92. A Victim Of The Civil War

A Victim Of The Civil War

For William "Mitch" Campbell, As For Other Veterans Of The War Between The States, The Greatest Horrors Did Not Lie On The Battle Field

By William Jackson

Winchester Journal Herald
February 24, 1979

     The American Civil War has been called the first modern war, at least partly because the conflict saw the development and use in the field of vastly superior weapons of destruction and the application in the field of the latest advances in medicine in an effort to save lives. It is ironic, in view of these facts, that of all the deaths in that bloody conflict, more men died from disease in the camps and hospitals than from wounds on the field of battle.

William "Mitch" Campbell

     Many of the soldiers who were still alive when the war ended in 1865 had left their regiments with broken health, only to become casualties of the war long after the last shot had been fired. One of these men was William Mitchell Campbell, or Mitch, the great great great grandfather of Beverly Vardaman, of Lynn. Mitch served as an officer in the 19th Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, a part of the famous Iron Brigade. He survived the bloodiest fight in American military history without a scratch, but died more than 20 years later as a result of his service.

Mitch Campbell

     Mitch Campbell was the son of William and Maria Campbell, who moved west from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, respectively, and married in Hamilton County, Ohio. He was born in that county on Nov. 17, 1818. Mitch married a Hamilton County girl, Mary Ann Rude, in 1840, and by 1850 the couple had moved west and were settled in Washington Township in Randolph County. Mitch stayed in this county for the rest of his life, with the exception of his service in the Civil War for a little over a year.

Mary Ann Rude Campbell

     Campbell was an industrious farmer, and from 1850 to 1856 he worked a farm located about one and a half miles north of Lynn. He and his wife began raising a family which would eventually include six children: Mary Jane, Hester Ann, William B., Sarah Frances, Amaretta and Cinderella Maria. He was a Republican, and with the ascendancy of that party in the middle of the 19th century Mitch began a limited career in politics as the first Republican sheriff for Randolph County.
     Mitch was to serve three terms as Randolph County Sheriff, the first of these beginning in 1856. He moved his family to the county seat in that year, and remained there until the expiration of his second term in 1860. By that time the nation was heading for a nearly fatal rift, and with the Republican victory in the presidential election that year the secession of the south, and the ensuing Civil War, was sealed.
     Hostilities began in April of 1861, and by July of that year companies were being raised in Randolph, Delaware, Wayne and Henry Counties for what was to become the 19th Ind. Vol. Infantry. Mitch signed up with Company C, which he may well have had a hand in raising. At any rate, he was a prominent enough citizen in the county to land a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the company when he was mustered into the service on July 15.
     The regiment left Camp Morton, in Indianapolis, on August 5, and by the ninth it had joined the Army of the Potomac. The regiment saw minor action in Lewinsville shortly after entering the service, and as a lieutenant Campbell was engaged in the fighting at Falls Church on Sept. 28. On Oct. 12, however, Campbell was transferred to Company I, where his appointment as Captain was approved on Nov. 11. This approval was retroactive, and the new captain was to receive captain's pay dating from Oct. 12.
     The 19th Indiana spent the winter at Fort Craig, on Arlington Heights, and by this time Campbell had begun to develop the problems with his health which would plague him for the rest of his life.
     Robert Hamilton, a doctor from Lynn, had been Campbell's physician for a number of years before he entered the service, and knew him to be in sound health prior to 1861. Hamilton became the regimental surgeon for the 19th Indiana, and as such treated Campbell during that year.
     "While the regiment was in camp at Fort Craig, said soldier (Campbell) had an attack of urinary disease that  rendered him unfit for duty the greater portion of the winter of 1861 and '62," Hamilton wrote to the War Department years later.
     Mitch Campbell recovered enough to remain with the regiment during the summer of 1862, serving up to and through the bloody day of Sept. 17 at Antietam which claimed the lives of more American soldiers than any other battle in the history of our country. Campbell survived that fighting without a wound, but it was at about that time that he lost his health again, which he never regained.
     Less than a month later, on Oct. 11, Campbell was to write to Lt. Col. Williams, commanding the 19th Indiana at camp near Sharpburg, Maryland, "I hearby tender my resignation in consequence of ill health." The next day, one year from the day from when he had been appointed captain of Co. I, he was examined by a surgeon, and the resignation was accepted.
     "I have carefully examined Capt. William M. Campbell of Co. I, 19th Indiana Vol., and find him in a condition during four weeks. He has had frequent relapses intermittent during the last year. He is unfit for present active duty," the examining surgeon reported.
     Three days later, in special orders number 282, Maj. Gen. McClellan discharged Campbell from the service.
     Mitch returned home to Greensfork Township, and by 1863 he had settled with his family on a farm near Spartansburg. He was again elected to a two-year term as sheriff in 1868, but he continually plagued with the weaknesses which had attacked him in the army. One doctor even reported treating him for recurrences of typhoid fever several years after his discharge.
     The worst problem that he brought home with him from the service was that disease of the bladder and urinary track which had plagued him through the winter of '61-'62, and which was slowly but surely killing him. Ebenezer Tucker, in his History of Randolph County, published in 1882, described Mitch Campbell at 64 years of age as "Hearty and robust and wide awake to the affairs of his community, but hearty and robust was probably stretching the point a bit. Perhaps this departure from the exact truth can be forgiven in view of the fact that Tucker's son, Charles F., had married Cinderella Maria Campbell, Mitch's daughter.
     Dr. Hamilton, Campbell's long-time physician and comrade in arms, continued to treat him after the war, and testified later that "He was afflicted continuously up to the time of his death. The immediate cause of death was uremic poisoning."
     William Mitchell died on St. Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 1885, almost 20 years exactly after the end of the Civil War, a victim of that conflict.


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More of the story.

1850 Census
William M. Campbell, a male, age 32, born about 1818 in Ohio. He is listed as head of household and a farmer in Washington Township, Randolph County, Indiana. Also listed in the home are Mary A. Campbell age 31, Mary J. Campbell age 9, Esther A. Campbell age 7, William Campbell age 4, Sarah F. Campbell age 1, and Edward J. Campbell age 28 -also noted as a farmer.

Plan a visit to RCHS, Inc. to peruse The Genealogy Library for loads of more information on his family and life...

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