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>> Catherine VanSusteren: Hello. I'd like to welcome our speaker for today at our museum's
History Sandwiched In program.
Our speaker is Leslie Bellais. She is our curator for costume
Historical Society. And today she will be giving a and textiles for the State
various artifacts that are on exhibit now on the first floor program that will take a little closer look and examine the
of the museum. And you can also feel free to
take a look at those artifacts
as you leave after the program today.
Leslie Bellais. Thank you. So please join me in welcoming
[APPLAUSE] >> Leslie Bellais: Hello.
I told everyone there would be
three people here. [LAUGHTER]
Something nice to be wrong on. And I was wrong, which is nice.
What I'm going to do is I put this exhibit together that you can see out here, and as I was
putting it together we were merely looking at broad themes
powerful stories that I really but there were some artifacts I thought had these really
behind them. wanted to share the whole story or more of the story and tell you more about what was going on
So that's what I'm going to do today is I've picked a few
just really cool. And they're mainly cool because of what they tell us about the objects that I just think are
about the person who used them, or what they, as a starting point to learn more about that Civil War, what they tell us
And I just thought you'd like to person.
learn more about some of these objects.
first one. So I'm going to start with the
Do you know who Louis P Harvey is? Louis Powell Harvey?
You do. He was governor of Wisconsin. [INAUDIBLE] He was Cordelia Harvey's
husband, if you know who
Cordelia Harvey is. He's more famous as that sometimes.
But he was the governor of
Wisconsin for a couple months, actually. And this is the knife that tells
the story of his death. And that's what I wanted to talk
about today. This is a pen knife that was
found on his body, and I'll tell
you the story in just a moment, but the way they knew it was his body was because you can see the
initials right here, LPH, are engraved on it. So they knew they had the right person.
Now, Harvey was born in Connecticut in 1820, came to
Wisconsin in 1841, and started as a newspaper editor.
And he was writing a Whig paper which is sort of a precursor to the republicans.
Rock County and opened a store. But the Whig paper really got him into politics, and so in And then he moved to Clinton in
governor of Wisconsin. November of 1861 he was elected
He was inaugurated in March. And so the war is underway at this point.
And on April 6th and 7th the
Wisconsin troops participate in the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing and Shiloh.
And I'm just going to, and there
And if you know his story, you he is a few years before he became governor and there's the Pittsburgh Landing.
he decides that he wants to collect materials to take down But what happens is he decides, he's kind of an unusual guy and
participation, especially the wounded soldiers. And so he makes a personal trip down to Tennessee, which is
where Pittsburgh Landing is, to meet with the soldiers and he does for several days.
meeting the governor and feel very honored that he's there. On the day he's supposed to go And they're very excited about
the evening, he was on the back, which was April 19th, in
to the steamer the Minnehaha. steAnd as the two boats comewas together they bump, and he takes they were going to have to move
falls into the water. Now at that moment, this is a group of doctors who are on a steboard, and one of them and
immediately reaches out his cane
are all Wisconsin doctors, and Harvey grabs it but pulls the cane out of his hand. So then another doctor, these
jumped into the water and held on to the Minnehaha and told
But Harvey, by this point the current was very strong and he Harvey to hold on to him.
was swept under a nearby flatboat and was presumed dead
at that point.
So it's nighttime, they just had their governor drown, and they
until the morning. decide that they have to wait
And they start searching the next morning. However, it takes 14 days to
find him. And, basically, what happens is a hospital corps detachment was send out to look for it and
found him 65 miles from where he
had actually drowned. Now, this is when we come to the knife.
And there's two stories.
There's a conflict in what actually happened there.
happened, but I can tell you And I don't really know what
what the stories are and I'm going to just put the knife back
In the Milwaukee Journal in 1929 here so we can think about it.
they did a story on this knife. And this is what they said happened: that the corps, the
hospital corps came upon some Negro children playing upon the river bank and they stopped to
doctors with them, who was watch them and one of the
Dr. Samuel Bell, was startled to see in the hands of a little boy
governor who had long been his the silver pocket knife of the
life-long friend. The children told him the body had washed ashore and family
members had buried it in a
shallow grave. At this point his body was
Wisconsin. exhumed and returned to
the loss, and then when he die Now Samuel Bell was a friend of his and kept the knife as a memento of his friendship and of
indeed 1913 his estate donated it to the Historical Society. However, the letter that came
from the executor of the estate wrote that Harvey's body was
found by some thieves who rifled it of everything of value,
overlooking this little pocket
knife however, which was found by Dr. Bell in a secret pocket. The initials on the knife told
him that the remains belonged to
Governor Harvey. But in any case, no matter what,
corpse when it was found. It probably wasn't a very pleasant corpse at that point. we know this knife was on his
it's a real honor to have this But this survived and we feel
in the collection and be able to tell that story with this piece.
tell that story with. Now, his wife Cordelia Harvey went on to quite a lot of fame It's probably the best piece to
story. afterwards and that's another
She was from Menomonie. And she was a vivandiere during the Civil War for Company K, the Her name is Eliza Wilson.
And this is her dress jacket. And her dress jacket would have been worn, this is blue velvet 5th Wisconsin.
exhibit, it would have been worn and you can see it out on
with a red skirt with blue velvet bands around it, white bloomer pants, and a white hat
with red, white, and blue feathers. So this was her dress uniform.
when I pulled this out is what But what I first started with is
is a vivandiere? I hadn't really heard of that word before.
And that's probably what you're thinking. So let's look at vivandieres. They're first seen in the French
army during the Napoleonic Wars.
And their primary job was to They were called cantinieres, and there's a cantiniere on the left.
participate with a regiment on campaigns in parades. They provided food and drink,
they did laundry, and they
nursed the ill and wounded. And they're usually depicted holding a canteen, which both of
these women are.
This is an envelope from the Civil War era showing a vivandiere helping a Zouave
soldier.
Americans learned about them, but Americans were also very popular in the Crimean War. And that's first about when the
And if the French had vivandieres, they were going to muchhave vivandieres.ench And so that's basically what we
did.
Here's what they looked like in And Eliza'sreal life.ave outfit and she did dress in a Zouave costume.
We don't have a picture of Eliza as a vivandiere, but here are
two Civil War ones. They were often known as
daughters of the regiment, and they were usually daughters of
the officers or of well-to-do men who were at the town where
the company came from. And once on the road, the
daughter of the regiment really kind of embodied to the soldiers
the domestic world and the women they left behind, and they were
usually treated with great
respect. And her presence was supposed to
refining influence and help cheer up the troops. add a refining quality or have a
And we believe that's what Eliza did.
So here's, the one on the left
is Mary her name has several spellings.
one. Here it's TP and this is a known
She's in a basic, you can't tell but she is wearing bloomers.
dress uniforms. And this would have been similar But you can see them in their
to what Eliza would have worn. Every day she wore a very
serviceable brown wool outfit,
also a bloomer costume. This is Eliza. We don't have any pictures of
her from the time that she was a
1834. She came to Iowa when she was two, and then when she was 12 Sheher father William Wilson in
decided to open a lumber
business up in northern Wisconsin and founded Menomonie. And so he is considered fairly
significant person of Menomonie.
And in 1861, right after Abraham Lincoln called for troops, he helped form the Dunn County
Pinery Rifles which later became
eager to participate so she volunteered to go along with Eliza was caught up in all this patriotism, and she was very
Company K. She provided all of her own
equipment which included a maid.
[LAUGHTER] She had a maid with her the whole time, I understand.
And she also brought a buggy
with, as one person wrote, an especially matched chestnut pair of horses.
So she was probably living
fairly comfortably compared to some of the others who went with
Now, the 5th Wisconsin was part of the Iron Brigade, and it went her.
over and fought and in Virginia. That was a pretty bloody place
to be.
And they fought in a number of wars, number of battles in the
and 1862. And we don't know exactly when Peninsula Campaign between 1861
woman to worry about that the troops cared about in the midst of these battles was just too decision was much.that to have a
And so she was sent home. And we know that she's back by
late June. Now, we do have a number of
letters written by the 5th
Wisconsin that mentioned her, and they all think very highly of her.
One wrote that she goes about in
bloomer costume, acts as a hospital assistant, and is a
Just so you know, at the time this is happening she's 27, 28. And the Madison Patriot, which noble-hearted girl.
said she is "fine, appearing was a newspaper at the time,
intelligent, young lady. It is expected of her to assuage
wounded on the field of battle. She is regarded as a sort of the thirst of the dying and
And another letter that was undated but had to be probably guardian angel of the regiment."
around this time period of August '61, wrote "Miss Wilson
is a godsend. She is always cheerful and never
seems to tire. Just the sight of her refreshes
us and gives us courage." So it's kind of exciting to find out that, we knew we had this jacket in here but we
didn't know what it was.
And to go and do all this research and find out that she was a well-loved and
well-respected person was kind
of exciting. And then to also find pictures
She never married but she went of her.
and moved back with her father, and then in 1882 he gave her a farm outside of Eau Claire,
where she moved to. And she ran it. She was the farmer of it, though
labor, of course. And then at her death in 1902, she didn't actually do the
the Menomonie's, William Evans GAR, the Grand Army of the
Republic post, honored her by putting their flag at half mast.
And they really considered her one of them even though she,
vivandieres were never listed in
listed. theSo that's Eliza Wilson.ver fAnd I want to look at probably you won't find their name
the collection of people I have here and that's John Converse Starkweather. oAnd we're going to look at hisn
tokens of remembrance because he
there's a whole section just on seemtokens of remembrance. of them. And if you go up to the exhibit,
And all these that you're seeing out here are mementos of the
Civil War of people who lived through the Civil War and what
It's like a new testament that they decided to save. Most of them are not on purpose.
happened to be carried through the war or a cup or a blanket.
And those we are calling tokens of remembrance when they are Some of these are on purpose.
the war. made for a specific person to honor them and their role during
Now, John C Converse was a brigadier general at the end, by
beginning but by the end. And this is a cane he gave to his father in January 1st, 1864, the end of the war, not at the
battles he fought in. And then at the very top it says and it lists all of the major
Chickamauga with a date, September 19-21, 1863.
And that's where he got his debil--, I won't even try it
now, debilitating wound that kind of put him out of
commission as an active officer.
So he was recovering a few months later. He has this cane made in memory
of, not in memory but in memory of his work and he gives it to
to father. his father. And it says on there from John
>> Is he from this area? That's why it's in Madison? >> He actually is from
Milwaukee.
Actually I'll go into that. He also got his own token of remembrance which is this silver
pitcher and two matching
goblets. It's engraved with the words
Starkweather for gallantry and "Presented to General John C
bravery in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864 by his staff and officers
Cavalry and 7th Pennsylvania of the 9th and 10th Indiana
Cavalry and also by citizens of Pulaski, Tennessee" and it's dated August 17, 1864.
Now, John Converse Starkweather was born in Cooperstown,
mid-1850s came to Milwaukee to New York. He studied law and in the
practice law and immediately afterwards formed the Milwaukee Light Guard.
The Milwaukee Light Guard was a militia group.
We didn't have much of a standing army before the Civil
War, and basically most defense is handled by militia groups. What's interesting about this is
was made exclusively of native-born patriots. He did not want any immigrants, heespecially Germans, in hiss
militia.
[LAUGHTER] Now when the war broke out, the Milwaukee Light Guard
was the first group to
volunteer, and they've offered their services to the Wisconsin governor, Alexander Randall at
the time. And he was immediately made colonel of the 1st Wisconsin
So he went on, two years later, after his fighting in a number Infantry volunteers.
saw a lot of action, he was made of battles and being actively involved in those battles, he
of Chickamauga in September of a brigadier general on July 17th, 1863. But he was wounded at the battle
that year. Now these paintings are in our
the coat that he is wearing in collection, and we actually own
Now this is him during the Civil the militia Light Guard painting, which is also kind of exciting.
War. This is the generals of the Iron
sitting in the middle. Brigade, and he's the one
So a few months after the Battle of Chickamauga he is
the time he's giving his cane to incapacitated, and that's about
to defend the lines of his father. Now in the spring of 1864, so a few months later, he's assigned
communication from the east to the west and is headquartered at
that point is a Union stronghold. Shortly, about a week or two Pulaski, Tennessee, which at
those two goblets from the after receiving that pitcher and
citizens of Pulaski and from his troops, Nathan Bedford Forrest
the Union soldiers out. So he was in an uncomfortable position to have lost Pulaski, captured Pulaski and kicked all
to go. and he was looking for a place
and asked if he could join him. And Sheridan bluntly rejected Sheridanthe application.to head off for the Atlanta Campaign,
So I was curious, why would he [LAUGHTER]
ranking officers at Pulaski he bluntly reject the application? So I did some more research and I found that according to
was still slowly recovering from his wounds, he was suffering
officers stated that he was drunk or had been for some time. from depression, and the
stress disorder going on there. [LAUGHTER] So he didn't handle his, he had a little probably post-traumatic
part of it was because But in any case, Sheridan didn't want him and I think
he lost Pulaski. Now after the war he moved to Oconomowoc where farmed, and
then in 1876 he moved to
Washington, DC, where he returned to his lawyer practice and he died there in 1890.
So that's General Starkweather. Now let's look at a little girl instead of some adults. And this is a dress that we have
on exhibit. This is a refugee dress.
It was made for her as she and her family fled south.
They were northern refugees fleeing south, and they fled to Nacogdoches, Texas. Now, she was born in 1859 in
St. Joseph, Missouri. And she does have a Wisconsin connection later in life, which is why we have the dress, but
she was mainly a Missouri girl. And she was living in St. Joseph. And her father was James HR
Cundiff who was a slave owner and the editor of an anti-Union newspaper in St. Joseph.
in the corner there on the left, And St. Joseph, that's him up
And if you remember Missouri was was, as one historian had written, a hotbed of political instability.
a border state and it took a while to decide where it was
eventually go with the Union but going to go, and it did
it had a number of northern and southern sympathizers. And the Union army moved into
St. Joseph and found themselves very tired of the escapades of a
certain James HR Cundiff who did things like pull down the US
flag from the post office, which
he got jailed for briefly. So they asked him to shut down
which he really had no choice in his paper in January of 1862,
doing, and then left St. Joseph to join the First Missouri Cavalry as a lieutenant colonel.
At that point he had a wife,
he had a son, Carol, and a daughter, Cora, and they were still being harassed by northern
sympathizers. So they decided to flee to
supposed to be a confederate Nacogdoches, Texas. And the picture in the center is
refugee camp near Vicksburg, Mississippi, which would be on
was captioned that this depicts women and children driven from the way to Nacogdoches, and it
their homes by predatory bands of northern soldiers.
So you've just seen women and children and slave women are
what you're seeing here. So that's how we know that this
is a Confederate refugee camp and not a Union refugee camp. So no significant battles happened in Texas.
It was a fairly safe place to flee to or to have safety in, but it did experience the deprivations of the war like the
rest of the Confederate states, and one of those deprivations was having enough fabric. And so the family headed by
Dr. James Harper Starr, who is
pictured on the right here, turned their home into a textile workshop.
And they turned their parlor
into a spinning room, and they also moved a loom into there, which Mrs. Starr and her
daughter Pamela knew how to operate and they spun fabric, or
spun and wove fabric, and made rugged civilian garments for
residents of Nacogdoches. And we believe that this is one of those rugged civilian
After the war, Cora moved about to St. Joseph. garments.
Her father reunited with the family until his death in the
1880s.
And she was a school teacher. She also never married and her mother and her moved to Madison,
Wisconsin, in the early 20th
century, which is why the dress ended up here. And it was a donated, actually,
by her much younger sister
Hannah who called it a Civil War relic and told us some of the story that they had fled to
Nacogdoches and that this was a refugee dress, so we do know
that that is accurate. So I thought that was kind of,
we were very pleased to find the
whole story for this particular piece. I want to look at, we've been
looking at some European
Steve and his slave collar. AmeHe was rescued contraband.at some minorities here. And we'll start off with old
He was a Louisiana slave who escaped to the 4th Wisconsin
Infantry who were camped at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And once in camp, the soldiers
was wearing at the time and he freed him of this collar that he
became war contraband. So the first thing I wanted to
contraband was kind of know is this concept of
interesting. And these were some cartoons
and I'll explain them in just a moment. Contraband started almost takimmediately after the war.me,
Within a month of the war slaves
began escaping from their slave owners to Union troops, to Union troop lines.
And the Union troops did not
know what to do with these people and at first just took them in, well first sent them
back, actually. But Benjamin Butler at Fort Monroe in Virginia decided that when three escaped slaves
arrived there that he would not return them and instead issued
succeeded so you cannot consistently claim them. this statement that says "you," the southerners, "say you have
engaged in the construction of I shall hold these Negroes as contraband of war since they are
property by you and are helping yoyou to build forts and others your property." So since they're viewed as
protective things, they can be claimed as war contraband.
So then slaves got a hold of
that idea pretty quickly, and what you're seeing in the bottom here is a slave owner saying,
"Come back here you black rascal."
He says, "Can't come back, no, sir, massa; this child's
contraband."
And he's running to Fort Monroe and the first place to actually have contraband.
And this is gentleman is saying,
was a good thing. It took about another three or So it's like they knew that they were contraband and that
four months for the secretary of the Navy, actually, to issued
the directive that you couldn't treat contraband as slaves once they came into camp, that you had to pay them.
And he set wages for the Navy,
and then the army did so immediately afterwards. So that once you moved into camp
that you didn't have to worry about still being a slave.
You could actually make some money.
They mainly were interested in
men. They didn't know what to do with
another story. women and children and that was
But old Steve was one of these men who fled to one of these
This is not old Steve but it camps.
probably looks a lot like him. This is Wilson Chin, and he's wearing a slave collar.
He's got on a leg brace, and
forehead. So this was a photograph taken the bottom, slaves whips, and he's also branded on the
in New York City of this escaped slave from Louisiana and sold to
northerners to raise money that was sent down south to educate
old Steve was that in May of freed slaves. But any case, what happened with
1862 the 4th Wisconsin camped at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is
and they sent a steamer across what you're seeing down here,
the river to the plantation of John Bird Jay to get fuel, which
point. fuel would be wood at that
And Jay had told his slaves to hide when the Yankees were
They were not allowed to see the there.
Yankees. But old Steve and another slave,
wanted to see what Yankees Charlie, decided that they
looked like. So they want down and took a
They didn't interact with them look at them.
too much. They just watched them, and then went back to work and didn't run
away or did anything like that. But Jay got very upset with these two slaves for disobeying his rules.
And he was also a very rabid
secessionist and was just upset that the Yankees were taking his stuff to begin with, and he kind
of took it out on old Steve and Charlie.
them in handcuffs. And he did that by first he whipped them, and then he put
around your neck with the tube He placed Steve in that slave collar. And that slave collar goes
inside what was called a post behind your ears so that you can't move your head. He then locked them in stocks
calaboose which was their term for a slave jail. They used the N word instead of
slave.
But despite this, old Steve especially was determined to get out of this.
And he managed to actually
escape with the slave collar on. He unhooked one of the handcuffs
escape. He was able to get Charlie out which is how he was able to
camp at Baton Rouge. with him, and they took a canoe across the river to the Union
And the 4th Wisconsin Regiment left the soldiers unguarded that
them. The first thing they did was night, and they took charge of
remove his shackles. And they filed off a rivet on
the slave collar, which is the
one in the front, so that he could be freed of it. They described old Steve as a
large powerful man, over
specimen of physical six-feet tall and broad-shouldered, solidly built in proportion, almost a perfect
development. He was around 50 at the time. So he was immediately put to
work, he was introduced to the
colonel of the infantry. He put him to work as a cook for
began to learn to read. That was his main concern and someone who wrote about this Company I, and he immediately
old Steve could spare from his later said that "every moment
duties he spent in study getting help from one or another of the soldiers as he could, and he was
already making rapid progress considering his opportunities." Then in the fall of '62,
the Union army began forming remember he came in June of '62,
African American units, army units, and he left cooking to enroll in the army, and then we
don't know what happened to him after that. So this is, I think, a very powerful object to think of this
being around your neck and that also has an interesting Wisconsin connection, and it's
I think, we have in the collection. And it tells a story of ocontraband which we don't talk,
about that much when we talk
about the Civil War. Then I also want to talk about
And this was a medal given to Private Steven Nicholas, while Native Americans.
he was a confederate prisoner, by other members of his company.
And he was a scout and we don't know what the eye and the star
mean by I do believe the eye stands for the fact he was a
scout and was looking out for them. Now Steve, his name was Steven
him Steve Nick, was a Stockbridge-Munsee, was a member Nicholas but most people called
These are some Civil War of the Stockbridge-Munsee nation.
this is what he might have soldiers from the Menominee tribe or nation from Wisconsin. We don't know their names, but
looked like in uniform. Now what's interesting about the Native American predicament
during the Civil War is that
most Native Americans did not want to fight for the Union. The Union hadn't been that kind
to them, and they didn't really want to participate.
Most Native Americans who went in bulk to fight for one side or
the other fought for the
Confederacy. However, in Wisconsin, 279
joined the army. Native Americans enlisted and
And there's a question of why would these men do this? And there's about three possible
reasons.
especially later in the war, One is they could have wanted the bounty. Most soldiers who joined,
help the US government honor its were paid a bounty. The belief that their participation in the war might
us. And most likely, and probably in It's like look what we're doing for you, now you can be good to
the case of Steve Nick, they wanted to prove themselves as
warriors, and this was one way
to do it. When I started research on this, this is all I had with the note
that this was worn by Steve Nick. And through my research I was able to find pictures of him
which was really fun. So I think you get the idea of
what a dramatic character he probably came across as.
He was born in Rhode Island in
In 1845 he came with his 1840. That's the Stockbridge-Munsee nation comes from Rhode Island.
grandparents. I have no information on who his parents were, but he was adopted
by his grandparents, Moses and
And he was always described as a Catherine Stanton, who helped form Chilton, Wisconsin, in Calumet county.
descendent of the Indian warrior King Philip.
history, King Philip's war was And if you know your American
1676-1677, one of the bloodiest wars in New England. It was the last gasp of Native
Americans trying to push out
European Americans out of New England. They were not successful but
they sure made a dent in the
He was actually killed during pothe war.. And King Philip was sort of the leader of this.
who joined came from that area Now, we know that most of the Native Americans in Wisconsin
between Fond du Lac and Green Bay. So he's from Chilton which makes
sense.
He fits into that basic trend. Now I found an article written
about 15 years after he died, that really kind of captures his about him in 1916, which was
drama and his romance of his life.
And it says that after being
educated, Steve grew up to be strong and athletic. He was fearless, shrewd, and
quick to act. On his 21st birthday he wanted
His name was entered as that of a volunteer in Company K. But he was a very disappointed call.
could not go with his regiment person when he found out that he
because his name was not on the list when lots were drawn. Later he went with Company D of
the gallant 1st Wisconsin Cavalry.
Now, Colonel Daniels who was the colonel of that cavalry saw his
courage and made him one of his trusted scouts. Later on, a fight took place
and the Confederate Colonel William H Parsons' company of Texas. between this company, Company D,
Nicholas and 46 other members of And during this fight, Steven
his company became prisoners of the Confederacy. Parsons, who was the lieutenant
colonel, I mean the confederate colonel, offered him his release
stripes, mainly going after him as a Native American, you know, why would you fight for the would deseUnion. stars and
Why would you fight for the Union.
But Steven promptly refused. Now, just to skip ahead, this
was a time when captured
soldiers really were not kept prisoners very long. That comes later on in the war.
They were usually released with the promise they wouldn't go
immediately reenlisted in the same company but this time back to fighting. However, he was released and
as a sergeant. And to continue that article,
it says in 1865 near West Point,
The rebels were driven into a Afort on a hill overlooking the in which his boldness was clearly shown.
town, two regiments attacked the town. While one regiment attacked the
fort. A desperate hand-to-hand fight took place before the fort fell.
Steven Nicholas was the first to
enter the fort and he fought with the rebels until it fell.
was pitiless and avenging while fighting but would not allow the And then it goes on to say he
when once while trying to get a better horse he passed a strong to oppress the weak. A little story is told of him
southerner's house which was being raided by Union men.
He protected two ladies from the
southern general gave him a $20 gold piece for protecting those ladies who were his wife and Later it happened that a
So this is him depicted during daughter.
the war, and these are after the war.
the middle picture in the photograph, but afterwards he had a fairly bland life. He does have his GAR badge on in
Michigan and back in Wisconsin. And he died of tuberculosis in He worked as a carpenter in
time. These two illustrations are taken from his obituary which I was on the front page of theat
Chilton Times.
So whenever you read about Chilton or Calumet County in the
first who is mentioned. So he had this very dramatic Civil War, he is one of the
Indian warrior stereotype that life, and he was able to be a warrior and live up to that
American I want to mention. And he was a bugler, and this is during the Civil War. And we have another Native
February of 1864 to August of '65. his bugle, for the Company F of the 152nd Indiana Infantry from
Indiana but he had a very traumatic life before he was an Indiana soldier, and that all 18happened in Wisconsin.g
And I thought it was very, even though this is not necessarily a
related to him. And we have actually two bugles, Civil War story, this is one of the few surviving pieces that's
but this is one of them. And he was a Native American;
he was Menominee. And it's a very interesting study of white and Indian relations in Wisconsin in the
mid-19th century. And what happened is around April 1850, well he was born as Oakaha to his Menominee mother,
Nacom, who is in the middle there, and probably a white fur trader, and around the age of five he was kidnapped by Alvin
and Lucia Partridge of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who believed he was
their lost son Caspar Partridge. And the picture in the middle is
from an 1880s booklet written on
this kidnapping and the whole story. So it's sort of an idealized
version, and it's definitely not
accurate. But in 1850, Caspar, who was about three at the time,
wandered away from his parents
and was never found. Because of Oakaha's light complexion, his ability to speak
some English, and his possible
resemblance to other Partridge children, the Partridges, on
which is 18 months later, believed he was their lost son. So the Partridges took Nacom to seeicourt to have themselves51,
declared Oakaha's true parents. To the surprise of everyone,
kept Oakaha with his mother. considering there is a racial bias among whites, the judge
because he was in the hands of Or awarded the child to his mother. But before he could be returned,
the Partridges, actually he wasn't in the hands of the Partridges, he was in the hands
of the government, friends of the Partridges abducted him and he disappeared. We don't know where exactly but
at some point in the next year
Caspar Partridge, and he came to or so he is now called Joseph Partridge, which is interesting because they're not calling him
live with them, well, they disappeared too but they
where. disappeared to where people know
They sold their property shortly after Oakaha disappeared and
Indiana. moved to Steuben County,
And by 1860 we know that he is living with them in Indiana.
years after Caspar disappears, But in the meantime, 1853, three
the bones of a small child were found where Caspar had basically disappeared.
And with this evidence now most of the white settlers or
that the Partridges had actually Euro-Americans in this area, in Wisconsin actually, believed
kidnapped Nacom's son. Up to this point they believed
that they really had Caspar in that they were in the right and
their hands. So at this time there's a new superintendent of Indian
Affairs.
His name is Franz Huebschen, and he wanted the boy returned to his rightful family.
So this is two years, he's been with the Partridges about two years now.
and brings him back to And he finds him down in Indiana
Milwaukee. And Chief Oshkosh comes down
down to claim him and take him from the Oshkosh area and comes
back to his mother and back to his tribe or nation.
allowed to visit Joseph during However, the Partridges are
other daughters in the family this tand secret him out.y, and one day the[LAUGHTER] visit him and dress him as one of the
take him down to Tennessee And it turns out that they
where he lives for about a year in hiding until they bring him back to Indiana where he lives
with them in Steuben County.
And this is when he's definitely known by as Joseph Partridge. Now Huebschen is not letting
this go right away. He hires the Pinkerton Agency to
searching they couldn't find go find this boy. And during the time that they're
him. And by the time he comes back on
old, and no one's going to touch the radar he's about 14 years
him at that point. So by 1860 we know he's living
1864, at the age of 18, he joins with the Partridges, and in
the Union army for a bounty of $66.66
and he never saw any action. And he was scout and a bugler
But that was his Civil War history.
continues after the war. What's interesting is this story
This is the home in Indiana with the Partridges featured up
That's the home he spent most of there.
his teenage life at. After the war, he married a Tennessee woman but divorced her
fairly shortly afterwards when
he found out she was having an extramarital affair.
19-year-old Clara Hockster, he And then in 1881 he married
was 35 at the time, infuriating her parents who did not want her marrying an Indian.
Which is very interesting because his parents are saying
to everyone that he's theirs and they are not Indian.
So there's obviously some disbelief with what the Partridges are saying.
farmed in a property near where the Partridges were. And for the next 22 years he
And then in 1903 he abruptly leaves his family and becomes a
sort of wanderer. He wanders all over the country doing odd jobs as he can find work.
He definitely takes to drink at this time, and he gets married
But he leaves this wife, too. And in 1916 he finds himself in aFort Douglas, up by Tomah, divorced Clara.
And he goes out for an odd job looking for odd jobs.
and while he's being interviewed or they're talking to him he
So Fort Douglas comes down to pick up his body. They do know he's a Civil War veteran, but they're not quite
sure what his name is.
So on his grave stone it says Joseph F Parker instead of Joseph Partridge.
And there was a Joseph F Parker who was out of Waukesha who went
to the Civil War, and it has his company and regiment listed on
that grave stone. However, he had three children
with Clara, and these are them back there, Lou Lou, Carl and
Lafayette who went by Fay, went there and saw the grave stone and were really infuriated that they couldn't remember his name
and they had to put it wrong but
they never fixed it. And so it still says
Now, there's also some curiosity Joseph F Parker.
of what happened to Nacom. And this is also from that same book on the history
of Joseph Partridge.
And basically a Catholic priest, the Catholic priest who wrote this, Father Bondell, was really
upset with the Partridges taking
the child in the first place. He wrote to the judge and to the court during the first trial to
say this is Nacom's child; I've seen her with him since he was
born; you want take this child away.
So in the end he ended up writing a history of their
lives, and he kind of imagined the end of Nacom's life, which
is sort of a fantasy probably of
his, that she died of a broken heart moments after being baptized by a Catholic priest.
And that's what's happening here. I think I'll do one more really quickly.
I had a little bit of a time and
I think I can do this one within two or three minutes. This is a watch that was given
to Sergeant Dealton Titchener from Crawford County. And it says on it, engraved on
D Titchener by the members of Company H, 36th Regiment it, "Presented to Sergeant
interesting fellow, too. Wisconsin volunteers. " And he's kind of an
He was born in 1822 in New York state. He moved to Wisconsin around
1848, and then in the 1850s moved to Seneca Township in Crawford County where he worked as a lawyer, and this is his
business card.
We don't have any images of him but we do have this. And he was very active in trying
to get the county seat moved
notoriety. from Prairie du Chien to Seneca but lost. But it gave him a lot of
He hated southern secessionists, he hated northern copperhead
who lived in the north and sympathizers, those are the ones
sympathized with the south, and he definitely supported the war. So at age 40, which was not
necessary to do this at age 40, he enlisted in 1862 in Company
A, the 31st Wisconsin, but was discharged in November of '63, a
little over a year later, due to
disability. Now his neighbor, after he was back working as a lawyer and
doing some farming, his neighbor
refused to volunteer and disgusted with this neighbor, he
So he rejoined in February of 1864. This time he joined Company H, rejoined in his place.
him the watch for his, well we the 36th Wisconsin, which gave
in a skirmish charge on the Confederate works in the Battle of North Anna River in Virginia, joins, May 26th his company is
Andersonville prison in Georgia. and he's captured and sent to
As he walks into the prison, his watch is confiscated by the Confederates and taken as their
property. And I wanted to just mention
that before, I sort of mentioned this with Steve Nick, that
before 1863, if you were
captured, you were usually exchanged or paroled, sometimes on the battlefield, but usually
within a month you'd be sent
back to where you came from. Now on December 28th, 1862, so
Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, at the very end of 1862, the
decides this is not going to happen anymore. We're not giving Confederate
soldiers back to the
Confederates. And with that, prisons start emerging, Confederate prisons.
And they're pretty awful, Union and Confederate prisons are pretty awful places.
privates are sent, the Andersonville is where the
non-commissioned, officers are sent to Libby prison, for example, privates are sent to
Andersonville.
Now Andersonville opened in February of '64. It was meant as an open air
stockade. There's no buildings built into it. It was meant to hold 10,000
people. It ended up holding 32,000. And that's kind of what you're
So they weren't allowed to build seeing here.
anything but they could put up tents if they wanted to.
through the gates of here as We know that 45,000 men passed
prisoners. 13,000 of them died.
at about a rate of a hundred a In the summer months they died
day. And northerners were so infuriated by Andersonville,
which was probably considered the worst of the worst, that
health and destroying the lives of prisoners. wheSo he was executed for hisng the commander for impairing the
We do know that Titchener died participation.
The official cause is jaundice, though his family believed it So hewas from starvation. and died August 18th.
his company were able to And after the war, members of
purchase the watch back from the Confederate army and give it to his wife and then his
great-granddaughter gave it to us.
But this is his tombstone at Andersonville.
And his great-grandsons are now doing a lot of research on his
exciting. So I thank you for coming and lifor listening to my storiesis phand I hope you enjoyed them.y
Thank you.
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