Dedicated to the memory of Captain James L. Burkhalter
Recreated in diary form, for his (many times) great grandchildren
and decendants.
November - 1998
Captain Burkhalter's Georgia War
Based on the journals, diaries, and records of James L. Burkhalter, Commanding officer of Company F, 86th Illinois Infantry, this narrative in his words is a composite portrait of Maquon's soldiers of 1864 and their march with General Sherman to the sea. With special illustrations commissioned for this book, drawn by George T. Johnson, commander, U.S.N.
Voices of The Prairie Land
edited and with narrative by Martin Litvin
preface by Russell Freeburg
original illustrations by George T. Johnston, Commander, U.S.N.
Antique photos selected by Leon E. Benson
Mother Bickerdyke Historical Collection ~ Galesburg, Illinois
1972
Original diary held in the Knox College Archives, Galesburg, Illinois.Other archival materials - correspondence and genealogy held in the archival records of Savena Burkhalter, sister of James L. Burkhalter.
Introduction
Knox county has various communities - Galesburg, Knoxville
- a few north and a few south, and each is characterized by an
accumulation of memories, facts, incidents and disputes - all
of them contributing to the sum of local history.
Sixteen miles southeast of Galesburg is the village of Maquon,
in an agricultural region. While the present population may not
be subject the same influences as those which preceded it, the
1899 Knox County History says that in the year 1880, Maquon had
a population of 548. Ten years later, in 1890, the encyclopedia
also says that the town could only boast of 501.
Could it be reasonable assumed that in ten years, Maquon had
lost only forty-seven people through normal attrition, or had
even more faces vanished, but some of their number been restored
through the cycle of birth and new settling families? None of
this will ever be definitively known, unless some local student
starts comparing the information on grave stones and in church
records, as well as devoting some time to the pages of the weekly
newspaper that was once available there.
During the 1880-1890 period, the community was so small that
quite likely some resident there could have, with not too much
effort, from sheer memory accounted for most, if not all of the
people who had departed from, or arrived in, the village. While
this kind of informal record-keeping results more frequently in
story-telling than in historical documentation, on its own terms,
it is unique and valid. But history relies mainly on what is written.
The best kind of historical writing is full, brutally frank, greatly
detailed and continuous.
An exciting collection of Maquon-associated writings came to
light a few years ago. It was in the early stages of my research
on the Civil War background of Knox County, relative to the life
and times of Mother Bickerdyke.
While I was seeking other material, I reviewed those few editions
of Knox County history which were published during the last part
of the 19th century. That search for contemporaries of Mrs. Bickerdyke
was in the hope of finding their possible descendants, and those
people - I felt sure- might have writings that were contemporary
for those distant days. The 1878 Knox County History, as well
as the 1886 book, contained pictures of and articles about James
L. Burkhalter. he had been an officer in the Civil War with the
96th Illinois Infantry. I knew the 86th had fought with General
Sherman in the Georgia Campaign. And usually wherever General
Sherman had been occupied, Mother Bickerdyke was not far away.
The thought occurred to me that possibly James Burkhalter might
have left diaries. But ho could I, in 1968, find the Burkhalter
heirs?
During my Galesbury youth, an old man named Mr. Burkhalter had
lived next door to my home. He lived in a small cottage. I knew
Mr. Burkhalter was probably no longer alive. Also, there had been
a lady who often was a substitute teacher in the public school
system; once or twice, she was in charge of classes I had attended.
She had been Mrs. Burkhalter. I remembered her son, a tall, thin
boy, with dark hair and glassed, but I had no idea how to find
them.
In the Fall of 1968, Bess A. Donaldson and I were in touch
about her father, Henry A. Allen of Galesburg, and his role in
the Civil War. A series of articles was published then in the
home town weekly newspaper, The Galesburg Post. The Post published
my articles for several years and it arrives in my mail every
Monday. The 1968 articles told of a planned reunion in Galesburg,
to be held by the former members of Miss Strong's Kindergarten
Classes, which had flourished in the town around the turn of the
century. The man who was backing the project was Mr. James B.
Allen. I mentioned this to Mrs. Donaldson on the telephone one
Sunday morning and she replied; "Why, I know Jim Allen. He's
my second cousin."
I asked Mrs. Donaldson if she thought any of the people attending
Mr. Allen's reunion would be descended from Knox County veterans
of the Civil War. She urged me to make an inquiry, a minute after
we ended our chat, I called Mr. Allen in Galesburg. I explained
my project to him and he then informed me that he was grandson
of Captain James L. Burkhalter and that he had Captain Jim's diaries.
I offered to transcribe them.
"No those pages are awfully faded," he said. "I
can barely make out some of the word. Besides," he went on.
"There's nothing in 'em."
I urged him to send the diaries to me and let me be the judge
of whether or not anything was in those writings. Three, and then
four, months passed, and still the diaries hadn't arrived.
James Allen visited Bess Donaldson in Florida. In March, after
he was back in Galesburg, I once more asked to see the diaries
and that time, they materialized.
Not only were the pages faded, the entries were dispersed. ("For the last half of March 10th, see the bottom of February 2nd") And so forth. Captain Jim had simply run out of space and on certain days and availed himself of margins and corners elsewhere. He had ,however, annotated everything thoroughly, the final result showed.
It became necessary to read each word with a magnifying glass
while holding the book in a shadow, for too much light tended
to "wash" the indentations away. Once started, I sat
for five days and nights, almost non-stop, writing in longhand
every last word that was in the three diaries and them mounting
the fragments into their proper places. By then, it was abundantly
clear that Mr. Allen had been wrong about something. Far from
nothing being in them, the diaries were packed with information
that was frank and ample.
I started to type the manuscript and then phoned Jim Allen
again. I urged him to under-take a further search for other possible
Civil War writings of Captain Jim, and that was when the journals
were uncovered. Those, along with various statistical records,
have now been added to the first material. At long last, Captain
Jim has his book, a book I believe he always wanted to put together.
Various considerations quite likely prevented him from doing
any post-war preparation of the material. His family grew and
he had to support it. Also, a great flood of memoirs and histories
appeared after the War, many of which purported to tell 'the truth'
and some probably did. Of the Civil War books that I have read
which were written by actual participants, few tell their stories
as frankly and as maturely as he did.
Burkhalter and the men under his leadership were residents
of Maquon. The chronicle he set down is theirs as well as his.
"Now it is Monday and a most beautiful day,""
Jim wrote on June 27, 1864. "The sun rose clear and splendid,
with not a cloud to mar the blue sky." But, he continued,
". . . we are destined to die and be blind to tomorrow's
sun, which will rise above a terrible carnage . . . our brigade
is ordered to charge the rebel works . . . the stupidity of this
order is enough to paralyze me..."
He did not know that before the day was half finished, his
good friend, Colonel Daniel McCook would be fatally wounded.
That morning, they were before Kenesaw Mountain, in Georgia.
He wrote about an impending battle, one of many, yet there were
places in the story for:
"obtained from the quartermaster today some stockings for
myself, one pair for Alex Snyder, John Freehold (one pair) and
also a pair each for Wm. Caulkins and Wm. S. Coon, etc."
Or: "Johnny Mire needed a new dress coat. Tim West had to
have stockings and Sergeant's chevrons."
A colored boy, a runaway slave named Chester Ewing, is a part
of this story, along with his Uncle Tom. On Sunday morning, July
10, 1864, near the Chattahoochee River in Georgia, Captain Jim
wrote this entry:" Some runaway slaves came through our lines
this morning and went all through camp, seeking work. Chester,
a boy of about 15, followed by an older man, around 50, came to
see me. The man is called by Chester "Uncle Tom," but
from the way Uncle Tom watches the boy, I am inclined to think
that he is really Chester's father. Chester is hungry and ragged
and so is the man.
Uncle Tom said they had run away from a bad master named Ewing.
I am going to put them down as Chester and Tom Ewing."
About a formal parade early that Spring, he could say: "
the general appearance and conduct of the review was not very
satisfactory to my gaze. Principally attributable to the miserable
music made by the 52nd Ohio Regiment band."
Candor there is plenty in this narrative, as well as strength
of character.
"This day, as also on many others, I became excessively weary and footsore, so that it was with the greatest difficulty that I kept up with my command. The interest which I feel in my company and my desire to command it in future, as in former engagements, alone have held me in my place. If my will was no better than my physical strength, I fear that I should fail on many occasions."
That will was a key factor in Captain Jim's day-to-day- existence
and sustained him through repeated disappointment. One instance
is mentioned in his entry for March 28, 1864. After talking about
the weather and adding that the company was on picket for the
day, Jim wrote: " Had an election for Major. Candidates were
Captain Thomas and Captain Burkhalter - resulted in the election
of Captain Thomas. Vote stood Thomas - 14; Burkhalter - 7."
When the war was nearly over, Burkhalter was breveted to the rank
of Major, but as he never mustered for it, he never considered
himself anything but a Captain. for the rest of his life, he was
Captain Jim.
Still, there were compensations. On the enlistment roster prepared
in Maquon during the summer of 1862, Jim Burkhalter's name heads
the list, with "carpenter" as his occupation. Fifteen
years after Jim returned to civilian life in Maquon he had advanced
sufficiently to buy a position in the stock of a thriving Galesburg
financial institution, the Farmers & Mechanics Bank. He started
as a director. Three years later, in 1884, he became the bank's
president and held that post for twenty-five years. The bank is
now more than a century old.
The personal history of James Lewis Burkhalter is comparable
to that of countless men who were alive in that era. He was born
in a small eastern community at a time when the mere idea of railroads
was revolutionary. His parents were David and Mary Ann (Marks)
Burkhalter and his birth occurred in Allentown, Pennsylvania,
on April 15, 1835. Jim was the eldest of eleven children, seven
of whom were boys. His parents were of German descent and only
spoke German. None of the young Burkhalters learned English until
they were old enough to attend public school. Jim's father was
a carpenter.
In 1840, when Jim was five, his parents moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania. He grew up there on the farm and obtained his formal education in the district schools. He also attended the Saegerstown Academy. After finishing, he taught school for a short while. He also studied law, with a notion of becoming an attorney. But Jim abandoned all those things in his late teens and returned to Meadville. He found work as a carpenter and stayed in Meadville until he was twenty-one. That was in 1856.