A Biography of Union county Soldiers. Veterans' Photographic Souvenir. (G.A.R)

FRANK HUDSON

The face of Frank Hudson will be familiar to nearly every reader of this book. For thirty-eight years he has tilled the rich soil of Sand Creek township and by faithful industry has made it produce bountiful harvests until he has been able to add acre to acre and is now one of the most extensive land owners in the county and no man in Union county is held in higher esteem by his fellow citizens than Frank Hudson. He is a native of Ohio, born July 5, 1842, his parents, Daniel and Mary (Mayhew) Hudson, being natives of the same state. Our subject was reared and educated in the common schools of his native state and Illinois, his parents having moved to Stark County, Illinois in 1853. In 1862 he enlisted in Company A, One hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry and wrote himself private for country and liberty's sake, and went out from home to suffer and die, if need be, in camp or field, that the nation might live. His regiment was assigned to the first Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth Corps, Army of the Tennessee, and the history of that organization, of which the one hundred and Twenty fourth bore an honorable part, under such commanders as Grant, Sherman, McPherson and Logan, needs no further comment. Company A was raised in just forty-eight hours from the time the first name was signed until 101 were on the roll. The names were signed in the office of J.H. Howe, at Kewanee, Illinois. On Sunday, September 29, 1862, the company had its first grand review with ten regiments in line. October 9th found the company at Jackson, Tennessee, a rebel town in the western part of the state and were assigned to the First Brigade, Third Div. Seventeenth Army corps. The brigade was composed of the 20th, 31st, 45th, and 124th Ill., and the 23d Ind. and commanded by C.C. Marsh of the 29th Ill., the division by a man whose name every soldier will revere, John A. Logan. The corps was commanded by Gen. J. B. McPherson and the department by Gen. Grant, was in the Vicksburg Campaign and battle of Port Gibson and then it was steady fighting as follows: Battle of Raymond, May 12, 1863, Jackson, May 14, Champion Hills, May 16, Big Black River, May 17, charge on Vicksburg, May 19th to 22d inclusive and for forty two days and nights were under fire in the siege of Vicksburg. After the close of the war he returned to his father's home in Illinois, where he remained until 1868, when he came to Iowa, and located in Union County, where he was married to Miss Irene Oliver, daughter of W.S. and Minerva Oliver, natives of Ohio.