In 1881 he assumed co-ownership of the Grant County Herald with John Cover, son of J. C. Cover.    His old commander, now Governor, Jeremiah Rusk appointed him as a game warden. 

     On June 28, 1889 Farquharson died from Bright’s disease, now called Chronic Nephritis, a very painful kidney disease.  After all his years in Wisconsin, he chose to have his body shipped back to Rome New York and buried in the local cemetery with other members of his family.  It is doubtful that the experience of war was what he had envisioned in his youth.  The men of Company C from Lancaster, Wisconsin marched away to war.  They spent long months in reserve, digging, policing, guarding, and often dying miserable and alone.  But isn’t it true that, as Milton said; “They also serve who only stand and wait?”   Don’t we need to honor their memory and their willingness to make the journey into an unknown country to save their nation?

  

   

TWO SOLDIERS

TWO SOLDIERS

     One of the challenges I have in sorting and scanning photos held by the Grant County Historical Society is identifying the individuals in those photos.  Large stacks of studio portraits lie un-named and unknown.  At one time those photos of loved ones were well known to all who looked at them, but time confuses everything and the minds that held their names in memory are now gone, as they say, to a better place where we cannot make inquiries.

     I was looking at a Daguerreotype last week at the museum, the only one I recall seeing there.  In the ancient image a man stares out at me, his countenance appearing to me to be one of disappointment or grief.  He looks sad.  I wanted to figure out who he was, so I came up with the idea of looking through our accession records to see what daguerreotypes we had, perhaps that would allow me by process of elimination to identify him.

 

      I found only one daguerreotype existed in the records; that of one William Kretzer.  Aha, I thought, I have the name.  I looked for Kretzer on records and there was his name on the Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion; a private in Company C of the 25^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.  I did further internet searches and one led me accidentally to William White, of Mount Hope, Wisconsin, a soldier in Company I of the 20^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.  I read the story of each man’s service. 

     Jon Angeli soon disabused me of my belief that I had identified the daguerreotype.  He advised me that no matter what the inventory might say, we have other daguerreotypes, and this one looked too old, by the man’s clothing and apparent age to be a Civil War soldier. Of course he was right, so for now, this man remains unknown.  I later found that William Kretzer, photo and all, is to be found in the book “Our Boys: A Civil War Photograph Album”, by Alan and Maureen Gaff, which is based in part on records held by the Grant County Historical Society .

   

 Reading the story of each of man’s experience of the war makes it clear that no two stories were alike.  Each man experienced suffering, and neither was among the fortunate ones who came home with no injury to the body.  Could anyone who saw that war come home unaffected in mind and spirit?

     Kretzer was the support of his family.  Before enlisting, he did most of the work on the farm, because his father, Phillip, was so severely afflicted with rheumatism (arthritis) that he could not do heavy work.  In addition to helping till the poor land of the farm, William worked for neighbors to earn enough to make ends meet.  When he enlisted, the money he earned, after a few dollars for absolute necessities, was sent home. His father and the oldest of the five girls at home labored on the land.  In July of 1863, William, like many of his regiment contracted dysentery, which the soldiers called “quickstep.”  At that time dysentery meant severe diarrhea with visible blood.  It was probably caused by poor hygiene, a wet tropical climate, and poor nutrition.  It may have been amoebic dysentery, cholera, parasites or a number of other infectious agents.  All were endemic in the southern Mississippi valley, and all were harbingers of death.  

     William was sent North to recover. In March of 1863 Cordelia Harvey, the widow of Wisconsin’s governor, had prevailed upon General Grant to allow soldiers suffering from chronic dysentery to be sent north to recuperate, as it had been shown that many who would have died in the South recuperated in the North.  Mrs. Harvey was a tireless advocate and comfort to the soldiers, who referred to her as the “Wisconsin Angel.”  She worked for better food, cleaner facilities, and fresher air: “Pneumonia, typhoid, and camp fevers, and that fearful scourge of the Southern swamps and rivers, chronic diarrhea, occupied every bed” she wrote.  Clara Barton described a Hotel converted into a hospital: “I saw, crowded into one old sunken hotel, lying helpless upon its bare, wet, bloody floors, five hundred fainting men hold up their cold, bloodless, dingy hands, as I passed, and beg me in Heaven's name for a cracker to keep them from starving (and I had none); or to give them a cup that they might have something to drink water from, if they could get it (and I had no cup and could get none).”  On his way north, Kretzer’s condition worsened.  He was taken to hospital number 2, at Paducah, Kentucky with severe dysentery, stomach pain and vomiting.  He was beyond recovery. On his deathbed he asked for all of his money and effects to be sent to his parents, a dutiful son to the end.

     I have no photograph of William White.  His brush with death came in a far different way.  He was older than Kretzer.  Born in Scotland in 1831, he came to the United States with his parents in 1852.  William decided on the West as his hope for fortune.  With a friend he set out for Wisconsin.  By the time he arrived in Platteville he was penniless.  He walked to Lancaster, and then traded his last earthly possession, a shotgun, to the stage driver for a dollar and a trip to Patch Grove. The dollar was counterfeit.  Despite his poverty he worked hard and earned enough to buy a quarter section of land.  He built a house, and married Mary Moore, an emigrant from Ohio.

    

      When war broke out, William, like his brothers, enlisted.  He served in Company I of the 20^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment and campaigned through Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana. At the end of the all the battles, when the war was over, he found himself stationed in Mobile, Alabama.  The city was under martial law. The occupation force established an ordinance depot on the north side of the city.  Soon it housed 200 tons of shells and powder.  On May 25, 1865, smoke was seen escaping from the building. Within moments the ammunition magazine exploded.  A series of blasts occurred in quick succession as artillery shells, torpedoes, and gunpowder were detonated.  Ships in the harbor were shattered, caught fire, burned and sank. White was near the site of the explosion in charge of a detail of men.  A piece of timber fell on the place where he stood, sheltering rather than crushing him from the shredded projectiles and the rain of debris.  He was unconscious when he was rescued.  His horse was

dead.

    It is nearly impossible to conceive of the experience of surviving such an event; an event which would dwarf the recent tragic blasts at Boston.  William White was mustered out on July 14, 1865 and returned home to his farm and family, but he said he never recovered from the shock.  After the blast he found that one of his legs was shorter than the other, and so it remained for the rest of his life.