Scraps of Wood that Fueled a Vision

The Career and Civil War Service of Robert H. Avery

     Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp, broke a lot of men and killed far too many others.  How some men coped with the hunger and the brutal conditions that wore a man down both physically and mentally makes for interesting reading.  Robert Avery’s survival and subsequent career is a testament to his determination, ingenuity and triumph of the human spirit.

     Robert Avery’s parents (George Avery and Saraphina Princess Mary Phelps) were among the brave pioneers that accompanied Reverend George Washington Gale from New York to Illinois in 1836.  They were among the second group of settlers that the Reverend brought to Galesburg.  These settlers resided first in the appropriately named “Log City,” in Knox County, but soon went on to be instrumental in founding the city of Galesburg and Knox College.  The two young adults mentioned above that come with their families to the Illinois prairie soon found that proximity eventually led to attraction, then love.  The couple married in Knoxville in January of 1939.  The first of their seven children, Robert, was born a year later in 1840.

     Young Robert began to attend the Academy of Knox College (high school) in 1854, but chose not to go on to Knox College when he graduated in 1859.  Instead he chose to teach school.  He might have gone on to college eventually, but the Civil War broke out.  Robert followed the news passively for some time, but eventually he felt the urge to take part in the struggle to save the Union, and he enlisted in August of 1862, giving Galesburg as his place of residence.  He was assigned to Company A of the 77^th Illinois Infantry.  The regiment camped in Peoria until October 4^th, when they were shipped to Covington, Kentucky.  From there they were moved by steamboat to Memphis where they remained until mid-December.  They were sent further downriver, and Robert and his regiment participated in the Battle of Milliken’s Bend, in Louisiana, then in the siege and capture of Vicksburg, Arkansas Post, Jackson and Shreveport.

     In April of 1863, Robert Avery was promoted to the rank of Corporal.  In July of that year he became a partner in a farm of 160 acres in Knox County; this 24 year old young man was wise enough to be looking to his future.  On May 7^th of 1864 he earned his Sergeant’s stripes.  At the end of July of 1864 his regiment left Baton Rouge, Louisiana and were disembarked on Dauphine Island, Alabama to be part of an expedition sent to capture Mobile Bay and the forts surrounding it, an engagement best remembered by Admiral David Glasgow Farragut’s order of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” after he had just witnessed one of the vessels in his fleet fall victim to an underwater explosive.  The 77^th Illinois was landed on the west end of Dauphine Island.  The water was so shallow near the shore that the ships hauling their cargo of troops had to anchor some distance out, then use skiffs to safely row the troops ashore.

     Fort Powell was the first of the forts to fall.  The rebels, finding that bombardment from the Union fleet and the advance of troops was making their position impossible to hold, opted to retreat to Cedar Point, a small banana-shaped island on which Fort Gaines was situated.  Union forces moved forward against the fort, which eventually fell to Union forces on August 8^th.

     A series of skirmishes and movements the next couple of weeks led to counter-attacks and fighting in the Cedar Point area and the area around the last fort to hold out; Fort Morgan.  Somehow in one of these firefights Robert Avery was taken prisoner by the rebels.  Avery was sent first to Andersonville Prison, then to other prisons in Georgia, and finally back to Andersonville, where he spent five and a half months of an eight-and-a-half month captivity before he was finally released on April 18^th of 1865.

     Robert Avery was lucky to have survived the horrors of the worst of the rebel prison camps.  His niece, Mrs. Estelle Avery Lampe reminisced that “many were the times when I heard the stories of his experiences.  How he determined that ‘if any one man comes out alive, I will be that man.’  How he never used any utensils belonging to anyone else, and never loaned his one cup to another person, using it not only as a dish, but for washing and bathing as well.  To maintain his sanity, he occupied his mind with planning pieces of machinery.  He would sketch plans for his mechanical inventions in the dirt, and with the scraps of wood which he could gather within the walls of Andersonville, he constructed the model of the corn-planter he planned to build when he would be released.”

      His daughter, Cornelia Avery Plowe, in a letter to the editor of the Knox Alumnus also remarked on her father’s time in that infamous prison camp.  She wrote that “He was a prisoner at Andersonville for about 11 months.  I have the spoon that he ate his wormy beans with while in prison.  The handle had been broken and he riveted on a section of wagon tire for a handle.”

     Two other sources substantiate the above account.  Avery’s daughter Sadie describes the Andersonville survivors, including her father, as looking like” poor, gaunt skeletons,”  and an 1899 county history states that “It was while being confined…that Mr. Avery, from sheer lack of mental occupation, first directed his thoughts to those improvements in the implements of farm work.”

    Robert Avery returned to Galesburg in 1865, weak, exhausted and ill.  To make matters worse, upon his return, he immediately came down with typhoid fever.   The Avery farm was on West Main Street, and the Cedar River, which flowed nearby, could have been the culprit.  Well –water was frequently tainted by seepage during these early years and occasionally led to outbreaks of typhoid.  For a time young Robert’s very survival was an issue, and it took him a long time to recover from the ravages of both Andersonville and the fever.

     After his recover he went to work with his brother John Thomas on a farm in Rio, Illinois, north of Galesburg.  By January of 1867 he felt financially secure enough and restored to health sufficiently to marry Sarah Ayres.  Soon Robert rented a farm a mile from Galesburg and for the next 6 years he farmed and tinkered with his ideas, working in a machine shop during the winter.

     During the 1870s Robert and his family bounced between Galesburg and Kansas as he struggled to raise the capital to bring his ideas into practical form. Homesteading cheap land in Kansas allowed him to accumulate some capital and credit to work on his projects.  He also entered into a partnership with the Brown Corn-Planter Works in Galesburg.   In 1878 his corn-planter patent was granted.  He bought into the Frost Manufacturing Company, which was built near the public square in Galesburg, in the hope that when the railroad was pushed through it would come to their location.  It didn’t.  This eventually left the Frost Company isolated.  Outgoing shipments had to be hauled by wagon to a location where they could be loaded upon a train.

     Henry Ayres, Robert’s brother-in-law and former Civil War comrade, urged him to relocate his growing firm to Peoria.  Eventually he did.  By 1883 the Avery Agricultural Works had built a large factory on 15 acres of ground in the upper part of the City.  He also purchased 40 acres to build lodging for his employees.  This extension of Peoria would eventually become known as Averyville. 

     The company became known worldwide for their farm tractors, and their logo of a pugnacious bulldog on their tractor’s smokehouse door became well known.  After World War I, the company employed 4000 employees.  Eventually, the depression and fierce competition combined to do them in,   and the Avery Company, after a couple of bankruptcies and reorganizations, ceased to exist shortly before World War II.

     Robert H. Avery, the guiding force behind the company, did not live to see its demise.  He had promised his family that when he became worth $10,000 he would take them on an extended tour of the West.  By the time he reached that financial goal though, he was too busy to keep his promise.  Finally, in 1892, around his 52^nd birthday, he was laid low by an illness that apparently prompted him to reflect that the time to honor his commitment to his family was running out.  A special railroad car, The Pickwick, left Peoria on August 26^th.  It contained Robert and 19 other members of his family.

     Ill health, which his family said had always clung about him because of his Andersonville ordeal, claimed him during this vacation that was supposed to be a time of rest and rejuvenation for him.   The September 14^th Los Angeles Express reported his demise in, “The Last Journey, a Sad Finale in the Life of Robert Avery.”

     “Robert Avery, a wealthy manufacturer of Peoria, Illinois, died quite suddenly yesterday at the Westminster Hotel.  He left home with his family for a pleasure trip to California.  At Salt Lake City he was attacked by peritonitis, but kept on for this city.  He arrived Saturday and rapidly grew worse, heart failure ensuing.  The remains will be embalmed and taken back home as soon as possible by the grief-stricken family.  Mr. Avery was a maker of agricultural implements and his income last year from a patented corn planter was $45,000.”

       Robert H. Avery is interred in Peoria’s Historic Springdale Cemetery.  The 1899 Historical Encyclopedia of Knox County pays this tribute to him…”He was a man of rare, and thoroughly original, inventive genius; strong in conviction, yet modest and unassuming; kindly, generous and just.  It was said of him after his death, by one who knew him well, that ‘to have known him was an education, while it was an honor to have been called his friend.”

 

 

Bibliography

1899 Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Knox County

Peoria’s Civil War Heroes             peroiamagazines.com

Letter from Cornelia Avery Plowe            Knox College archives

Avery Company                          Wikipedia article

Civil War Veterans of Knox County       usgennet.org

Peoria Yesterdays  by Bill Adams, 1993

Chase the Prairie Wind, A biography of Robert H. Avery         Marvin Litvin, 1975

 

    

 

Captain William H. Reynolds of Abingdon

CAPTAIN WILLIAM H. REYNOLDS OF ABINGDON

A Notable Military Record

     Farmer, Lawyer, and above all, a man of forthright independence, William H. Reynolds, like so many others of his generation, began his life elsewhere.  He was born on December 23^rd, 1829, in Park County, Indiana.  At the age of seven he accompanied his father Samuel, and his mother, Ann Jane, to Illinois, where his father purchased a farm of 160 acres near Berwick, Illinois.  Samuel applied himself industriously to farming and to the acquisition of land, and at one time owned 2000 acres of land in Warren County.  He lived to the ripe old age of 88, and sired, 12 children, 9 of whom reached maturity.

     Young William grew up on the home farm, and received a solid education in the local schools and then at Abingdon College, an educational institution that opened in 1853.  He studied law and practiced the legal profession for four to five years, but gave it up to concentrate on farming.  It was a struggle; he ran into debt and eventually sold a farm of 360 acres in Warren County, but eventually he prospered and soon was able to afford a farm of 1000 acres in Orange Township, near Knoxville. 

     In 1855 he married Martha Bundy in Orange Township.  Their family eventually included a son and 2 daughters. 

     William enlisted as a private in Company D of the 7^th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry in August of 1861.  His unit was mustered into service in October of 1861.  He soon was made 1^st Lieutenant, and soon took over the duties of the Captain of the regiment due to the inefficiencies of his superior officer.  He went on to see action in the Western theatre of the war, serving with General Pope at Island No. 10 and New Madrid, and fighting along the Tennessee River.  He led his command ably at the Battle of Corinth, and shortly afterwards was promoted to the rank of Captain, the duties of which he had already taken the responsibility for.

     After the defeat of Van Dorn and the rebels at Corinth, the 7^th participated in the pursuit of the retreating rebel army, and was the first Union regiment to march into Tuscumbia, Alabama.  Reynolds and the 7^th saw hard fighting again at the Battle of Iuka when they were engaged for seven hours, and in September through November performed a series of assignments during which they covered some 800 miles, destroying railroads and bridges.  On November 26^th the 7^th routed 300 Confederates under the command of Colonel Richardson.  In early December Reynolds and the 7^th pursued General Price into Mississippi, but on the 5^th of December the rebels turned on their pursuers and defeated them in an engagement near Coffeeville, Mississippi.  William Reynolds was among the Union troops who were unfortunate enough to be taken prisoner, and he was held as such in Jackson, Mississippi and then Vicksburg for about two months.  He was exchanged and sent to St. Louis, where he recuperated for a bit before he returned to his command on the 5^th of March in 1863.

     William was back in the regiment when it made a grueling campaign that culminated in the capture of Baton Rouge.  This campaign had taken the men some 800 miles and had resulted in the capture of a thousand enemy prisoners.  The regiment and William Reynolds went on to assist in the Capture of Fort Hudson, eventually making its way back to Memphis in July of 1863.  It also was the 7^th that pursued Confederate General Jeff Thompson, a very able cavalry commander known as “the Swamp Fox of the Confederacy,”  16 miles though a quagmire pf swampland to the safety of a rebel fort, and then were able to extricate themselves after running up against superior numbers, only though after a  firefight that lasted for 7 hours.

     William Reynolds had an independent streak that manifested itself in a couple of notable instances.  At one point Union General Grant issued an order to General William Rosecrans to have all horses branded and turned over to the United States government.  Captain Reynolds protested, and succeeded in preventing the breaking of the contract that allowed the men of 7^th to retain their horses as “unbranded” throughout the war.  In another instance, while on detached duty in Memphis due to illness, General Benjamin Grierson ordered him to take command of the 9^th Illinois Cavalry, a regiment that had the reputation of being harder to discipline than any other regiment sent out of Illinois.  Captain Reynolds wanted nothing to do with the regiment, whose reputation was well known to him as well.  He promptly refused the order to take command of it.  For this act of insubordination he was placed under arrest.  General Grierson though, was no martinet.  Approaching Reynolds as a friend rather than as a commanding officer, he sat down with William Reynolds and eventually convinced him that it would be in the best interests of both his career and the cause to withdraw his objection, apologize for his stubborn refusal, and accept the responsibility of handling the regiment.  He did so, but was soon laid low by illness and was sent to Memphis to recuperate.  Upon doing so, he served for several months as a special detective in Memphis under the command of General   C. C. Washburn.  This was an assignment that required the utmost nerve and courage, initiating and pursuing investigations regarding suspected rebel spies, smuggling of contraband and rounding up deserters.  Reynolds performed his duties in this responsible position well enough to please his superiors.

     Williams Reynolds served until the close of the war, but due to some bureaucratic oversight, never received his discharge papers.  Those in charge of processing them however, claimed that they were issued properly to all of the men in the regiment when the regiment was mustered out of service.

      After the war William returned to Knox County and resumed his life as a farmer.  In addition to his holding in Orange Township, he purchased 600 acres of land in Knox County and a 400 acre model stock farm in Norton County, Kansas.  His wife Martha having died in 1873, he remarried later that year in Knoxville, a Miss Margaret Wallace, a native of Scotland.  Two sons and two daughters resulted from their union.

     Politically William Reynolds considered himself an independent.  He served as a County Supervisor, School Director and Road Commissioner.  In 1880 he was prevailed upon by the fledgling Greenback Party to run for Congress.  He gave it an honest attempt, and although defeated, he gave 90 speeches and impressed his neighbors and opponents both by his oratory and campaign efforts.

     The old farmer and Civil War Patriot died in April of 1919, and is interred with other member s of his family in the mausoleum at the Abingdon, Illinois cemetery.

Bibliography

1899 Historical Encyclopedia of Knox County

Civil War Veterans of Knox County, Illinois website

Find A Grave    William H. Reynolds

Abingdon College, Wikipedia entry

Jeff Thompson, Wikipedia entry