Union Soldier

My guess is that a $25 signing bonus ultimately persuaded Indiana farmer George Ostheimer to join the Union Army. George and his wife Maria were Bavarian immigrants. In 1844, they arrived in the U.S. with four children, a daughter having died at sea. In 17 years, they moved three times and Maria gave birth to five more children. With tackling a new language, packing, unpacking, clearing ground, and burying at least two little ones, neither George nor Maria probably had much time to ponder the moral question of if one human being should own another. Not, I think, that they would have supported slavery. After all, they didn't come to the U.S. to be owned by anyone. For whatever reason, George, at age 52, enlisted as a private in Company A, 16th Indiana Infantry, on June 2, 1862. On August 30, 1862, on a battlefield at Richmond, KY, Confederate General Bragg with a seasoned force easily defeated a hastily assembled group of 6,500 raw Indiana recruits led by Major General William Nelson. The Confederates captured 4,000 soldiers. They killed at least 1,200 including my great, great, great grandfather George.  I wonder what George thought about as he died--Bavaria? Maria? His dead children? His living children? The $25? The Civil War was fought to end the ownership of people.  Only George knows why he joined the Union Army. Only Maria knows if his sacrifice was worth leaving her a widow. I'm left wanting to go to Richmond, to walk the ground where my kin died for a greater cause.