Capt. John Russell, Co. H
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.
JOHN A. RUSSELL, was born in Madison, Somerset County, Maine, March 14th, 1838. When sixteen years old he removed to Bureau County, Illinois, and made his home with his uncle, Joseph Webb, near Buda. At twenty-two years of age he married Miss Sophronia P. Barrett, and soon after, with his brother, Charles K. Russell, began to improve a farm in Macon township. In 1861, the two brothers enlisted in Company I of the Twenty-Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and on the organization of the company, John A. Was elected Second Lieutenant thereof. Charles K. Was killed at the battle of Belmont, being among the first from Bureau County who fell. John A. Tried to rescue his body, but failed on account of the close pursuit being then made by the enemy.
In the spring of 1862, on account of failing health, John A. Resigned his commission as lieutenant and returned home. That summer, his health having improved, he again enlisted, in Company H of the Ninety-Third Illinois Volunteer Infantry. After N. C. Buswell, who raised this company, was elected lieutenant colonel of the regiment, John A. Russell was unanimously elected captain of the company.
He was always on duty with his company until he was dangerously wounded in the neck at the battle of Champion Hill, Mississippi, May 16, 1863. Before he was fully recovered from the wound, he returned to his command and participated in the Chattanooga campaign. At the battle of Mission Ridge, Tennessee, November 25th, 1863, he was captured by the enemy. Then he was thirteen months in "Libby" and other Southern prisons. During that period he escaped twice, but was each time recaptured, with the aid of blood-hounds. He was exchanged in December, 1864. His health was broken, and on his return home he resigned, on January 10th, 1865. In more than one hotly contested battle he sealed the bond which reads: "To thee, O my country, will I devote and , if necessary, give my life."
After the close of the war, Captain Russell engaged in the mercantile business at Neponset, Illinois, and followed it with marked success to the time of his death, December 8th, 1883. He left, surviving him, his wife and three daughters, and left them an ample fortune, and, better still, the legacy of an irreproachable character and a noble Christian life. No person in need was ever turned from his door empty handed. He was kind to all, but extremely kind to the poor. His aid to the poor was so liberal and so quietly bestowed that none but they knew the extent of it, or, in fact, knew of it at all, until their tears at his grave told the story of his gracious heart. His soldiership was patriotically brave and courageous; his life was pure and noble, but through those tears around the grave his great soul shone out like a splendid diamond set in the sky.
1st Lieut. Cyrus Abbott, Co. H
Modesto, Cal., March 3rd, 1896.
Mr. Aaron Dunbar,
Dear Comrade:
I will try to give you a few lines of my life since the war. Do as you think best about putting it in print. If it does not suit you, drop it in the waste basket.
I am married and have four children. I have been a farmer all my life. At the close of the war, I again engaged in farming in the township of Mineral, in Bureau County, Illinois. In 1868, I removed to Iowa, bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres and improved it, and remained there until the spring of 1872. I then sold my farm in Iowa, and, with my family, removed to California. I rented lands here and engaged in wheat-raising on a large scale. I followed that business until the year 1888, when I quit large scale farming. I then bought a small farm of one hundred and sixty acres, for a home, which I am now occupying.
Yours truly, CYRUS H. ABBOTT, Late First Lieut. Co. H.
Pomeroy, Iowa, March 5th, 1896.
Mr. Aaron Dunbar, Secretary,
Dear Comrade:
EZRA MCINTIRE, was born in Bloomfield, Somerset County, Maine, February 2nd, 1831. He was the youngest of four brothers who reached manhood. There were eleven brothers and sisters, three of whom died young. His father's name was Ezra, and his mother's maiden name was Clarina Parsons Stanchfield. The subject of this sketch was educated in the common school at his native place, supplemented by a few terms in the Bloomfield Academy. This enabled him to teach, which he did, in the wintertime, for three or four years, working on the farm during the summer seasons.
Early in 1851, he was attacked with the gold fever, and in September of that year started for California. He went from New York to the Isthmus of Panama on the steamship "Illinois," from thence he proceeded to San Francisco on a Pacific steamer, reaching there in October that year. He engaged in mining while he was in California.
Returning to Maine, he came from thence to Illinois in the fall of 1854, visited friends in Bureau County, spent that winter in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, teaching school in the village of Ceresco. In spring of 1855, he returned to Maine and spent a year there, assisting his father on the old home farm again. In April, 1856, he removed to Illinois, and settled upon the quarter-section of land, near Neponset, in Bureau County, Illinois where he now resides. He immediately began to improve the land, breaking fifty acres that season.
On August 14th, 1862, at duty's call, he left the plow for the camp and field, enlisting in Company H of the Ninety-Third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was continuously with the company during its entire service until it reached Goldsboro, North Carolina. From thence, on account of sickness, he was sent to the hospital at Newbern, North Carolina, and from there was transferred to Madison General Hospital, Indiana, from whence he was discharged, May 26th, 1865.
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2nd Lieut. Gad Lowrey, Co. H
Ezra McIntire, Co. H