The History of Company A, Second Illinois Cavalry

by Samuel H. Fletcher; D. H. Fletcher

Among the victims of the disaster was J. A. Butterfield of Company A, whose home was in Oregon, Illinois. Butterfield had just been admitted to practice at the Oregon Bar, when the war broke out. He enlisted at the organization of the Company in Oregon, was present at the first election of officers and served earnestly and faithfully during the term of his three years enlistment, after which he was appointed as chief citizen clerk for a Division Quartermaster at a considerable salary. At the close of the war he resigned his position and started home with the intention of announcing his candidacy for Sheriff of Ogle County. His body was never recovered. It was known that he had a large sum of money in his possession which would have been a great aid to the dependent mother and sister whom he left behind. Butterfield was a brave and manly soldier and a general favorite with the members of his company.

Bitter as was the feeling against the Northern soldiers, it did not approach in vindictiveness and malignant hatred, that which existed against Southern men who fought upon the Union side. There were two Southerners in our company: John S. Elder and James Neiley whose experiences were typical of those of thousands throughout the South. Elder was a native of Tennessee. About three years before the war he migrated with his parents to Denton County, Texas. His father was a staunch supporter of the Union and did not hesitate to announce his principles. His attitude was well known in the community where he lived and as partizan feeling increased, he became a marked man. At the outbreak of hostilities, he was called to Austin and was never afterwards seen by his friends. While there was no proof as to the cause of his mysterious disappearance, circumstances pointed to but one conclusion. To his family, no proof was necessary: they knew what had happened. Shortly after the father's loss, John, an only son, was forced into the Confederate service. He was discreet and bided his time. At the battle of Prairie Grove, he escaped, made his way into the Union lines and succeeded in reaching St. Louis. This was shortly after the battle at Holly Springs, at which a portion of the Second Illinois Cavalry gained wide distinction by refusing to surrender to greatly superior numbers. Elder was looking for a chance to fight by the side of fighting men. Seeing in the St. Louis papers a graphic account of the Holly Springs incident, he immediately embarked for Memphis in the hope of finding the regiment. He was too late however and went on to the vicinity of Vicksburg where he was informed that Company A was with General Logan at Lake Providence. Arriving at the latter place, he presented himself to Captain Hotaling with whom he had a long conference. Hotaling was strongly impressed by Elder's bearing and words and the conference resulted in his immediate enlistment. The new recruit proved to be a valuable acquisition. He was a skillful horseman, an unerring shot, always cheerful and courteous, ready to perform the most arduous duty and, withal, fearless.

Shortly after his enlistment the company started upon the campaign in the rear of Vicksburg. Elder was wounded at the Battle of Port Gibson during the first day of the campaign but went on with the command and participated in every hardship and engagement until the surrender of Vicksburg. He was with the company in all of its campaigning in Louisiana and was one of the twenty-two who re-enlisted at New Iberia. Debarred from his home, he was adopted by the veterans of the company as a "war orphan"; and, when veteran furloughs were granted, accompanied his comrades to the North where he was the subject of universal sympathy and generous hospitality.

Elder returned with his friends to the front and remained a valiant, fearless fighter to the end. During the last fight in which the company was engaged, which occurred at Fort Blakely, a charge was made upon the Confederate works. The latter were protected by an abatis in which torpedoes were placed and so connected by wires that an abnormal tension upon a wire would cause an explosion. Elder was mounted upon a fine horse which ran against one of these wires directly over a torpedo. The explosion which followed tore the horse into shreds, but, owing to the intervention of its body, did not kill but only served to stun the rider who soon recovered from the shock.

When the regiment was mustered out at San Antonio, Texas, Elder wished to go home and visit his mother; but upon the advice of friends and some old citizens of San Antonio, he gave it up as involving too great a risk and accompanied his comrades to Rochelle, where he remained until the following spring when his anxiety to see his mother caused him to return to Texas. It was a fatal step. As soon as his presence became known, a party of ex-Confederates assembled at night, surrounded the mother's house, captured the son, hanged him to a tree and riddled the body with bullets.

James Neiley who was reared in western Louisiana had a similar experience. He found his way into the Union lines during the Red River Expedition, and upon the return of General Banks' Army, enlisted in Company A. Neiley was quite young but proved himself an excellent and faithful soldier, was liked and respected by all of his comrades, and served with credit to the end of the war when he went to Rochelle with the others. In the following year he returned with Elder and went to his home near Alexandria, Louisiana, where he had been about a week when he met with the same dreadful fate that had been meted out to his friend.

And so perished two manly souls—victims to the terrible aftermath of war. Can there be compensation for such unspeakable atrocities which take the best and leave the worst? It may be; but this is a grist for "the mills of the Gods" to grind.

And now—my tale is told. My sole excuse for telling it is that others, who might have done it have not made the attempt, and but few are left. I offer no apology for its crudities, imperfections or omissions. I am confident that our Company engaged in not less than a hundred skirmishes and encounters of which I have made no mention. The space which should have been allotted to it in the Red River Expedition is almost a blank. My silence as to many individual deeds of valor and self-sacrifice has not been intentional. I would gladly have called the roll and enumerated them one by one, for it would have been a roll of honor of which all might be justly proud.

The worth of my story, if it has worth, lies in what it has preserved to the world as worthy. If it be interesting at all, it is because it has been done as a work of love in an attempt to do justice to, and to preserve some faint memory of a handful of men who were typical of that great host—some of whom gave all—and all of whom risked all, for a cause which has struggled towards the light since the first man gazed longingly and reverently at the stars.

In the outcome of the great struggle, both sides won an equal victory, our friends, as the liberators of a race, our foes as the liberated from a degrading curse; a success and a defeat which made victor and vanquished alike the beneficiaries of a great inheritance; an inheritance, sanctified by a higher hope and a broader love; an inheritance founded in the conviction of the regal souls of the past that that for which man has so long wrought amid travail and pain and joy and woe and sighs and tears and blood, "shall not perish from the earth," but that this nation shall be its sponsor and its incarnation and may say to all the lands of the earth, "Right is eternal; it must and shall reign; 'Your people shall be my people.'"