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ELISHA R. ROOT |
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According to an online resource, Elisha R. Root, one of eight
children born to Hiram and Laura Root, was born on March 12,
1847, in Talmadge, Ohio. The family was still there as late as
1850, but by the time of the Civil War Elisha was living in
Delhi, Iowa.
Elisha was a fourteen-year-old schoolboy
when Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter. President Lincoln
called on the states for volunteers to augment a regular army
estimated at 13,000 to 16,000 infantrymen. No man under the
rank of commissioned officer was to be younger than eighteen
nor older than forty-five although age requirements were not
always honored and some men stretched to permit (or prevent)
their enlistment. The volunteers came, the war escalated and
Elisha grew older.
By November, 1863, the 21st Iowa
Infantry had seen its ranks (985 men when mustered in on
September 9, 1862) reduced to only 643, even with the addition
of recruits added during its service. A call was made for more
volunteers. Fifteen volunteered in December and eleven in
January but, due primarily to additional discharges and
transfers, the regiment still had only 652 men on the rolls
and many of them were unable for duty. In February, the ranks
were swelled by fifty-one more enlistments.
On the 13th
of February, 1864, four weeks before his seventeenth birthday,
Elisha enlisted and was mustered in at Dubuque. A 5' 1"
farmer, he was described as having black eyes, dark hair and a
dark complexion and was assigned to Company I. He reached the
regiment, then on Matagorda Island, Texas, on April 11th, and
remained with it during the balance of its service along the
Gulf Coast where they were, said Colonel Sam Merrill, nothing
more than "guardians of the sacred drifting sands of Texas."
In mid-June they returned to New Orleans and saw
subsequent service along the rail line in southwestern
Louisiana. On July 8, 1864, they left by rail from Terrebonne
Station and, about 9:00 p.m., reached Algiers. From there they
were transported upriver and, on the 26th, reached Morganza
where they were stationed until September 3rd. They then saw
service along the White River in Arkansas before moving to
Memphis where they arrived on November 29th.
On
December 15th and 16th, Confederate General John Bell Hood
suffered a defeat at Nashville, northeast of Memphis. As he
started a withdrawal to the south, soldiers in Memphis were
ordered to try to intercept Hood and his battered army. On the
21st, the regiment left tents behind, joined cavalry and
headed directly east anticipating a rendezvous somewhere near
the Mississippi or Alabama border. This was the earliest and
coldest winter Tennessee had experienced for years and men
struggled through mud and rain, suffered through cold nights
and bivouacked in the open. On the 26th, unable to find Hood,
they started their return through water, mud and slush. On the
27th, they reached White's Station, only eight miles from
Memphis, and many were suffering. Among them was Elisha Root
who caught cold and developed “inflammatory rheumatism.” Many
were hospitalized, but Elisha stayed with the regiment and was
marked “present” on the December 31, 1864, muster roll.
Admiral Farragut had secured the entrance to Mobile Bay
early in the war but the city at the head of the bay remained
in Confederate hands. In early February, 1865, Elisha and
others able for duty left New Orleans on the George Peabody
and, on the 7th, went ashore near Fort Gaines on Dauphin
Island. They were still there on March 12th (Elisha’s
eighteenth birthday), but on the 17th started a movement that
would take them north along the east side of the bay.
Strawberry Point’s William Grannis would later recall the
difficult march that was "through swamps much of the way and
that the men were detailed to make corduroy causeways, that
the swamps were of such a nature that horses and mules could
not be used so that the men had to cut and drag in place the
timbers for causeways, that heavy rains fell, especially on
the night of the 20th of March that the work was arduous and
hard on the men; work all day in the mud and wet and then lie
down at night in their wet clothes." On April 12th, they
occupied Mobile. On the 13th they camped at Spring Hill and on
the 14th President Lincoln was shot.
By now the war was
nearing an end, but the regiment was sent back to New Orleans
and, from there, up the Red River where Lieutenant Colonel Van
Anda was directed to “do all in your power to restore
confidence and promote good feeling. You will have no system
of passes for the people, and will interfere in no way with
trade and transportation of products.” Duty was light, but the
hot sultry weather of mid-June made all work difficult and
Elisha’s medical problems were aggravated by diarrhea that
made his poor health even worse.
With the original
three-year enlistments nearing an end, the regiment was sent
to Baton Rouge where officers completed muster and descriptive
rolls for all who had served in the regiment. Men like Elisha
who had enlisted as recruits were transferred on July12th to a
consolidated 34th/38th Iowa infantry and sent to Texas to
complete their three year terms. Almost immediately, however,
it was recognized that their service was no longer needed and,
on August 15, 1865, at Houston, Texas, Elisha was mustered
out. Most were transported back to New Orleans and up the
Mississippi, but family lore indicates that Elisha, in poor
health, returned more than 1,000 miles to his home in Delhi by
ox cart.
On March 22, 1874, twenty-seven-year-old
Elisha and twenty-one-year-old Sarah Daker were married by a
pastor of the M. E. Church in Delhi. On December 7th of that
year, Sarah gave birth to a son, John Martin Root. Sarah was
the daughter of John and Mary Daker who had been born in
England and were living in Clear Lake and that’s where Elisha
and Sarah moved, where a son, Benjamin W. Root, was born on
December 4, 1878, and Elisha died on February 21, 1879. Elisha
is buried in Clear Lake Cemetery as are Sarah’s parents.
On June 12, 1880, Sarah applied for a pension for herself
and her boys. She said Elisha had contracted “inflammatory
rheumatism from exposure to the wet & cold and suffered with
the same disease after his discharge,” a disease that had
caused his death at only thirty-one years of age. Her
application was supported by Erastus Smith (Delhi; Company K)
who said Elisha was “badly run down” after the war and “unable
to walk much and was wholly unable to perform manual labor.”
John Snell (Delhi; Company I) said he recalled the difficult
march from Memphis to try to intercept General Hood and Elisha
“got sick and cold and he complained of Rheumatism and could
not march and had to be taken into the ambulance.” Elisha was
also sick during the Mobile campaign and, when they were on
the Red River, Elisha “was sick and not fit for duty with the
diarrhoea.” William Thompson (Delhi; Company I) recalled that
they were “well soaked” at White’s Station and Elisha “was
very lame and could hardly march.” After the war, Elisha “was
nearly crippled at times.” A man who had known Elisha as a
small boy, recalled the postwar suffering and said, “I helped
to handle and move him when he was perfectly helpless.”
Sarah married Richard Cook on March 17, 1884. She died on
October 20, 1902, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Delhi,
as is her husband. Benjamin Root died on November 7, 1930, and
is buried in the same cemetery. John, the other son of Elisha
and Sarah, died on December 13, 1954, and is buried in
Lakeside Cemetery, Herman, Minnesota. |
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| ~ Compiled & submitted by
Carl Ingwalson <cingwalson@cfilaw.com> |
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United We Stand