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JOHN A. GREEN |
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John A. Green, born on September 6, 1839, was one of eight
children born to Charles Samuel Green and his wife, Jane
(Hinton) Green. Their first two children were born in Indiana
but John, their third child, said he was born in Kentucky
forty miles “east of” Louisville and thirty miles “above
Louisville” (which could mean thirty miles upstream from
Louisville). Another son was also born in Kentucky, but the
family then moved to Delaware County, Iowa, where the last
four children were born - William in 1846, Sylvester in 1849,
Alvin in 1853 and Sarah in 1856.
On August 1, 1858,
John and Hanna Melissa Wilson were married in Delhi Township.
The next year, on July 3rd, a daughter, Florence, was born.
War Department records indicate that, on December 10,
1861, at Hopkinton, John enlisted in Company K of what would
be the 16th Iowa Infantry. On March 20, 1862, the regiment
left Davenport’s Camp McClellan for Camp Benton in St. Louis,
but John stayed behind and was admitted to a hospital. On May
7th, he deserted.
On August 15, 1862, having regained
his health, John enlisted at “Uniontown” (possibly the old
post office near Hopkinton) in Company K of the 21st Iowa
Infantry. On the same day, another man enlisted in the same
regiment. Like John, during earlier service he had deserted
from a hospital but, unlike John, he appears on all rosters
under an alias.
The regiment received its initial
training at Camp Franklin in Dubuque, was mustered in on
September 9th and left for war on September 16th. This time,
John maintained his health well. After one night at St. Louis’
Camp Benton, they traveled by rail to Rolla where they camped
southwest of town for a month before marching south to Salem,
Houston, Hartville and back to Houston. On January 27, 1863,
they started another march and three days later unfurled their
flag and marched into the town of West Plains. From there they
headed to the northeast and John remained “present” as they
moved through Ironton and Iron Mountain and, on March 11th,
into the old French town of Ste. Genevieve.
On April
1st, they boarded the Ocean Wave and started downstream to
Milliken’s Bend where General Grant was organizing an army for
the purpose of capturing Vicksburg. After walking and wading,
along roads and through swamps and bayous west of the river,
they crossed to Bruinsburg, Mississippi, on April 30th. The
first regiment to land was deployed to the hills around the
landing to watch for any approaching enemy. The second
regiment, the 21st Iowa, was ordered to march inland along a
sunken dirt road and to keep walking until fired on. About
midnight they drew first fire but, unable to see each other,
both sides soon rested.
The next day John participated
with his regiment in the Battle of Port Gibson, also known as
the Battle of Magnolia Hills, in which three men were mortally
wounded and another fourteen were wounded less severely. The
regiment was present but held in reserve during the May 16th
Battle of Champion’s Hill but, with the 23d Iowa, assaulted,
and routed, Confederates entrenched near the railroad bridge
over the Big Black River. There’s no indication whether John
participated in the assault, but he was present during the
siege of Vicksburg that ended with the city’s surrender on
July 4th and during the expedition to and siege of Jackson
that followed.
After returning to Vicksburg, they were
transported south and camped in Carrollton, Louisiana, before
engaging in an expedition to Bayou Boeuf, Brashear City,
Berwick, Vermilion Bayou and other locations west of the
river. While in New Orleans on November 22nd, they were
ordered, as some anticipated, to move to Texas. Under the
command of Major William Crooke, most left the next morning on
board the Corinthian. John’s Company K and some from Company B
left on the St. Mary’s later in the day.
Still serving
on the Gulf coast in 1864, a scouting party composed of some
of the best horsemen from several regiments was surprised by
the enemy on February 22nd near Green Lake. Charles Kellogg,
Hiram Libby, William McCarty, George Parker and Charles
Voorhees, from the 21st Infantry, were among those captured
and later confined at Camp Ford, an overcrowded prison camp
near the town of Tyler. By the time the Green Lake prisoners
arrived, it was described as a "sty not fit for pigs," a “hell
hole,” a “sewer pit.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the
regiment continued its service along the coast. On March 9th,
John was with the regiment at Indianola when, in Iowa, two of
his brothers, eighteen-year-old William and twenty-nine
year-old Newton, both residents of Delaware County, were
mustered in as new recruits. In mid-June, the regiment was
transported back to New Orleans, crossed to Algiers, and took
rail cars of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western
Railroad from Algiers to Terrebonne Station where they arrived
after dark. By July 8th, they were back in Algiers.
Later that month, the Green Lake prisoners were taken down the
Red River and, near its mouth on the 22nd, were turned over to
Federal forces. All had suffered greatly and were transported
downstream to Algiers where they could receive better medical
care. Company F’s Alexander Voorhees had scurvy, his weight
had dropped from 155 to 96 pounds, his feet were swollen, and
he had “fissures on top and between the toes in which the
maggots held high carnival.” He was described as a “living
skeleton” and even a good friend recognized him only by the
sound of his voice. John Green “helped carry him from the boat
to camp” where he could be cared for by his father, Alexander
Voorhees, Captain of Company F.
On August 7th, John was
granted a forty-day furlough to go north. By the time he
rejoined the regiment at St. Charles, Arkansas, he had been
gone too long. John was restored to duty with a loss of pay
and allowances for fifteen days, that being the time “he was
absent without any reasonable excuse.” He continued with the
regiment during service along Arkansas’ White River and when
it later moved to Memphis. They were still there on December
21st when they were ordered to accompany cavalry in what would
be an unsuccessful attempt to intercept Confederate General
Hood after his defeat at Nashville. The expedition was brief
and during their return to Memphis, they camped at White’s
Station. While there, Jim Bethard would later tell his wife,
they saw a crowd at a nearby house and, thinking enemy
soldiers might be present:
“two squads from the
regiment surrounded a house, but failed to give proper
passwords and shot at each other at not more than ten paces
distant before the mistake was discovered but fortunately
owing to the darkness and the excitement of the men the shots
were wild and nobody was killed and only two wounded John
Green of co K was shot through both thighs but no bones were
broken.”
John’s injuries were disabling and he was
hospitalized in Memphis before being allowed to go north to
recuperate. On March 17, 1865, he reported at Camp McClellan
in Davenport seeking transportation back to his regiment
which, by then, was involved in a campaign to capture the city
of Mobile. He caught up with it on the east side of Mobile Bay
on March 25th and continued with the regiment during its
remaining service in Alabama and Louisiana before camping near
Baton Rouge. On July 12th, his brothers were transferred to a
consolidated 34th/38th regiment to complete their enlistments,
while others remained in camp. John was mustered out with the
regiment on July 15th, went north on the Lady Gay and was
discharged at Clinton on July 24th.
Postwar acts of
Congress recognized that many soldiers, while sick or wounded,
had failed to secure discharges from their regiments before
serving in another regiment and the Adjutant General of the
Army was authorized to issue “a certificate of discharge” from
the regiment “in which he first served.” As a result, military
rosters and records show that John is regarded as having been
“discharged May 16, 1862, Davenport, Iowa” from Iowa’s 16th
Infantry.
Like most Union veterans, he applied for a
postwar pension. Early laws required proof of a
service-related total or partial incapacity to earn a living
by manual labor. Subsequent acts became increasingly liberal
and eventually were based solely on age, a requisite period of
service and an honorable discharge without any need to show an
inability to work. John applied for and received monthly
pensions.
John’s father died in 1883; his mother in 1894.
Both are buried in Delaware County’s Buck Creek Cemetery as is
John’s older brother Newton Green who died in 1904.
John, however, left the county. In affidavits and in response
to questionnaires from the Bureau of Pensions, John said he
and Hanna made their home near Worthington in Dubuque County
for three years after leaving the military and then moved to
Nashua in Chickasaw County for six years. During that time,
Hanna gave birth to Charles A. on May 11, 1866, Ida L. on
April 17, 1868, Bertha A. on September 20, 1870, and Walter
Allen on April 25, 1872.
About 1874 the family of seven
moved to Nebraska. Eda M. was born on May 7, 1874, Millard R.
on August 13, 1876, Mable S. on June 4, 1878, Oliver C. on
April 18, 1881, and Earl D. on August 25, 1885. Ten years
later Hanna Green died on September 23, 1895. She is buried in
Prospect Hill Cemetery in Norfolk, Nebraska. On May 8, 1916,
John died and, like Hanna, was buried in Prospect Hill
Cemetery.
After a veteran’s death, wives frequently
applied for their own “widow’s pension.” Both John and his
daughter, Bertha, with whom he lived near the end of his life,
said he had married only once in the twenty-one years after
Hanna’s death, but archive records are confusing as to the
identity of that second wife. In 1915, John had told the
government his second wife was “hariet M. maiden name Harriet
M. Skinner” and that they married on January 11, 1911, in
Kansas City, Missouri. After his death there was no widow’s
claim by Harriet, but there was a widow’s claim by Hannah E.
Green who said she had married John on December 8, 1897,
“under the name of Hanna E. Pepper, at Norfolk, Neb.” Bertha
didn’t give the name of her father’s second wife, but did say
the wife, whoever she was, had “abandoned him October 1915.”
Government records are silent as to whether a widow’s claim
was allowed. |
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| ~ Compiled & submitted by
Carl Ingwalson <cingwalson@cfilaw.com> |
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United We Stand