Ninety-six when he died Sept. 15, 1944, the Champaign County native was not only the last living veteran of the Civil War in Clark County, he was just one of just 16 survivors in the Buckeye State.
He had been popular enough with the other 15 survivors that they elected him senior vice commander of the Grand Army of Republic, Department of Ohio.
Needles had a few other claims to fame: He’d been kicked out of the Army for being underage; re-enlisted and was wounded at the Battle of Lookout Mountain; and after the war served in the 6th U.S. Infantry, a unit that arrived at the Little Big Horn too late to have been of help to George Armstrong Custer.
Many of the World War II boys are gone now.
But a new generation of Springfielders can get to know Needles and other boys who wore blue during the Civil War Burial Tour of Ferncliff Cemetery & Arboretum at 6 p.m. April 13.
Tickets are $10 and can be reserved by calling 324-0657. Reservations are required.
Here are some of Needles’ fellow soldiers who rest with him in Ferncliff and whose stories have been brought back to life by the research of Springfielder Anne Benston.
William A. Stewart
William Stewart was regarded well enough by other river pilots who ran between Cincinnati, St. Louis and New Orleans, that he served on a committee that submitted a report to Washington, D.C. about the channels of the Big Muddy in July 1861.
Returning to Cincinnati, he soon was called on to help outfit the gunboats Carondelet and Mound City for service in the war and saw action on the Mississippi River.
He served well enough that in 1864, he was appointed as a steamboat inspector for the district of Cincinnati.
He moved to Springfield in July 1866 after leaving that post, started the W.A. Stewart & Co. coal business and became a stockholder in the Republic Printing Co.
William M. Harris
The first house he lived in was a log cabin, and Possum School, too, was made of logs when Harris went there.
That schooling was mostly done during the winter, of course, because farming duties held sway in the warm weather.
After leaving Possum, Harris went on to vocational education at a wagon maker’s shop in West Liberty. In 1859 he was just getting his own Springfield wagon business on its feet when war came.
Harris answered his president’s call, first as a 100-day man with the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, then for three years as a sergeant and regimental postmaster with an infantry unit.
He reportedly was the first man detailed for postmaster service in the war.
After the war, he went back into the wagon trade, then worked at the Rock Island Arsenal at Davenport, Ill., before returning to Springfield. He became the circulation manager for the Globe Newspaper and was elected superintendent of the city’s Associated Charities. The work there made him beloved, according to the newspaper account following his Jan. 7, 1911 death:
“Springfield has lost a worthy citizen and the poor a lovable friend, whose kindly hands will no more provide for their needs. The familiar face of the old gray-headed secretary of charities will live in the memory of many for years to come.”
‘Uncle Billy’ Burnett
William Burnett was 14 in 1860, when he decided his years at Western School had given him enough education and he set out to make his living in the machine shops of Whiteley, Fassler & Kelly.
Three years later he was a skilled machinist, but found his country at war.
A long-timer, he enlisted in Company A, Fourth Battalion, Ohio Independent Cavalry, which he served with until his discharge at the war’s end in 1865.
During 23 more years of shop work, a few years with the Union Central Life Insurance Company and 10 years as a grocer, Burnett also pursued one of his other interests: politics.
“Uncle Billy,” as he was called, served three terms as Springfield’s mayor, six years on the school board, four on the police and fire board and four as “government gauger,” a kind of inspector at the William Burns Distillery.
That, too, may have been a job he had a taste for.
Whether as a political plumb or in recognition of his skills, Burnett eventually moved to Sandusky, where he spent 12 years running the Soldiers Home, serving more than 900 Civil War veterans with whom he had served.
Rev. Charles Hunsdon
The Rev. Charles Hunsdon’s war years were long behind him when he came to serve Springfield’s Methodist congregation on West Pleasant Street.
But he brought with him a record of outstanding service.
An influential enough businessman to be serving in the Vermont House of Representatives when the war broke out, Hunsdon put the knowledge he’d picked up at the Pennsylvania Military Institute to work, first as captain of Company B of the 1st Vermont Volunteer Heavy Artillery.
The unit served on the northern defenses of Washington, D.C., and built and garrisoned Union forts before moving on to 1864 battles at Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and other locales.
Hunsdon had risen to lieutenant colonel by the time his unit marched at the Grand Review in Washington at war’s end, and likely was in Washington when the president was assassinated.
He was in his 40s when he answered the call to ministry, and though he preached around the country, upon his death on Sept. 20, 1899, at age 69, his body was returned to Springfield for burial.
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