Illinois Regiments
There are three Illinois regiments and one Ohio regiment represented in the Chapin-McNeil family letters: the 125th Illinois Infantry, the 10th Illinois Cavalry, the 2nd Illinois Cavalry, and the 76th Ohio Infantry.
The 125th Illinois Volunteer Infantry
Richard Christy, second husband to the widowed Marcia (Chapin) Christy, was a member of the 125th Illinois Infantry, Company F, who enlisted on August 7, 1862 (Rogers 194). The 125th Illinois was mustered in Danville, Illinois out of Newcomb, East Bend, and Mahomet (formerly Middletown) townships on September 3, 1862.
One notable incident from this regiment that took place away from the warfront was the near-mutiny by members of the 85th, 86th, and 125th Illinois as well as the 52nd and 69th Ohio Infantry regiments, who jointly came to be known as the Second Brigade. Newly placed under the command of Major General Gordon Granger, the combined regiments nearly rioted after Granger issued a command to the soldiers to refrain from foraging to supplement their meager rations. When it was found out that soldiers had directly disobeyed orders by foraging despite the command–including members of the Illinois 125th–Granger called for the men to be horsewhipped. Not liking this one bit, the Second Brigade surrounded Granger’s tent and insisted that if the men were whipped, they would kill him.
Negotiations were conducted, and the punishment was lessened significantly to spending an entire night tied to wagon wheels by their thumbs, forcing them to become victim to the mosquitos that so heavily permeated the region. From that point forward, the men held such a deep distrust for the Major General that one member of the 125th called Granger a “tyrant, and a man of ungovernable passion” (Rogers 76).
Despite their tumultuous relationship with leadership, the 125th Illinois Infantry was an incredibly resilient group. This regiment saw an unusually large amount of first hand combat, and was present at many major battles including Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw Mountain, Jonesborough, and Bentonville. The Battle at Kennesaw Mountain resulted in a higher number of casualties than the regiment would face during the rest of the war combined, with five of the deceased hailing from Company F.
Richard Christy's continued survival through these particularly gruesome battles is evident of a stoke of very good luck at the very least, and immense skill in combat and personal resilence at best.
The 10th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry
Oscar Chapin was a member of the 10th Illinois Cavalry, which was mustered on November 25, 1861. Company I was the group of men organized from Champaign, Illinois. After almost five months of training at various camps, the 10th Illinois was moved to the warfront in Springfield, Missouri. Comprised of Companies C, F, I, and M, the third battalion of the 10th Illinois was under the command of Major Marshall L. Stephenson. Their early mobilization efforts were widespread and varied in nature.
The second and third battalions traveled together to Keetsville, Missouri at the beginning of July 1862 and returned to Springfield twelve days later. Along their nearly two week journey, they were a far-reaching, extremely mobile cohort tasked with protecting Union-allied civilians that lived in the area from Confederate vigilante groups (Behrens 258). Because of the wide range of their exploits, a portion of the 10th Illinois encountered a much larger Confederate regiment in Cane Hill, Arkansas. The segmented Union forces killed one man and took a few prisoners.
Later, in December of 1862, the second and third battalions joined Major General F.J. Herron’s forces in an attempt to assist the Union cause in Cane Hill, Arkansas. The 10th Illinois supported the Union artillery, and after the battle, accompanied federally-allocated supplies on their way to Fayetteville, Arkansas. The third battalion remained in Fayetteville for some time.
The 2nd Illinois Volunteer Cavalry
John Englebert Schwartze, known in these letters simply as 'E. Schwartze,' was a family friend of Dorcas (McNeil) Chapin. He was a member of Company I in the 2nd Illinois Cavalry; the company was organized from Champaign, Illinois and the regiment as a whole was mustered-in at Camp Butler in Springfield, Illinois. Camp Butler was the second largest Union training settlement during the Civil War, and was used following the fall of Fort Donelson in 1862 as a prison to house the many Confederate Prisoners of War that resulted from that battle (National Park Service).
The 2nd Illinois Cavalry was split into smaller battalions comprised of different companies that were haphazardly grouped together; it was common for cavalry to group up this way to cover a wide range of geological areas while operating autonomously. The regiment’s early exploits quickly led to a split between the men. Company I was part of the first battalion, along with Companies A, B, C, D, and L. On October 3, 1961, the first battalion was stationed in Cairo, Illinois. The second battalion consisting of five other companies was moved to Paducah, Kentucky at the start of November. This bolstering of Union forces is mentioned in Schwartze’s letter to Dorcas Chapin.
In the spring of 1862, Company I was involved in the battles of Island Number Ten in New Madrid, Kentucky and at Fort Pillow. Other notable battles included Holly Springs (a Union supply depot), the capture of Vicksburg, and several encounters with Confederates at Vermillionville. Eventually, Schwartze reenlisted as a veteran and was discharged as a Sargent (Behrens 245).
The 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Richard "Welling" Burt, father-in-law to Mary (Chapin) Burt, was a member of the 76th Ohio Infantry, which fought at the battle of Fort Donelson, and is mentioned several times throughout the Chapin-McNeil letters. Mary resided in Welling's home for a period of time in 1862. Welling published a book titled "War Songs, Poems, and Odes" in the year 1906, and among the collection is a poem titled "Licking Volunteers at the Battle of Fort Donelson."