“I wish you were here if only for a short time.” Champaign County and the Civil War, 1861-1865

As we reflect on the 150th anniversary of the opening of hostilities, our display case exhibit commemorates the sacrifices of the men and women of Champaign County during the American Civil War. Images, letters, official documents, and a surprise or two help to tell the story of those who endured those difficult years from the local communities. All of the materials for the exhibit are taken from our collections here at the Champaign County Historical Archives.

We invite you to stop by and take a look anytime during our open hours: Monday-Saturday, 9AM-5PM, and Sunday 1-5PM.

Central Illinois Gazette, April 17, 1861

The news from 150 years ago:



...The Governor will call the Legislature of the State together in a few days (on the 23rd); appropriations in money, and demands for men will be made, to meet our share of this much is to be lamented necessity; but let it be done with a liberal hand. Illinois can furnish twenty-five thousand men that will be willing to lead the van to crush out secession and hang the Yanceys, Toombses, and Wigfalls [Southern secessionists]. This number would not be noticed out of the real bone and sinew of the State, but enough would be left to raise corn to feed the poor of Missisippi [sic] and the other secession states. We will whip the rebels with the one hand and feed their poor with the other.

Heaviest Snow for a Long Time

Outside Country Fair Shopping Center, Urbana Courier, January 25, 1979

The title to this post could easily refer to the weather conditions expected over the next few days. However, it refers to a 1906 Champaign Daily News article. Long-time Champaign County residents know that in winter, sooner or later, we will get snow. And sometimes, we will get a lot. Time after time, the area has suffered winter's worst.

In previous decades, large snowstorms could paralyze the area for days. The February 21, 1908 edition of the Ivesdale News tells us that all freight and passenger rail traffic was abandoned for the previous 36 hours and that "the storm was general throughout the middle states and reports from all points tell of terrible suffering caused by the storm."

Even in larger cities, such as Champaign-Urbana, arctic blasts caused life to grind to a halt. The March 19, 1906 edition of the Champaign Daily News noted that no Big Four rail traffic occurred the previous day. Trolley cars could not move until the roads were clear, and that even pedestrians experienced difficulty negotiating the treacherous conditions. The Wabash Railroad attempted to send out a passenger train at 8 o'clock that morning, but "ran into a big snow drift one mile southeast of Urbana and could neither go on nor back out. After vainly waiting for some time, the passengers became discouraged, and walked back into town."

Stay safe in this weather, and come see us when the snow melts!

American Civil War Sesquicentennial

The American Civil War, and tumultuous years that preceded it, sent shock waves through our society that are still felt to this very day.

The citizens of Champaign County, then, were certainly impacted by the events that took place during the mid-nineteenth century. Some 2,276 soldiers enlisted from the county, and of those, at least 202 died, meaning 1 of 10 soldiers who left for the war did not return. It wasn't just the soldiers that felt the war's impact, however - everyone, from recently freed African Americans slaves to the county's political and social elites had their lives changed by the events of 1860-1865.

From time to time during these anniversary years, we'll check in to see how the events of the sectional conflict were viewed through contemporary eyes.

Memorial Day - One Soldier's Story

William Frank Earnest always stood out among his peers. Born in Tennessee, he was eight when his family moved him to Homer, Illinois. He quickly acclimated to his new surroundings, and graduated in Homer High School's Class of 1915 with high honors in both academics and athletics. From there he entered the University of Illinois and began a promising academic career.

Upon America's entry into the First World War, Earnest acted as any other patriotic young man and enlisted in Company "L" of the 8th Infantry Regiment of the Illinois National Guard in May 1917, which would become the 370th Infantry Regiment in the U.S. Army. The 8th was the only unit with a full complement of African-American officers in the then segregated army. Earnest trained hard with his fellow soldiers, first in Chicago, then at Camp Logan, Texas (outside of Houston), and finally at Hampton Roads, Virginia, before departing to France in April 1918. He did well, and soon was promoted to sergeant.

By 1918 the French Army was in dire need for replacement troops after four years of war, and the U.S. Army leadership was willing to accommodate them with their "inferior" soldiers. As a result, African-American combat units were divided up piecemeal and attached to French divisions upon their arrival. The 370th was moved several times over the entire length of the front line until it was attached to the French 59th Infantry Division. It was with them that Earnest saw combat for the first time as the 370th took positions near Oise and Aisne Rivers facing the German Hindenburg Line in mid-September 1918.

Captain William Braddan, chaplain of the 370th, described the scene after they were shelled by the Germans for the first time:

Early the next A. M. we crawled out of the cave to orient
ourselves, and what a sight! Missiles of death were everywhere
falling; death was all around us, dead Frenchmen, Germans and
horses. Equipments of every description lay in the recently
evacuated trenches; the sight was appalling, the scent nauseating.

The unit moved out in mid-October, but Sgt. Earnest did not go with them. Ordered to the attack soon after their arrival, Earnest was struck down September 17, 1918. Capt. Braddan remembered:

Sgt. Ernest [sic] of Co. "L," being the first to make the supreme sacrifice on the Hindenburg Line, one of the most excellent, exemplary soldiers that I have known in my twenty and four years' service. His body, poor, bleeding, torn and mutilated was buried in No-Man's Land by his comrades.

The 8th Illinois National Guard Infantry Regiment served until the conclusion of the war and were cheered on their return to Chicago in February 1919. They suffered twenty percent casualties with 96 officers and men killed during their time in France. These "inferior" soldiers earned two campaign streamers and received twenty-one Distinguished Service Crosses, one Distinguished Service Medal, and twenty French Croix de Guerre.

William Earnest, full of promise and potential, forever lies in the fields of France, a testament to the struggles and sacrifices of the men and women we honor this Memorial Day.

William Frank Earnest, 1895-1918

Early Champaign County and its Native Peoples

Potowatamie Camp Scene, Crooked Creek, George Winter, artist. Image courtesy of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, Lafayette, Indiana. To see more about the collection, click here.

Spring weather, with its warm, windy conditions, can be evocative of an earlier era here in Champaign County. One only has to travel back in time 175 years to find a landscape virtually untouched by development. When one central Illinois traveler gazed upon the long grass prairie for the first time,

I was struck, as is every traveller [sic] at first view of these vast plains, with the grandeur, and novelty, and loveliness of the scene before me. For some moments I remained stationary, looking out upon the boundless landscape before me. The tall grass-tops waving in the billowy beauty in the breeze; the narrow pathway winding off like a serpent over the rolling surface, disappearing and reappearing till lost in the luxuriant herbage; the shadowy, cloud-like aspect of the far-off trees, looming up, here and there, in isolated masses along the horizon, like the pyramidal canvass of ships at sea; the deep-green groves besprinkled among the vegetation, like islets in the waters; the crimson-died prairie-flower flashing in the sun — these features of inanimate nature seemed strangely beautiful to one born and bred amid the bold mountain scenery of the North, and who now gazed upon them “for the first”.

Historically there are no known major native settlements within the boundaries of present-day Champaign County. The area was well-known to native peoples, however, who frequented the local prairies, groves, and river valleys in hunting and foraging parties. The Urbana Democrat published this reminiscence in the December 21, 1867 edition:

During the spring and autumn, the Indians (Delawares, Kickapoos and Pottawatomies), occupied themselves in hunting through the county, killing squirrels and wild turkeys in the groves, deer and grouse on the prairies and bear on the Little Wabash River. About the first of March they usually returned toward the Kankakee for the purpose of making maple sugar.

Click here to view materials in the collections of the Champaign County Historical Archives regarding native peoples in Champaign County listed in our Local History Online index.

Additionally, click here to view a list of publications and web sites devoted to the native peoples of Illinois, many of which may be borrowed by Urbana Free Library patrons.

A Name Lost to History: John C. Moses

The plaque you see above was donated to the Champaign County Historical Archives a number of years ago. It was commissioned by Judge Joseph Cunningham, and displayed prominently in the courthouse until it came here.

David Davis, Supreme Court justice and associate of Abraham Lincoln, once stated, "Captain Moses ought to be mentioned in any history of Champaign County." So ... who was Captain Moses?

John C. Moses, born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1825, migrated to Brown County, Illinois, with his parents in his youth. He joined the volunteer infantry during the Mexican War in 1847 and rose to the rank of Captain (hence his honorary title).

Mustering out of the service at the end of the war, he returned to Brown County and studied law. He served as a state legislator and Brown County sheriff before removing to east central Illinois to practice law, first in Danville (1856), and then to Urbana (1858).

In Urbana, he associated himself with an up and coming group of talented lawyers, including prominent names such as Abraham Lincoln, David Davis, William Somers, and Thomson Webber.

Stricken with consumption, he died at home on May 16, 1860. Only 35 years old, he left behind his wife Eliza and two small children, John and Abby.

If not for his untimely death, his name may have become as familiar as Busey, Carle, and Cunningham. But, as such, it has faded into history.

Click here for the related index entries for Captain Moses from our own Local History Online.

Indexing in the Historical and Genealogical database - March

March showed continued accelerated growth in the number of records in the Historical and Genealogical portion of the Archives' Local History Online database, with 3,741 new records being added. Of this number, the largest gain was in indexed pages of the University of Illinois Illio yearbooks. Volunteers Nancy and Ray Sanden, who are working at indexing every Illio page that contains photographs of Champaign County students, indexed 984 pages from the 1928 through 1940 yearbooks. Archives staff also added 802 records for Preservation and Conservation Association historic property inventories and Urbana Historic Preservation Commission historic resource surveys. Each of these records is accompanied by the actual survey presented in pdf form online. Finally, volunteer Mary Margaret Jones' work (of more than five years!) indexing obituaries from the News-Gazette for the period 1920 through 1935 is nearing conclusion. More than 550 records of death notices, obituaries, and funeral notices for the months of August through December of 1934 and January through May of 1935 were added to the database.


Historical and Genealogical database totals as of March 31, 2010:

Records 590,100

Headings 3,317,576
Names 1,736,836
Subjects 37,465
Addresses 37,651
Newspaper article titles 371,476

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web sites) 3,747

Greetings from your Champaign County Historical Archives!

Hello!

This is the official blog for the Champaign County Historical Archives here at The Urbana Free Library. We'll be using this little corner of the online universe to talk about interesting historical and genealogical tidbits, programs and exhibits we are offering, as well as some of the exciting resources we are working on to assist you in your research needs. We'll see you online soon!