Civil War Union Soldier: Benjamin Franklin Wilder



Union Soldiers of the Michigan Calvary

Genealogy of Hazel Belle Wilder

My Paternal Grandmother, Hazel Belle Wilder was born on May 14, 1895 in Reed City, Michigan.  She was a granddaughter of two very interesting men: Benjamin Franklin Wilder and Alexander Hilts.  Both these men served for the Union Army during the Civil War.  Each one had survived but suffered injuries or capture during their service. 

This article will be about Hazel’s Paternal Grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Wilder.  He supplied enough information on his application for a veteran’s pension from the Federal Government in 1877 for me to confirm and put in chronological order his company’s involvement with Morgan’s Raid where he was wounded and a battle at Fayetteville NC where he was captured during the last weeks of the Civil War.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WILDER was born on February 12, 1832 in Cherry Ridge, Wayne County, Pennsylvania.  On the 1850 census he was listed as an 18 year old male child of Samuel Wilder. 

He was 5 feet 4 ¾ inches tall, light complexion, blue eyes and light hair color.  He moved to Brady Township Michigan as a young adult where he met Annis Jane Burdick whom he married on February 11, 1855.  His occupation was a Miller; a man who worked in saw mills or at logging sites.  Between 1855 and 1862, they had 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls. In 1862 they moved to Union Town, Michigan where their second son, David Wells Wilder (Hazel’s father) was born.

Captain Jonas McGowan of Co I, 9th
 Regiment Michigan Calvary
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December 18, 1862:

Early in the morning of December 18^th, a bitter cold winter day, 30 year old Benjamin Franklin Wilder enlisted in the Union Army for three years in Company I, 9^th Regiment Michigan Calvary Volunteers.  He mustered in as a private on January 22, 1863 at Coldwater Michigan.  

The Ninth Regiment Michigan Calvary Volunteers consisted of 12 Companies under the command of Colonel James L. David.   Colonel David, from Trenton Michigan, was 39 years old.  Each company had roughly 110 men not counting the officers.  Assisting Colonel David was Major William B. Way, age 27 from Pontiac Michigan. 

The Ninth Regiment was well equipped with the Spencer Rifles.  This rifle was a magazine gun capable of firing seven times without reloading.  The 9^th Regiment handled special duty assignments and was often on the skirmish line.  As a Calvary unit, their mounts were the best to be found at the beginning of the Civil War.

The officer in charge of the outfit Ben had joined was Captain Jonas H. McGowan.  Captain McGowan, age 25, had been promoted quickly from a private in the Fifth Regiment to Sergeant of his company.  He made Captain of the Ninth Regiment in November 1862.  Company I had 107 enlisted men ranging from age 18 to 45 years and 4 officers.  Captain McGowan would soon lead his troops into the field early in 1863 on what was to become known as the “Morgan’s Raid”. 



The Ninth Regiment was ordered to disburse by detachments in May of 1863 to Covington KY then to Hickman’s Bridge.  On June 4^th, 1863 they were ordered to pursue confederate guerrillas.  After being ordered to Mount Sterling on June 12^th, 1863 they completed the assigned task and overtook confederate guerrillas at Triplett’s Bridge.  The Ninth Regiment was routed back to Hickman’s Bridge on June 25th, 1863.

Morgan’s Raiders.

June 25^th, 1863:

The Ninth Regiment entered the campaign against Confederate Brig. General John Hunt Morgan and his 2,460 troops.  Colonel David pushed the Ninth Regiment hard traveling as many as 50 miles or more a day in pursuit of General Morgan.

June 28^th, 1863:

The Ninth Regiment Michigan Calvary entered Stanford Ohio.  

July 4^th, 1863:

Continuing on with the exhausting pressure to catch the confederates, they arrived in Lebanon Ohio where they joined with other Union forces and drove Morgan and his troops from the town. 

July 6^th, 1863:

The Ninth Regiment reached Danville, Ohio where they joined forces with Colonel W. T. Saunders of the 5^th Kentucky Calvary who assumed full command of all Regiments and formed a brigade. The Eighth and Ninth Regiment Michigan Calvary were absorbed into the brigade.

July 7^th, 1863:

Companies “D”, “H”, “B” of the Ninth Regiment were put under the command of Major Gallagher. 

July 7^th, 1863:

Major Gallagher and his companies engaged Morgan at Cummings Ford, Ohio but returned to Lawrenceburg Ohio when Morgan and his troops broke free of the blockade and escaped.

July 12^th, 1863:

 The Ninth Regiment regrouped and marched to Westport Ohio where they divided once again.

July 14^th, 1863:

“C”, “K” and portions of companies “A”, “B” and “L” of the Ninth Regiment became under Colonel David once again as he pursued Morgan to Lawrenceburg, Ohio.

July 15^th, 1863:

The Ninth Regiment companies “A”, “B”, “F” and “L” joined Lt. Colonel Acker who marched on to Cincinnati Ohio.

July 15^th, 1863:  

Benjamin Wilder and the rest of Company I were put under the command of Major Way who took the Ninth Regiment companies of “D”, “E”, “H” and “I” and joined under Lt. Gallagher as they left Westport Ohio on board transports, arrived in Cincinnati Ohio on July 16^th, 1863 went directly to Covington Ky., and stayed there until July 24^th, 1863.

July 16^th, 1863:

Colonel David and his troops arrived in Portsmouth Ohio, pushing the rebels in the direction of Chester Ohio and overran them there and they captured many confederate prisoners.

July 26^th, 1863:

The weather on July 26^th, 1863 was very warm and humid.  Benjamin Wilder rode his mount with the rest of Major Way’s combined units of the Ninth Regiment. They moved to Portsmouth Ohio to meet up with Colonel David and his troops. Major Way’s command joined in the pursuit of Morgan. Way's troops traveled by way of the Little Miami Railroad passing through Salineville.  At Salineville a battle broke out between the Union forces and the Confederate troops under Brigadier General Morgan.  Morgan was riding down the railroad tracks toward Smith’s Ford until he reached  New Lisbon Road, Here Morgan’s Raiders were finally cut off and surrounded by Major W. B.Way and Major G. W. Rue's Union Calvary..

Benjamin Wilder was injured in the fighting outside of Salineville, Ohio. It was near Salineville that Morgan’s famous raid into Ohio and Indiana ended:

Major W.B. Way, of the Ninth Regiment Calvary, reported as follows from Salineville:

“I engaged Morgan at about 8 o’clock this morning, about one and a half miles from this town, and after a severe fight, routed Morgan, killing 20 or 30, wounding about 50, took 200 prisoners, 150 horses and 150 stands of small arms. I delivered the prisoners and horses to Colonel Gallagher, 54^th PA. Infantry…” source: The Union Army, Vol 6, p. 772.

July 31^st, 1863:

Colonel David regrouped his Michigan regiments and returned to Covington, Kentucky and formed part of the expedition under General Burnside when he crossed the Cumberland Mountains and took Knoxville Tennessee. 

1863 to July 1865:

Historical war accounts only illustrate how the Ninth Regiment Michigan Calvary moved against the Confederates.  There is no accounting from the pension papers on other locations Benjamin Wilder may have fought in until his capture on March 11^th, 1865 at Fayetteville North Carolina where he was a prisoner of war.

March 11^th, 1865:

On Saturday morning, a brief skirmish took place at the Market House in Fayetteville, NC when Confederate Lt. General Wade Hampton’s rear guard detachment surprised a Union Calvary patrol. One of the Union Federal Soldiers came around the corner from Russell Street and proceeded to fire at the Lt General Hampton who was on the south side of Market House.  Hampton’s men killed 11 Union soldiers and captured a dozen Union soldiers on March 11, 1865.  Ben Wilder was one of the dozen Union soldiers captured. 

April 5^th, 1865:

          Ben was paroled from prison and sent to Camp Chase, Ohio

June 25, 1865;

          Ben was discharged from the Union Army at Camp Chase, Ohio.

Benjamin Wilder’s application for a military pension of $20.00 per month for his Civil War veteran service was approved and began on December 5, 1887 continued until his death on December 28, 1910.

On his pension application he stated that upon leaving Camp Chase, Ohio, he went home to Brady Township in Michigan to rejoin his wife and children.  He lived there from June of 1865 till the fall of 1870, working whenever he was able to find work.

He worked in sawmills of Alex Ransom.  He and his family moved to Hersey, Osceola County, Michigan and lived there until about the fall of 1877 where he was engaged in logging and did not work as a laborer as he was the owner of the logging business.  He had to hire all his help.  He then moved to Farewell, Clair County, Michigan and lived there until September 1881, continuing his logging business as he did in Hersey.  He moved to Minneapolis Minnesota...  In Minneapolis he worked as a sawfiler in saw mills.

He moved to Shelton Washington in 1905.  His wife, Annis Jane Burdick Wilder died of bronchitis on January 22, 1905 right after their arrival in Shelton Washington.  He and Annis Jane had 9 children.

Benjamin Franklin Wilder’s life ended on December 28, 1910 from Mitral regurgitation.  He is buried in the Shelton Memorial Park in the family plot in the IOOF section of the cemetery among his wife, children, grand children and great grandchildren. 

“Michigan's Contribution to the Civil War:”

·         From April 1861 to April 1865, Michigan furnished 90,747 men, not counting 1,982 men commuting and 4,000 Michigan men who served in the units of other states. The first Michigan troops discharged from federal service, the 20th Regiment of Infantry, arrived in the state from the battle field on June 4, 1865 and the last, the Third and Fourth Infantry, arrived on June 10, 1866.

·         According to official regimental commander's reports, Michigan men engaged the enemy on more than 800 occasions. Of officers serving, 177 were killed, 85 died of wounds, and 96 died of disease. Among the enlisted men, 2,643 were killed, 1,302 died of wounds, and 10,040 died of disease.

·         During the war, Michigan furnished more than 30 regiments of infantry (including the First Colored, 102nd United States, Infantry), a regiment of engineers and mechanics, light artillery of 12 six-gun batteries, two batteries of medium artillery, a regiment of sharpshooters, 11 regiments of cavalry.[1]

All rights reserved: written by Linda Jarbo Ward,

           

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[1] Dept of Military and Veterans Affairs

http://www.michigan.gov/dmva/0,1607,7-126-2360_3003_3009-16995--,00.html

Collateral Line research on Icelandic relatives

“Collateral Line” is a family member who is not a direct line of ascent but who shares a common ancestor and the research of family genealogical records is done through the collateral individual. Researching my Icelandic family line through my Great Grandmother’s sister Josie Goodman was far easier and more interesting than trying to trace my Icelandic roots with the paternal side direct line of my Great Grandmother, Maud Goodman whose year of birth was 1868.
The information I found from the 1900 North Dakota Census was that Maud Goodman was from Iceland, mother to William, Frederick, Edna, Elva, and married to Pascal Jarbo my French Great Grandfather. Their wedding took place about 1888 in the Dakota Territory. At that time North Dakota was not a state.
When I began to research the Goodman Icelandic family line, the internet was in its infantile stage and computers were still MSDOS. The available options were to research through the Local LDS Family History centers and/or the public library’s microfiche of old census records, cemetery records, newspaper archives, funeral records, death certificates and family interviews.
During the initial Jarbo family research I found and met an elderly Jarbo cousin in his 80’s who gave me the first crack in the Icelandic ice flow. He used to visit his Aunt Josie Hull in Blaine, Washington as a young boy which was in the early to mid 1920’s. He told me that Josie Hull was Maud Jarbo’s sister and her maiden name was Goodman.
The basic principal of any research is patience, patience and more patience. I traveled to the Tacoma Washington Public Library’s Genealogy department many times. This library’s genealogy department became my second home on weekends. I finally found a Josie Goodman living with her “father-in-law” William P Andrus in Walsh County in the 1900 census for North Dakota. Her son, Herbert, age 6 years was born in North Dakota. I could not find any records of Maud or Josie’s parents.
In 1999, I hired a researcher listed on a North Dakota Genealogy Webpage. His task was to find out the name of Josie Goodman’s parents and her husband’s name so I could move forward with my research. He found a Josie Goodman marrying a Thomas C. Workman on December 23, 1901 at Grand Forks, North Dakota. I wasn’t sure that the Josie he found was Maud’s sister.

Family always follows family when you are doing genealogy. It seems one family member will move away and the send for the rest of the family later.
My Jarbo family moved from North Dakota to Washington State after 1906. They settled in Bellingham, Whatcom County according to the Polk Directory for Bellingham. The Polk Directory did not have any record of Josie Hull or Josie Workman living either in Bellingham or Blaine from 1906 to 1910.
The 1920 census was finally on-line and was one of the free searches available to the public at that time from Ancestry.com. In the Whatcom County Custer Township of Blaine City Census records I found a Josie Hull, 51 years old living in Blaine, Widowed with a 17 year old son, named Harold born in North Dakota about 1903. She was Icelandic and so were her parents. The Josie Hull living in Blaine matched the information supplied by the elderly Jarbo cousin.
Was this the same Josie Hull (AKA Josie Goodman who was AKA Josie Andrus and was AKA Josie Workman) who was possibly the sister to Maud? The big break came in 2003 when I found Josie on the 1910 Census for Blaine Washington.
In 2003 I spent countless hours at the Tacoma Public Library. One particular Saturday afternoon, frustrated because I could not find any documentation of Josie Goodman or Workman or Hull I made up my mind I would not leave the library until I found a clue of some sort.
As the hours dragged by my husband became bored beyond belief and created such a distraction for me I spoke harshly to him. I told him to leave me to my work and for him to move to another location. I watched him move over to another table. Feeling guilty about how I spoke to him, I decided to throw in the towel and take him home.
I turned my attention back to the microfiche machine and right before my eyes I saw “Josie Workman”, widowed living with her sister Maggie Lindal in Blaine in 1910. Josie was from North Dakota and her birth information matched my records. (To this day, my husband feels he deserves full credit for finding Josie Workman because he distracted me enough for my mind to re-focus on my work.)
The Washington State Library in Olympia, Washington, has all the state newspapers archived on microfilm. In the Bellingham Herald for 1909 to 1915 there was an article dated August 12, 1912 that brought Josie closer home to me. I had no idea that Josie Workman had remarried until I found an obituary article about Charles Apollis Hull, aged 43 who had died from injuries sustained in a serious accident while at work. His wife, Josie Hull had been by his side when the end came.
I contacted the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle by mail, asking for any information that might lead me to my Icelandic grandparents . I received a reply from Dr. Theodore R. Beck who sent copies of pages from the Vesturfaraskra 1870-1914 of all the Gudmundsson’s who left Iceland between 1870 and 1878 and who had a daughter born in 1868 (Maud’s year of birth) plus or minus 10 years. He selected 5 families that met his criteria. What a treasure of information he gave me but I still could not link any family to my information.
I posted all the know Goodman family information I had to a Icelandic Website. Several months later a Fridrik Gudmundsson from Iceland connected my Icelander family to a specific location in Nova Scotia. Based on his information, I went back to the original 5 families from Dr. Beck’s information and reviewed them.
I found a match—a complete family match. It listed the true Icelandic names, parent’s names and age, what children that were living at the time of departure from Iceland and the area of Iceland they left from and the probable arrival location:
Johannes Gudmundsson age 36 & family left in 1874 from Stapabud Iceland:
Solveig Jonsdottir, his wife.
Sigridur Johannesdottir, a daughter.
Joveig Johannesdottir, (my Great Aunt Josie Goodman).
Oddny Johannesdottir, (my Great Grandmother, Maud Goodman Jarbo). Jonina Margaret Johannesdottir, (possibly my Great Aunt Maggie Lindal).
The logical way to emigrate from Iceland was by sea. I found a ship’s manifest from the article:
“Emigration From Iceland to North America passenger list of the S.S.St.Patrick, 1874”

The S.S. ST Patrick carried 351 passengers from Iceland to Quebec in 1874. The Gudmondsson’s had boarded the ship at Akureyri Iceland on September 4, 1874. The page number of the Vesturfaraskra was shown on the ship’s manifest as page 121. The page of the Vesturfaraskra sent to me by Dr. Beck was page 121. There was my family in black and white on their way to Quebec Canada. They landed on August 17, 1874.
Johannes Gudmondsson, took a land grant from the Canadian Government and left for Nova Scotia with his wife and children to a settlement in Markland Nova Scotia in October 1875. During the years in the Nova Scotia Settlement, a daughter was born in 1876 and a son was born in 1878. A teen-aged daughter died in 1881. The Gudmondsson family did not appear on the 1881 Nova Scotia Census.
The entire family disappeared after they left the Nova Scotia settlement. It appears they left due to extreme hardships to whereabouts unknown until the Maud and Josie showed up on the 1900 Walsh County Census for North Dakota.
The connecting proof that allowed me to conclude Josie Goodman Workman Hull was indeed my Great Aunt and that her father was Johannes Goodman and her mother was Solveig Jonsdottir would finally come from records in the Blaine Cemetery.
Josie Hull died in 1941 in California and her body was interned in the Blaine Cemetery in 1947. It appears that her son, Harold W. Hull of California (evidently he took HULL as his last name) had his mother’s body buried in the same grave as Charles Apollis Hull. Josie Hull’s name, birth and death information is engraved on the back side of the marble head stone of Charles Apollis Hull.
While at the Blaine Cemetery, I recorded the names of deceased Goodman from surrounding head stones in the same section where Josie was buried.
A Johannes Goodman was buried close to Josie. Was this her father?
I went back to the newspaper archives in Olympia at the Washington State Library. This is where I found Johannes Goodman’s obituary posted in the Blaine Journal. Josie Hull and Margaret Thorenson were listed as his daughters and a son, William Goodman. Solveig Jonsdottir was listed as his wife and she had passed before Johannes.
Halleluiah!!! My search for the Icelandic relatives was finished for my direct line thanks to Josie Goodman. Maud, Josie and Margaret were sisters with a brother named William. Father was Johannes Gudmondsson and mother was Solveig Jonsdottir.
I still don’t know where Johannes took his family between 1881 and before 1888 in North Dakota. Each year in August, Pembina County has an Icelandic festival. I hope to attend some year and gain access to their data base so I can gather more information on him and his family.
I am not done yet: I want to know more about Maggie Lindal who remarried sometime after 1910. Is Maggie Lindal Margaret Thorenson? Who is William Goodman and where did he disappear to? What happened to Herbert W. Hull? Did he have any children?
So many questions remain ………