Charles Bates Jr., from Grasshopper Falls (Valley Falls), Kansas, enlisted in the 11th Kansas Infantry on August 15, 1862; he was mustered into federal service on September 15, 1862. In late April 1863 the 11th Kansas Infantry was reorganized as the 11th Kansas Cavalry. The regiment saw action at the 1864 battles of ...
Zimri Barber Bates, a native of New York and a farmer in Sangamon County, Illinois in 1860, listed his residence as Elkhart, Logan County, Illinois when he joined Company G, 10th Illinois Cavalry in November 1861. Commissioned a first lieutenant, Bates was promoted to captain of the company in 1862. The regiment saw ...
Painting by an unknown artist from the perspective of the rear of the Union lines during the Battle of Kirksville, Missouri, August 6-9, 1862. Sent by Major General Sterling Price to enlist troops in northeast Missouri, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Porter and his recruits fought a number of skirmishes with Union forces in that ...
Undated photograph of John Becker and his wife; John Becker mustered into Federal service as assistant surgeon of the 13th Kansas Volunteer Infantry on September 20, 1862, at Atchison, Kansas. The regiment fought in the 1862 battles of Newtonia and Prairie Grove, and in numerous skirmishes. Becker resigned his commission on February 27, ...
Henry Ward Beecher was born on June 24, 1813, in Litchfield, Connecticut; his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In 1847, he became the first minister of the new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Beecher was an advocate of women’s suffrage, temperance, and Darwin’s theory of evolution, and ...
Francis Bennett enlisted in Company G, 4th Iowa Infantry at Mt. Ayr, Iowa, on July 4, 1861, and mustered into federal service at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, on August 15, 1861. On February 11, 1863 he was promoted to lieutenant. After the war, Bennett applied for an invalid pension, claiming he was wounded in ...
Born on March 14, 1782, at Harts Mill, North Carolina, Thomas Hart Benton studied law at the University of North Carolina, but as a young man was attracted by opportunities in the West. He moved his family to a 40,000 acre holding near Nashville, Tennessee. There he established a plantation with schools, churches and mills. ...
Daguerreotype by Unknown Photographer Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30002
Carte-de-Visite by Unknown Photographer Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 31767
George Bingham was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, on August 9, 1824; he moved with his family to Saline County, Missouri, in 1825. At the age of twenty-one he established a wool-carding business in Arrow Rock, which he continued to operate until 1848. In 1852, Bingham, along with his brother, opened a wagon ...
Henry Bishop of Chicago enlisted and was mustered into Company E, 7th Kansas Cavalry, also known as “Jennison’s Jayhawkers,” on August 4, 1861; he was promoted to sergeant on October 18, 1861. The 7th Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on October 28, 1861, and fought in the 1862 battles of Iuka ...
Colonel Josiah W. Bissell’s “Engineer Regiment of the West” was mustered into service in the fall of 1861. The regiment contained men from Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Iowa. Bissell’s Engineers contributed to Union battlefield victories early in the war, such as New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Corinth. They repaired and built ...
Edward Blackburn enlisted on July 12, 1861, in the 1st Northeast Missouri Home Guard Regiment, and fought at the Battle of Athens. He was promoted to first lieutenant on January 21, 1862, and mustered into Company G, 21st Missouri Infantry on February 1, 1862. He was promoted to captain on December 29, 1862, ...
Born in Lexington, Kentucky on February 19, 1821, the energetic, spoiled and rebellious “Frank” Blair was expelled from both Yale and the University of North Carolina for misconduct. He became a student at Princeton, but during his graduation week participated in a barroom brawl. Although initially denied his diploma, the faculty relented, and ...
