Born in Licking County, Ohio, on December 29, 1828, Onesimus W. Whitehead married Mary Jane Davis in 1851 and was working as a farm laborer in Dry Point Township, Shelby County, Illinois, by the time the Civil War began.

Whitehead enlisted in Company C, 35th Illinois Infantry on July 3, 1861, and was mustered into service on August 30, 1861 as the company’s first sergeant. Whitehead and the 35th Illinois took part in the battles of Pea Ridge, Perryville and Stones River.

Mustered out of the 35th Illinois, Whitehead was commissioned a first lieutenant in Company F of the Mississippi Marine Brigade’s First Infantry Regiment in March 1863, and served with the brigade until the end of the war. The Mississippi Marine Brigade, a mixed army force of artillery, cavalry and infantry troops, traveled by boat and operated under the direction of the U.S. Navy. The brigade’s primary role was to keep the Mississippi open for Union river traffic.

Much of Whitehead’s post-Civil War life is unknown. By 1880, he was living in Tower Hill Township, Shelby County, Illinois, and working as a farmer, but by 1883 had relocated to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was suffering from a disease of the lungs. He died of consumption in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 29, 1884.

Mary J. Davis Whitehead died in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1913.

Carte-de-Visite by unknown photographer.

Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 32002