X. HONORING OTHER CIVIL WAR ANCESTORS: John Ogan; Edward Culver; Robert E. Lee THE CIVIL WAR JOURNAL OF ANDREW JACKSON NICKELL (1828-1863)

Civil War Ancestors JOHN OGAN (1836-1915) - My maternal great-great-grandfather was from McArthur, Vinton County, Ohio. John was the third generation of the brick making Ogan family in southern Ohio after Evan Ogan moved north from Virginia after the opening of the Northwest Territories. John Ogan enlisted in the 56th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company F at McArthur on November 8, 1861. Like Andrew Jackson Nickell, John Ogan was an active combatant in the Vicksburg Campaign. John was shot through the shoulder at the Battle of Champion Hills on May 16, 1863 as Grant's Army pressed westward from Jackson to Vicksburg, Mississippi. John Ogan survived his wounds, and was mustered out with his regiment at New Orleans on November 14, 1864. He returned to Vinton County to start the highly successful McArthur Brickyard. The Ogans had been making bricks for generations. John also made and played his own violins. He enjoyed a long and prosperous life in McArthur, and collected a veterans pension. John had nine children with three wives, and passed away in 1915 at the age of seventy-nine. EDWARD H. CULVER (1832-1892) - My wife's great-grandfather, Edward Culver, was a successful farmer and stock-raiser from Sweetwater, Menard County, Illinois. In the mid-1830's Edward's parents moved to what became Menard County, Illinois from New England when Edward was an infant. Living northwest of Springfield, IL, they farmed acreage that had been originally platted and surveyed by a young surveyor named Abraham Lincoln. Near the end of the Civil War, the governors of the Northwestern states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa) called for a volunteer force of 85,000 "Hundred Dazers" or One-Hundred Day Men. The purpose of these recruits was to relieve veteran soldiers from guard duty at forts, arsenals and elsewhere. Edward responded to this call, enlisting in the 133rd Illinois Volunteers, Company I on May 5, 1864. He was mustered into service on May 31, 1864. On June 3, the 133rd was ordered to the Rock Island (Illinois) Barracks. There the regiment was assigned to duty guarding Confederate prisoners of war. After completing his enlistment, Edward was mustered out of the service at Camp Butler (east of Springfield, IL) on September 24, 1864. Edward returned to his Menard County farm and married Anna Johnson. Together they had five children. My wife's grandfather, also Edward H. Culver, was born in 1884, twenty years after his father's service with the 133rd Illinois. After chopping wood on a cold winter day in 1892, the elder Edward caught pneumonia and died at the age of sixty. General R. E. Lee ROBERT E. LEE (1807-1870) - My most recognizable Civil War relative was General Robert E. Lee, respected Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. My maternal grandmother was a Lee, and her grandfather, Squire Lee (my 2x-great-grandfather), was descended from the Virginia Lees. Squire Lee was a second cousin and contemporary of General Robert E. Lee. Squire was a farmer and land-owner who moved from Kentucky to Vermilion County, Illinois in the mid-1800's. My middle name "Lee" comes from this famous family, as well as a proud (and distant) relationship to the famous General!

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Please send me an email. | I. Andrew Becomes a Soldier... | II. Headed South... | III. The First Fights... | | IV. Laying In Camp... | V. Milliken's Bend | VI. Last Letters... | VII. Captain Abraham... | | VIII. From An Unknown Writer... | IX. Epilogue... | X. Honoring Other Civil War Ancestors... | Return to the home page of: "THE CIVIL WAR JOURNAL OF ANDREW JACKSON NICKELL (1828-1863)" You are the visitor since April 21, 1999.