During the Civil War, the State of Indiana ranked 5th (behind New York, Pennsylvania Ohio, and Illinois) in total soldiers serving in the Union military.
According to the 1860 U.S. census, Indiana, a free state, had a population of 1,350,428.
Indiana was the first state in what was then considered the American Northwest to mobilize for the Civil War. News of the attack on Fort Sumter, which began the war, reached Indiana on April 12, 1861. On the next day, two mass meetings were held in the state and the state's position was decided: Indiana would remain in the Union and would immediately contribute men to suppress the rebellion. On April 14, Governor Morton issued a call to arms in order to raise men to meet the quota set by President Abraham Lincoln. Indiana had the fifth-largest population of any state that remained in the Union, and was important for its agricultural yield which became even more valuable to the Union after the loss of the rich farmland of the South. These factors made Indiana critical to the Union's success.
Lincoln initially requested
that Indiana send 7500 men to join the Union Army. Five hundred men assembled
the first day, and within three weeks, more than 22,000 men had volunteered—so
many that thousands had to be turned away. Before the war ended, Indiana
contributed a total of 208,367 men, 15% of the state's total population, to
fight and serve in the Union Army, and 2,130 to serve in the Union Navy. More
than 35% of the Hoosiers who entered the Union Army became casualties: 24,418
(about 6.75% of total war casualties) lost their lives in the conflict, and more
than 50,000 were wounded.
Most of the soldiers from Indiana were
volunteers, and 11,718 men reenlisted at least once. The state only
turned to conscription towards the end of the war, and a relatively small total
of 3003 men were drafted. These volunteers and conscripts allowed the state to
supply the Union with 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery, and 13
regiments of cavalry. By the end of the war, 46 general officers in the Union
army had resided in Indiana at some point in their lives.
More than 60% of Indiana's regiments were
mustered and trained in Indianapolis, the state capital. The state government
financed a large portion of the costs involved, including barracking, feeding,
and equipping the soldiers prior to their being sent as reinforcements to the
standing Union armies. Indiana also maintained a state-owned arsenal in
Indianapolis that served the Indiana home guard and as a reserve supply depot
for the Union Army.
Abraham Lincoln established one of the United
States' first national cemeteries, New Albany National Cemetery, for the war
dead in New Albany, Indiana. Port Fulton, Indiana, in present-day
Jeffersonville, was home to the third-largest Union military hospital, Jefferson
General Hospital. Indianapolis was the site of Camp Morton, one of the Union's
largest prisons for captured Confederate soldiers, with Lafayette, Richmond, and
Terre Haute occasionally holding prisoners of war as
well.
Many of Indiana's 165 regiments served with
distinction in the war. The regiments each consisted of approximately 1,500 men
when formed, but as their numbers declined due to casualties, smaller regiments
were merged. The first six regiments mustered at the start of the war were
enlisted for six months and were put into action in the western theater. Their
short terms of service and few numbers were inadequate for the task of fighting
the war, and by the end of 1861, Indiana fielded an additional sixty-five
regiments whose men enlisted for terms of three years. These three-year
regiments were employed in large part in the western theater. As the war
progressed, another forty-eight regiments were mustered in 1862, with about half
being sent to the eastern theater, and the other half remaining in the west.
During 1863, eighteen regiments were raised to replace the casualties of the
first two years' fighting. During Morgan's Raid of that year, ten temporary
regiments were created and enlisted for terms of three months apiece, but
disbanded once the threat posed by Morgan was gone. The last twenty-five
regiments created in the state were mustered in 1864, and served until the end
of the war. Most of Indiana's regiments were mustered out and disbanded by the
end of 1864 as fighting declined, but some continued in service. The 13th
Regiment Indiana Cavalry was the last regiment from the state to be mustered out
of the U.S. Army, leaving service on November 10, 1865.
The 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment
served as part of the Iron Brigade. The 19th made critical contributions to some
of the most important engagements of the war, including the Second Battle of
Bull Run, but was almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Gettysburg.
The 14th Indiana Infantry Regiment, also called
the Gallant Fourteenth, was another notable Indiana regiment. In the Battle of
Gettysburg, it was the regiment that secured Cemetery Hill on the first day of
the three-day fight and prevented the possible destruction of the Union Army.
Another famous regiment was the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment, which fought in
many major battles and was among the first Hoosier regiments to see action in
the war.
The 28th Indiana Colored Infantry
Regiment was formed on March 31, 1864, at Camp Fremont in Indianapolis near what
is now the Fountain Square district. It
was the only black regiment formed in Indiana during the war and lost 212 men
during the conflict. The regiment signed on for 36 months, but the war was
effectively over in fewer than eleven months from their enlistment, cutting the
regiment's length of service short.
The last casualty of the Civil War was a Hoosier
of the 34th Regiment Indiana Infantry. Private John J. Williams died at the
Battle of Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865. Continue to Indiana Civil War
History and Indiana in the American Civil War: A
History.
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