Alexander Voorhees was born in May, 1823, in Seneca, New York. Still in New York, he married Maria Chamberlain and they were living in Corning when a son, Charles Voorhees, was born on April 2, 1844. The birthdate of another son, John, has not been determined. From New York, the family moved to Horicon, Wisconsin, before settling in Hopkinton, Iowa, where Alexander engaged in farming.

      General Beauregard’s Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Northern volunteers rushed to join the undermanned regulars but, by the middle of the next year, more were needed and President Lincoln called for 300,000 men to serve for three years “or the war.” On July 9, 1862, Governor Kirkwood received a telegram asking him to raise five regiments. If they weren’t raised by August 15th, the difference "would be made up by draft." Infantry regiments were to consist of ten companies, each with 100 men. Alexander received a “recruiting commission” on July 20th and for more than a month traveled the county enrolling men in Hopkinton, Sand Spring, Uniontown, Delhi and elsewhere. On July 28th Alexander and Charles enlisted, on August 20th Alexander was commissioned as Captain of Company K, and on August 23d at Dubuque’s Camp Franklin their company was mustered into service.       

      On September 9, 1862, ten companies were mustered in as the state’s 21st regiment of volunteer infantry. Seven days later they marched through town and, from the levee at the foot of Jones Street, boarded the Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside and started down the Mississippi. They spent one night on Rock Island before continuing the next day, debarking at Montrose, traveling by rail to Keokuk, and taking the Hawkeye State to St. Louis where they arrived on the 20th. From there they went to Rolla where, on October 16th, Alexander wrote to Adjutant General Baker asking that his commission be sent to him.  The Paymaster was due at the end of the month and Alexander said he “should like to draw some money if I can get my commission. I was at my own expense recruiting my company.” The commission arrived and on the 20th he signed it agreeing “to support the Constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of Iowa.”

      For the next six months they walked through Missouri - Salem, Houston, Hartville, West Plains, Eminence, Ironton and Iron Mountain. They rarely encountered the enemy although a wagon train was  attacked while stopped at Beaver Creek on November 24th and a daylong battle was fought at Hartville on January 11th. Seven men had died from wounds and many others from illness. On March 11, 1863, they arrived in Ste. Genevieve and on April 1st they boarded transports and were taken south to Milliken’s Bend where General Grant was organizing a large army to capture Vicksburg. During the ensuing campaign, the regiment participated in the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1st, was present but held “in reserve” during the May 16th Battle of Champion’s Hill, led (with the 23rd Iowa) a May 17th assault on Confederates at the Big Black River, participated in an assault on Vicksburg on May 22nd, and then held a position on the siege line around the rear of Vicksburg. During the siege, Union artillery bombarded the city on a regular basis forcing many families to take refuge in caves.

      On July 4, 1863, General Pemberton surrendered his forces and Alexander requested leave believing his health would “be restored by the atmosphere of the north.” William Orr, the regiment’s surgeon, agreed and certified that Alexander “is much debilitated by ‘chronic diarrhoea,’” unfit for duty and “a change of climate is recommended as necessary to prevent permanent disability.” Alexander’s request, with the surgeon’s recommendation, was passed up through the chain of command to the brigade, division and ultimately corps headquarters where it was approved by General Ord. On the 5th, not yet aware that a 20-day leave had been granted, Alexander wrote to Leroy Jackson in Hopkinton regarding his son, William H. Jackson, that “it is with heart felt sorrow that I sit down to inform you that poor ‘Willie’ is no more he died yesterday.” Alexander said he expected to get a furlough soon and “will see you and tell you more of his sickness.”

      After returning from furlough, he was present during service in southwestern Louisiana, but was hospitalized briefly in New Orleans’ St. James General Hospital where he was treated for “intermittent fever.” He then accompanied the regiment to Texas where it served six months along the Gulf coast and Alexander was sick for several more days. The regiment saw little activity in Texas but, on February 22, 1864, a scouting party was attacked near Green Lake and five members of the regiment were captured. Among them was Alexander’s son, Charles. In April, Alexander was “detailed to take charge of working parties on fortifications,” but three days later Colonel Merrill asked that Alexander be permitted to go to New Orleans “to express money of the soldiers to their families and transact other important business for the Regt.” Records don’t indicate if Alexander left, but he was with the regiment in Texas on April 28th when he recommended Duncan Livingston for a promotion.

      In July, the regiment was in Louisiana when the Green Lake prisoners were released. Charles had scurvy, his weight had dropped from 155 to 96 pounds and his feet were swollen to four times normal with “fissures on top and between the toes.” Even a good friend recognized him only by his voice. Charles was carried to his father’s tent so Alexander could care for him. Both men continued with the regiment and were with it during a Union campaign in the spring of 1865 that forced Confederates to abandon the city of Mobile. In June they were camped about three miles northwest of Natchitoches, Louisiana, when Lieutenant Colonel Van Anda was selected to command the post and Alexander was ordered to assume command of the regiment. Before long they were in Baton Rouge where, on July 15, 1865, they were mustered out.

      Back in Hopkinton, Alexander worked in the mercantile business for two years followed by another two years as a farmer and, for four years, was commissioned as a Colonel on the staff of the Governor Sam Merrill who had previously commanded the regiment. In the fall of 1870, Alexander and Maria moved to Boone County, Nebraska, where they were early settlers of “Voorhees Valley” four miles east of Albion. In 1880, they moved to St. Edward where Alexander engaged in “dealing in grain, live stock, coal and agricultural implements.” Business was good and in 1881 he “handled 134 car loads of grain and hogs and forty car loads of coal.” John, was living in Colorado where he was “interested in quartz mining,” but Charles was working with his parents. While he managed their farm of 480 acres (of which 200 were cultivated) in Beaver Valley a few miles north of St. Edward, Alexander was the proprietor of the town’s Steam Elevator and Chop Feed Mill and a dealer in grain, coal and flax seed.

      Like so many others from the regiment, he also applied for an invalid pension. Laws then in effect required evidence of a service-related disability and Alexander said he was totally deaf in his right ear and partially deaf in his left ear, something he attributed to having been stationed close to an artillery battery during the Vicksburg siege. At sixty-two years of age he said “it is impossible to get employment as employers want no deaf person around” and added that his mailing address was changing to Albion “as my son with whom I am living is moving to that place.” In 1885 he was granted a monthly pension of $5.00 from July 16, 1865 (the day after being discharged) to April 3, 1884, when it increased to $15.00.

      Soon thereafter Alexander moved to Chicago where, on September 23, 1886, Mary having died, he married a widow, Sarah Boulter. They spent some time in Nebraska and Colorado, but by 1906 were back in Illinois where Alexander was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville. A few months later he was discharged and moved back to Chicago. As his deafness worsened, he applied for pension increases and received support from Henry Guiles who said, at Vicksburg “we lay in a draw and big siege guns fired over us. That is when I got my deafness.”

      In 1907 Alexander gave his address as 1383 Madison Street, Chicago, when he requested another increase and said, “I am old and very weak cant write with pen & ink.” He was examined by a specialist, Dr. Charles M. Robertson, who reported that Alexander “uses a London horn and can hear when a very loud tone is used in mouth of horn.” Alexander, he said, “is practically totally deaf in both ears. He is a fine old gentleman who seems the soul of honor and I would give him all that could be under his rating. He is very feeble requiring the aid of an attendant constantly. He is hardly able to come to my office although the car line passes both his home and my office.” The latest claim was approved and Alexander was receiving $27.00 monthly when he died on April 16, 1909. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, River Grove, Illinois.

      Sarah died on December 10th of that same year in St. Joseph, Michigan, while living with James Boulter, a son from her first marriage.

      Alexander’s son, Charles, died on January 25, 1920, in Hot Springs, South Dakota, and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Albion, Nebraska.