For those of you who know me well, you are undoubtedly aware that I'm a big history geek, and that I'm particularly interested in Military History.

What you may not know is that one of my undying curiosity's is the old cemetery behind my parents house. Particularly that inside the cemetery are several headstones of Civil War soldiers.

It has never ceased to amaze me that several hundred yards away from the house I grew up in there are soldiers who (150 years ago!) participated in the bloodiest and perhaps most important American conflict.

Today all that remains of these men is their heavily weathered headstones in the Old Ossian Cemetery which has suffered much vandalism since its dedication in 1847.

I've always found myself pondering about those soldiers, who were they? what did they do? What was it like to leave the family or the farm and head off to a great adventurous unknown. Today these soldiers remain to us in scattered records and weathered headstones but in their time they were part of a legendary conflict that had the fate of the nation at stake. In a childlike wonderment I have always wished that these headstones could talk, what stories would they tell?

Perhaps my Indiana History course at IUPUI has renewed my vigor towards this topic, or maybe it is simply that I've always felt history is worth telling.

Today I trekked through the mud and rain to the old cemetery to write down the names. It has been many years since I searched the Internet for these soldiers, so I thought I would try it again since information has likely become more available and organized. Someday I would love to do a comprehensive search using many local sources but for now I thought I would at least get a start so that I have a benchmark as well as (maybe) a decent tidbit for others who are interested.

The first soldiers name was taken from a mossy and heavily weathered stone near the front gate of the cemetery.

W.m H Rankin - 153rd Indiana Infantry C.O.E.

The first thing that struck me about this soldier was the C.O.E. which in Military Terminolgy most likely stands for Army Core Of Engineers.

The following information about the 153rd Infantry was availble here http://www.civilwarindex.com/armyin/153rd_in_infantry.html

One-Year Regiments. — A call was made, Dec. 20, 1864, for eleven regiments for one year's service, and recruiting stations were established at the headquarters of each of the provost marshals, recruits being forwarded to Indianapolis. Subsequently five additional regiments were called for, and under these calls the following organizations were raised :

One Hundred and Fifty-third Indiana Infantry. — Col., Oliver H. P. Carey; Lieut. -Col., Charles S. Ellis; Maj., James F. Wildman. This regiment came from the 11th Congressional district and was organized at Indianapolis in Feb., 1865. It was mustered in March 1, and left the state on the 5th, going to Louisville, from where it was sent to Russellville, Ky., detachments being sent to Bowling Green, Hopkinsville and other points. Cos. D. G and H were engaged in numerous skirmishes with guerrillas while in that section. Returning to Louisville on June 16, the regiment was assigned to duty at Taylor barracks in that city, until it was mustered out on Sept. 4, 1865. The original strength was 1,002; gain by recruits, 31 ; total, 1,033. Loss by death, 47; desertion, 79; unaccounted for, 2. Using

The same website has PDFs of the mustering rolls which lists all the officers and soldiers in the regiment.

William Rankin was a member of Company "E" which he was mustered out of in February of June 13th of 1865. The 153rd was of the last units of Infantry assembled in Indiana. Obviously given the date of formation in 1864 the War was nearing its end. As the information said, it seems that this unit was more to quell guerrillas and play out the end game rather than participate in major battles. Rankin was not in one of the companies that was listed as skirmishing with guerrillas but I suppose that was certainly possible? One interesting note about Company E is that the officers in charge of it were from both Ossian and Bluffton.

The Captain Benjamin Wiley was from Bluffton.
First Lieutenant- John Henry was from Ossian
Second Lieutenant- Marvin Bennet was from Ossian

It makes sense that the officers would also be from the area but I found Wiley to be of interest because it is the name of a major street in Bluffton. Coincidence? maybe not...

By this point in the war volunteers were hard to come by, the toll of war was being fully understood and it is not surprising that the majority of this regiment were draftees, which seemed to include Rankin.

The question that remains most pressing about William Rankin was the Engineer aspect, what was his particular job as an engineer in that unit?

In the next post I will discuss more of these intriguing soldiers.