The History of the Fifty-ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteers

BY DR. D. LATHROP.
HALL & HUTCHINSON, PRINTERS AND BINDERS, INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 1865.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, BY DR. DAVID LATHROP, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District of Indiana.
HALL & HUTCHINSON, STEREOTYPERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS.
Early in the month of May, 1861, C. H. Frederick and David McGibbon, two prominent citizens of St. Louis, Mo., called on General Lyon, and proffered to raise a regiment of infantry, to serve for three years, or during the war. C. H. Frederick, having previously served his country in a military capacity, and being familiar with military tactics, was deemed by General Lyon, a very suitable person to engage in the undertaking, and immediately authorized to recruit and organize a regiment, and to have command of the same.
Colonel Frederick, at the breaking out of the rebellion, was engaged in a lucrative business in St. Louis, but at the call of his country he sacrificed his profitable interests, and gave his energies to the preservation of the Union. After an immense amount of difficulty, Colonel Frederick and his co-worker, Major McGibbon, working night and day, succeeded in enlisting enough loyal friends in and around St. Louis, to enable them to accomplish their purpose. By the middle of June three companies, and a nucleus of the fourth, was collected and rendezvoused at the St. Louis arsenal. Captains Hale, Renfrew, Veatch, and Elliott commanding.
About this time Captain S. W. Kelly was induced to become a recruiting officer, to assist in filling up the regiment. By the 24th of June he had recruited seventy men in his own neighborhood, and on that day an election was held, and S. W. Kelly was unanimously elected Captain, John Kelly First Lieutenant, and H. J. Maynard Second Lieutenant. On the 6th day of August, 1861, Captain Kelly numbered on the muster roll of his company, (F,) at the St. Louis Arsenal, seventy-one men; and through his influence three other companies had joined in the organization of the regiment. Captain Stookey, of Belleville, Ill., had recruited a large company of men for the service, and was now induced to join this regiment, thus making nine companies in rendezvous at the Arsenal on the 6th day of August.