part of a volume entitled History of the Ninety - Third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry: From Organization To Muster Out --Statistics Compiled by Aaron Dunbar Sergeant, Company " B", Revised and Edited by Harvey M. Trimble, Adjutant
Submitted by Jeffrey MacAdam, to whom every reader should be grateful.
Aaron Dunbar, Esq.,
Dear Comrade:
Your circular of 12th received, requesting a short sketch of my life since the war. I'm like the needy knife grinder's story: "God bless you, I've none to tell."
When I enlisted, August 9th, 1862, I was by occupation a pilot on the upper Mississippi River. After my discharge, April 12th, 1864, I returned home, and did nothing for a year, being disabled by the disease for which I was discharged. In the spring of 1865, I returned to my former occupation, and remained at the business until the fall of 1873, when I got the position of deputy county clerk of Whiteside County, which place I still hold. I have not acquired wealth, nor have I ever been hungry from lack of means to buy bread. My life has been quiet and peaceful, with none but the ordinary vicissitudes.
I was married in 1858, and had one child when I enlisted and two since, all married and having children themselves. So I am already "grandpa," who tells stories of the war, although it does not seem long since I bade the boys good-bye at Huntsville, Alabama.
Yours respectfully,
W. A. PAYNE.
415 N. Fifth Street, San Jose, Cal., Feb. 28th, 1896.
A. Dunbar, Esq.,
Dear Comrade:
Below find short sketch of my life since muster out of service, as per your request:
I engaged in general merchandising from October 5th, 1865, until May, 1883, in Fulton, Illinois. Then in the milling business one year. Then merchandising in Sloan, Iowa, from March, 1884, to April, 1888. Did very well. In 1886, I attended the National Encampment of the G. A. R. at San Francisco, and was taken with the California fever. I closed out my mercantile business in Iowa, and arrived in San Jose, California, with my family, in August, 1888, and have been engaged in fruit-growing and evaporating up to the present time very successfully. Remember me, with kind regards, to all the boys.
Yours truly,
W. M. HERROLD.
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