So far, we’ve found many great stories. And the last few days brought one that seemed worth posting now. According to the National Park Service database, over 200 men named “Herrold” (or “Herold,” alternatively) served in the Civil War. (Almost all of them fought on the Union side.)
As it happens, at least a half dozen of those veterans were my fourth cousins. (Not real close, but not that distant either.) More to the point, that Herrold generation supplied fourteen closely related soldiers to the Union Army. To see how closely related they were among themselves, I decided to pick a source and let the software work it out. I finally chose Henry Herrold (1838-1922) as the focus. I picked him because, in 1863, he married his second cousin, which helped tie some threads together.
Also, he was part of the family that had moved the furthest west. This particular Herrold branch is believed to have come to the American Colonies from Germany around 1750, settling in an area about fifty miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A half century later, part of the family moved west to clear homesteads in a region about seventy miles southeast of Columbus, Ohio. They then split further, with some going to a region about forty miles west of South Bend, Indiana. That was probably around 1845, about ten years after that town was formally established.
The fourteen who enlisted for the Civil War included Henry’s brother and an uncle, with the rest being first or second cousins. Among them were four brothers, all of whom joined the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment. In fact, that regiment had five Herrold’s serving in it, three of them in the same company. Two other Herrolds served in the 35th Indiana Infantry Regiment. And, late in the war when he was just old enough, yet another Herrold enlisted in the 138th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Six related Herrolds who remained in Ohio ended up serving in six different Ohio regiments.
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| 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment. National Archives. |
The 9th Indiana took part in most of the major battles in the western theater, including: Shilo, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Nashville, and at least a dozen more. It also served at the sieges of Corinth, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. The 35th Indiana largely fought alongside the 9th, in many of the same actions. The 138th Indiana, organized late in the war, was assigned to guard duty along vital railway lines in Tennessee and Alabama.
Except for two called up for guard duty late in the war, the Ohio regiments also saw hard action, including at the Battle of Antietam, and closed with the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign.
This family generation risked a lot to preserve the Union and free the slaves. Half of them were married, either before or actually during the war. Between them, they had ten children at the time of the war (and many more later). They did not escape unscathed. Two died early in the war, Jonathan Herrold being killed in action at the Battle of Stones River (central Tennessee, 1862). Since he had three brothers in the regiment, one in the same company, it’s entirely possible one of them saw him go down. The family of Joseph S. Herrold did see him before he died. He was allowed to go home, probably to recover from wounds, but expired in January 1862.
Records state that another Joseph Herrold was wounded at the Battle of Shilo, but was able to recover. Sadly, those kinds of files can be a bit spotty. Thus, notes indicate that David Herrold was discharged early (May 1861) due to “disability,” but do not say whether that was due to wounds or illness. It was perhaps not totally a blessing that he lived another half-century. He spent his final three years in and out of a veterans’ home/hospital, where he died in 1916.
Overall, records suggest that seven of these Herrold veterans suffered from the lingering effects of their service in the war. We have no such evidence for the remaining five. Of course, that was long before the mental health impacts were recognized. Still, considering the carnage, the family may have felt fortunate that so many survived.
Incredibly, these fourteen soldiers made up all but two of the related generation who were of the right age. One of the two cannot be accounted for, and may have died as a child. The other would have been just 18 years old at the start of the war. Perhaps the family discouraged him from signing up just so there would be another grown-up male around to help with their various homesteads.
| References: Census records, city directory listings, and other genealogical sources were consulted extensively. Online sources included Ancestry.com and others. |
| Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, The Dyer Publishing Company, Des Moines, Iowa (1908). |