Civil War Veteran: Miner Abel Webster

 

Miner Abel Webster was born in Warsaw, New York, on March 18, 1835, the fourth child of Solomon Savage & Olive “Polly” (Kellogg) Webster. Around 1843 the Websters moved from New York to a farm in Laona Township, Winnebago County, Illinois, where Miner would grow to adulthood.

 

On September 30, 1855, Miner married Hannah Maria Allen, our 2nd cousin 4x removed via the Burroughs branch of the family tree. She went by her middle name, Maria. Miner was 20 and Maria was 19. They did not leave Winnebago County, but settled near Durand, where they farmed and soon welcomed two children: Edward in 1856 and Eva Maria in 1858. Sadly, Edward died on April 11, 1859, only two years old, and Miner’s 49-year-old mother passed away in 1860, just before the Civil War.

 

Despite having a young family, Miner Abel Webster volunteered to serve as a private in the 74th Illinois Infantry on August 6, 1862, and a month later, on September 4, was mustered in at Rockford, assigned to Company H. At enlistment, he was 27 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with light complexion, blue eyes, and dark hair.

 

After training, the 74th Illinois Infantry headed south to Louisville, Kentucky, arriving September 30. In early October they joined the effort to drive General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate forces from the state. On October 8 they were at the Battle of Perryville, but did not engage; they were at a safe distance, assigned to guard a supply train.

 

Though there was no victor at Perryville, within weeks the Rebel forces fled the Bluegrass State, never to return. Bragg retreated to winter quarters in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and the Union army followed them as far as Nashville. It was here that Miner Abel Webster took ill and in November was sent to an unnamed army hospital in the city. His regiment left Nashville the day after Christmas and fought at the bloody Battle of Stones River near Murfreesboro on December 30–31, 1862.

 

The 74th Illinois Infantry was still in Murfreesboro when Webster rejoined his company in March or April 1863. The regiment supported the Union’s Tullahoma Campaign and occupation of Middle Tennessee in the spring and summer, and were guarding Union supply trains when the armies clashed at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 22–24, 1863. And while they did not fight in that battle, Webster’s regiment found itself trapped in Chattanooga after the Union’s defeat.

 

When Union forces broke the siege later that fall, Webster fought at the Battle of Orchard Knob, and two days later, the Battle of Missionary Ridge. According to The Union Army, Volume 3 (Federal Publishing Company, 1908), “In the assault on Missionary Ridge the regiment lost 14 killed, 39 wounded, and 6 missing. It did not number in that action more than 340 combatants of whom 59 or 17 percent, were placed hors du combat [out of action].” Webster was not injured or wounded.

 

While Union forces went into winter quarters in north Georgia/east Tennessee in early 1864, Webster was given a one-month leave, from March 18 to April 18, to return home to his wife and daughter in Durand. It was a productive visit—nine months later on December 8, Maria gave birth to twins Mabel Martha and Miner Abel Jr. Of course, throughout her pregnancy, her husband was back in Georgia. (Because Maria’s parents lived in Indiana, she and the children were probably living in Durand with Miner’s widowed father Solomon, or he with them, while Miner was away.)

 

Webster's regiment was engaged in the Siege of Atlanta, starting with the Battle of Tunnel Hill, May 5–7, 1864, and the Battle of Rocky Faced Ridge, May 8–13. “At Rocky Face Ridge, up whose rugged side, inaccessible for artillery horses, it hauled two Parrott guns by ropes, and an all-day’s skirmish ensued.” (The Union Army)

 

His regiment pressed on to battles at Resaca, New Hope Church, Dallas, Pumpkin Vine Creek, Pine Mountain, Lost Mountain, and Kennesaw Mountain. “In the assault at Kennesaw Mountain [June 27] the regiment met the severest loss in its history, going into the fight with 201 men and coming out with 138, a loss of 31 per cent. The detailed loss was 12 killed, 38 wounded and 13 missing.” (The Union Army) Apparently, Webster was among the lucky 69 percent who were uninjured.

 

The bloody siege raged on: Ruff’s Mill, Smyrna Campground, Pace’s Ferry, and Peachtree Creek. That July 19 fight appears to have been Webster’s last, as he entered a regimental hospital in Vining Station on August 22, 1864—there’s no documentation as to whether he was wounded or ill (or both). On October 18, he was transferred an unknown army hospital in Chattanooga, and finally to U.S.A. Hospital No. 3 in Nashville.

 

While in Nashville, on March 31, 1865, Lieutenant Wesley Evans of the 15th US Colored Infantry sent a request to Gen. W. D. Whipple at the Army of the Cumberland’s headquarters: “General, I would respectfully request that Private Miner A. Webster . . . be detailed as Clerk. I have been detailed as Supt of Freedman Camp at Springfield, Tenn and the duties being more than I can attend to cultivating a farm. It is positively necessary that I have some assistance. Miner Webster is now in Hospital No. 3 and unfit for field service.”

 

The Freedmen Camp that Evans supervised was one of sixteen safe havens in Tennessee run by the Union Army for the formerly enslaved, many of whom had recently fled their enslavers. Evans’s request was approved a week later, and on April 7, 1865, Miner Abel Webster went on detached service as a clerk—whatever that entailed—at the Freedman’s Camp in Springfield, northwest of Nashville. (One document says it was Clarksville, which is nearby.)

 

A historic marker on the region’s Freedman’s Camps can be seen today at Fort Defiance in Clarksville:

After Union forces took control of Clarksville and New Providence in early 1863, many escaped slaves and a few uprooted white Unionists came here for protection and assistance. They were housed in tobacco warehouses and in camps near fortified posts like Fort Defiance/Fort Bruce. Called “contrabands,” some were hired by the army as civilian labor. . . . Near the war’s end, the US Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to further post-war employment and create schools for refugees. After the war many remained and established neighborhoods near the now abandoned military posts. Much of present-day New Providence [Clarkesville] is an outgrowth of the Freedmen’s Camp located here. Some current residents are direct descendants of former slaves who sought the security of the Union troops garrisoned at Fort Bruce.

 

This photo shows a Freedman’s Camp near Richmond, Virginia.

 

Miner Abel Webster served two months at the Freedman’s Camp, then mustered out of the service on June 10, 1865, in Nashville. He was still owed $75 of the $100 bounty/bonus he received when he signed up.

 

The twins, Martha Mabel and Miner Abel Jr.

 

After leaving the army, Webster returned to his family in Illinois and saw his two youngest children for the first time. He resumed farming there until the summer of 1870, when the Websters moved to Bradford, Iowa. It was here, on April 7, 1872, that 7-year-old Miner Abel Jr. died of scarlet fever. Later that year, Hannah gave birth to their fifth and final child, Harriet “Hattie” Jane Webster, who would eventually become a nurse in Seattle.

 

The Websters appear to have returned to Illinois after Hattie’s birth; there’s a short item in the Durand Patriot on July 6, 1876, reporting: “Miner Webster lost a valuable horse last week. It was killed by lightning during that severe thunderstorm.” They left Illinois soon after, because the 1880 Census shows the family farming in Cass County, Minnesota. Here daughter Eva—the twin who survived—married Charles Edward Churchill in 1883; he owned a hardware store in Park Rapids.

 

On December 30, 1884, the Websters were awarded a Homestead grant of 160 acres near St. Cloud, Minnesota. Apparently that enterprise failed; the 1890 North Dakota State Census shows the Websters living in Forest River Township, Walsh County, North Dakota—their fifth documented move since the war ended. They appear to have followed their daughter Eva, who married Alvin West Waterman in late 1880 and settled in North Dakota. Waterman was also a Civil War veteran, having served in the 7th Wisconsin Infantry from 1861 to 1864, fighting in many of the battles in the Eastern Theater.

 

The Websters moved one last time. Just before the turn of the century, they moved to Seattle, Washington, where city directories show them living at 901 24th Ave. S. They were here when Miner was injured while riding on a Seattle streetcar in 1905; a report in the Seattle Star on March 27, 1905 states: “The case of Miner Webster vs. the Seattle, Renton & Southern Electric Company for damages alleged to have been suffered in a collision, is in progress before judge Tallman.” He won a $3,097.50 settlement (Tacoma Daily Ledger, October 28, 1905), about $100,000 today. The streetcar company appealed, and lost.

 

Miner Abel Webster died on January 8, 1909, at the age of 73, and he was buried the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Seattle. This burial ground, reserved for Civil War veterans, sits adjacent to Lake View Cemetery, where Bruce Lee is buried.

 

Hannah (Allen) Webster applied for a Widow’s Pension and received it on January 21, 1909. She died the following year on February 17, 1910, and though her grave is unmarked, I believe she is buried in the GAR Cemetery as well.