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Franklin County, Iowa including G.A.R. Hall in Hampton
In a few days my husband and I will be in northern Iowa, on a mission to help his mother. On a previous trip I stumbled across the Hampton G.A.R. Memorial Hall, built in 1890. Only the exterior is available—to see the interior you must get an appointment and I'm in the process of acquiring one for Monday, Oct. 3. Before we get there, I'd like to find out what Iowa units originated in Franklin County, where Hampton is. I've been unsuccessful googling, except for one hint that Company H of the 32nd IA Infantry included men from Franklin County. However, another site said it was strictly made up of people from other counties. So my question is: does anybody know what units this G.A.R. Hall, purportedly the only one remaining in Iowa, would be especially honoring? My photo attached. Another one in the next message.
And for another related tidbit: there is a new, as of March 2005, Civil War themed Interstate 35 rest area in Franklin County, near the town of Dows. I'm going to try to tour that place also. http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go....EA73AA3AA93D89
Last edited by sockknitter; 09-27-2005 at 06:23 PM.
Well, the trip ended successfully and we're back home. I put up an 11-photo online album if you'd care to see some travel pictures (groan). It's the one at upper left here:
The G.A.R. Hall houses several large marble tablets with names of soldiers and sailors somehow connected with Franklin County. When I was there I tried to photograph each of the tablets. Since looking closely at the pictures, I have become interested in searching out information about some of the people memorialized.
One panel in particular, headlined “Those who enlisted from Franklin County and fell during the war for the Union, 1861-5”, listed “Killed in Action and Died of Wounds”, “Died in Rebel Prisons”, and “Died of Disease”. The main units in which these Franklin County men served were the 6th Iowa Infantry, the 9th Iowa Infantry, the 32nd Iowa Infantry, the 12th Iowa Infantry, the 4th Iowa Cavalry, the 9th Iowa Cavalry, and one person in the 3rd Battery Iowa Light Artillery.
THANK YOU very much, lrd89/Roger. I really appreciate the help. It gave me energy to dig on my own and find some more facts:
I’ve chased information for only a few of them, and hope to find facts about more in time to come. Here are a few who as far as I know weren’t highly ranked leaders but ordinary heroic soldiers.
Dodridge (or Doddridge) C. Knapp, of Company G of the 44th Iowa Infantry, a 100 days regiment. Dodridge was born in 1845 in Rockford, Winnebago County, Illinois. Census information shows that his family moved from Illinois to Floyd County, Iowa sometime between 1850 and 1860. Dodridge’s father was Ransom Knapp, descended from a long line of Knapps whose first American ancestor came over in the Winthorp Fleet of 1630 from England to Watertown, Massachusetts. When Fort Sumter fell in 1861, Dodridge was only 15 or 16. Finally, when he was old enough, he enlisted as a private on May 2, 1864 at the age of 18, in Company G, 44th Infantry Regiment . He was accidentally wounded on August 5, 1864 at La Grange, TN and died.
Fernando T. Reeve was a member of Company I, 9th Iowa Infantry. If my information is correct, he was born in 1841 in Illinois. He was captured in Claysville, Alabama, on March 14, 1864 and imprisoned at Andersonville. He died on September 21, 1864 and is buried in the national cemetery in grave #9483. His cause of death is listed as “debilitas”.
From http://www.suvcwga.org/, the website of a Snellville, Georgia Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War camp, now organizing:
Elias Moon was born in Clinton County, Ohio in 1837. On September 30, 1861, answering President Lincoln's call for volunteers, he left his home in Maysville, Iowa* and enlisted in Company E of the 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He was 24 years old, unmarried, 5 feet 4 inches tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. . As part of Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee, he fought in the Battle of Fort Donnelson on February 11-16, 1862, and at the battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. At Shiloh, the 12th Iowa formed part of the defense of the famed "Hornet's Nest." As the rest of Grant's army fled, these ten regiments at the center of the Union line held the Confederate Army at bay for six hours, saving the larger force from being driven into the Tennessee River. Refusing to retreat, the 12th Iowa was eventually surrounded, forced to surrender, and Elias Moon became a Prisoner of War.
The survivors of the 12th Iowa were transported to Memphis, TN, then to Montgomery, AL, where they were interned in a tobacco warehouse for two months. From Montgomery, they were packed in boxcars and moved by rail to a prison in Macon, GA. On the way to Macon, the train stopped in Atlanta for three days. While in a boxcar in Atlanta, on June 13, 1862, Elias Moon died of wounds received at Shiloh. He was 25 years old.
Along with Bobby Jones, Margaret Mitchell, Confederate General John B. Gordon, and 3,000 Confederate soldiers, Elias Moon lies buried in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery, the city's oldest and most prestigious. Thousands of captured Union soldiers suffered and died in Georgia prisons during the Civil War, and we felt it fitting to name our Georgia SUVCW Camp in honor of one of them, a young soldier who died for his country, far from home.
*Maysville, from what I can find, is now a deserted or ghost town in Franklin County, Iowa. Its cemetery holds the grave of at least one other Franklin County veteran, on whom I shall report later.
This is a long rambling post. I found researching for it to be fascinating, but be warned.
Garrison C. Mann was born September 26, 1845 in Indiana. His parents were John Mann (born in 1827 in Pennsylvania) and Polly, born October 25, 1815 in Ohio. [This is according to her grave marker. However, several Iowa census listings show her as being much younger…possibly a transcriber misread the census enumerator’s handwriting, or John gave the information to the census taker and didn’t know her actual year of birth…these are a couple of my theories about the discrepancies. By the way, I post this on the 189th anniversary of her birth.]
Over the years John and Polly had 10 children. According to census records, the children were born in Indiana, Illinois or Iowa.
Elsey or Elsie born ~1835 in Indiana
William born ~1838 in Illinois [I wonder if this is a mistake]
Isaac born ~1842 in Indiana
Garrison born 1846 in Indiana
Ansel born ~1848 in Indiana
Martin born ~1850 in Indiana
Albert born ~1852 in Indiana
Justin born ~1854 in Iowa
Charles born ~1856 in Iowa
Daniel born ~1860 in Iowa
The 1850 census of LaPorte County, Indiana, shows the family including Garrison, with John listed as a farmer.
The 1856 census of Hardin Township, Hardin County, Iowa, shows the family including Garrison, with John listed as a carpenter and William (age 18) as a farmer. Elsie is not included.
The 1860 census of Hardin Township, Hardin County, Iowa, Iowa Falls PO, shows the family including Garrison (now age 14), with John as a farmer. Elsie, William and Isaac are not included.
The 1870 census of Hardin County, Eldora PO, shows the family (without Garrison), with John as a farmer. Children include Albert, Justin, Charles and Daniel.
Garrison C. Mann was in Company H of the 9th Iowa Infantry. This regiment was organized at Dubuque and mustered in September 24, 1861. Garrison would have been barely 16 years old at that date, so I don’t know if he enrolled then.
Now here are the frustrating parts. I realize my research was done solely on the internet AND with the great help of LRD89, and that internet genealogy is supposed to provide only HINTS that a true genealogist will verify with actual documents.
Garrison was probably wounded at Pea Ridge (March 7-8, 1862) but the site I deduce this from is slightly scrambled (http://edu.aea14.k12.ia.us/iacivilwar/Resources/9thinfreb.htm). If we could see Private Garrison Mann’s individual service record, it might tell if he left his unit for recovery from his wound at Pea Ridge, or if he stayed with it all the way to Vicksburg.
I think Garrison was also wounded at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863 although his grave marker says “Wounded at Vicksburg, MS 22 May 1862”. His death date is given as June 2, 1863. The Hampton G.A.R. tablet lists him as died of disease on June 2, 1863. He was a 17 year 8 month and 24 day old private.
The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/) lists quite a few Manns in various Iowa regiments. There is only one Garrison Mann listed, but it is intriguing to see an Ansel J. Mann listed in Company A of the 12th Iowa Infantry. Another site (http://iagenweb.org/civilwar/regimen...alpha_mc_m.htm) lists Ansel E. Mann as “age 18, Residence Oskaloosa, nativity Indiana. Enlisted Aug. 30, 1864. Mustered Aug. 30, 1864. Mustered out July 19, 1865, Selma, Ala. A representative recruit for J. B. Coulter.”
"Age 18" would match that of Garrison’s brother Ansel’s age in 1866. He would have enlisted at age 16.
The same site shows a William Mann, “(Veteran) Age 24. Residence Eldora, nativity Pennsylvania. Enlisted Sept. 30, 1861. Mustered Oct. 17, 1861. Re-enlisted and re-mustered Jan. 5, 1864. Deserted July 31, 1865.” This age 24 would not match that of Garrison’s brother William in 1866. According to the 1856 census, Garrison’s William would be 28.
The Soldiers and Sailors System shows is another William Mann listed as being in the 1st Iowa Cavalry, Company H, This William entered as a farrier and finished as a veterinary surgeon. I would like to think he was Garrison’s brother but can’t show it.
There is an Isaac B. Mann listed in Company A of the 41st Iowa Infantry. But there is also an Isaac Mann shown in Company K of the 7th Iowa Cavalry.
However, the 1880 US census for Hardin County shows William Mann as a laborer, age 42, born in Illinois with his father born in Pennsylvania and his mother born in Ohio, being married to Betsy D. Mann, age 26, born in Iowa. There are two children: Ida M. Mann, age 8 and Blancha M Mann, age 4. I would guess this is William’s second wife and her children, or for all I know, his third wife.
The1880 census for the 4th Ward, Marshalltown, Marshall County, Iowa, shows an Albert Mann as a tinsmith in a canning factory, age 29 in Indiana, father born in Pennsylvania and mother born in Ohio, being married to Emma Mann, age 23, born in New York, with three children: Eugene, age 3, Claude age 2 and Hugh age 7 months, all born in Iowa.
The same census for the 4th Ward shows Justin Mann, age 26, born in Iowa, also as a tinsmith in a canning factory, with the same parental information as Albert Mann, and married to Martha Mann, age 17, born in Illinois with her father being born in Ohio and her mother born in Pennsylvannia (just the opposite of Justin Mann’s parents).
This is a query about an Isaac Mann: http://www.rootsweb.com/~iahardin/html/qarchive.html “Looking for the marriage of Sarah Carpenter and Isaac Mann. The marriage may have taken place about 1866/67 in Harden Co. Sarah was the daughter of Hiram Carpenter and Susannah.”
A line from the Reynolds County, Missouri, Special Enumeration 1890 Union Veterans Census: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb...s/1890reyn.txt Mann, Sarah. Widow of Isaac Mann, 47 MO Inf. Note the different Infantry unit.
It is so puzzling. I beg for help in digging up facts about Garrison Mann and his family, and the rest of the people listed on the marble tablets in Hampton!
Last edited by sockknitter; 10-25-2005 at 06:20 PM.
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Franklin County, Iowa including G.A.R. Hall in Hampton 
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