The Last Soldier Project
Spencer County
George Wilsman (4/21/1843 - 8/16/1940)
Obituary of George Wilsman
Evansville Courier, 8/17/1940, p. 2
Death Claims Wilsman, 97, Civil
War Prison Survivor
Last Veteran Residing in City Held 10 Months at Andersonville
George
Wilsman, 97, last Member of Jackson post, G.A.R. at Dale, and last
surviving Evansville Civil war veteran, died yesterday at the home of a
daughter, Mrs. Lloyd F. Heady, 1004 Jefferson avenue, after a year’s
illness.
Mr. Wilsman was a Union survivor of confinement in the Andersonville
confederate prison, where he was held 10 months following his capture
Sept. 21, 1863, at Snodgrass Ridge, Chickamauga.
Eleven others of his company also were captured at the time.
Born in Cincinnati
Funeral services will be held at the Klee and Burkhart
funeral chapel at 1 o’clock Monday afternoon, and at 3 o’clock at the
Santa Claus Methodist church, Rev. W. J. G. Bockstahler, retired Methodist
minister, officiating. Burial
will be in the church cemetery.
Tentative plans last night called for full military honors at the church,
with the American Legion post at Santa Claus.
A native of Cincinnati, O., where he was born in 1843, he came with his
parents to Dale, then known as Elizabeth, at the age of three.
As a youth, he played in and near the Lincoln cabin, between
Gentryville and Dale.
Enlisted at 18
Enlisting in Co. H, 42nd Indiana Volunteers, at 18, Mr.
Wilsman served nearly four years. Along
with other prisoners, he was exchanged and sent north in March, 1865, and
discharged at Indianapolis.
In 1870, he married Miss Louise Schaaf, Dale, who died in 1923.
He had been living in Evansville since 1917, when he retired after
having spent 50 years farming near Lincoln City.
Surviving, besides Mrs. Heady, are two sons, John and Elmer; a
half-sister, Mrs. Rosena Kolenberg, Dale; a half-brother, Charles Wernke,
Longmont, Colo.; nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
During his lifetime, Mr. Wilsman told many stories of his army service and
was a ready and willing consultant on events which occurred at
Andersonville prison.
END
Another Obituary of George Wilsman
Evansville Press, 8/17/1940
TAKEN BY DEATH
George Wilsman (above), 97 -
year-old, Civil War veteran and
former Spencer County farmer
for over 50 years, died Friday
after a year's illness in the home
of a daughter, Mrs. Lloyd F.
Heady, 1004 Jefferson-av.
* * *
* * *
RANKS
OF BLUE THINNED AGAIN
Civil War Veteran Dies Here at 97
George Wilsman, perhaps the last Union soldier who survived the ordeal
in Andersonville Confederate Prison in the Civil War, died, Friday after a
year's illness in the home of a daughter, Mrs Lloyd F Heady, 1004
Jefferson - av. He was 97 last April 21.
Serving nearly four years during the Civil War he spent 13 months in the
military prison camp at Andersonville, Ga., after capture at Snodgrass
Ridge, Chicamaugua. The last member of Jackson Post, Grand Army of the
Republic, at Dale, Ind., he also is believed to be the last Civil War
veteran who was living in Evansville. Born in Cincinnati, O., in 1843, he
moved with his parents when he was three years old to Dale, then known as
Elizabeth.
Lincoln's Cabin
With Charles W Wedeking, Dale, and the late Frederick Kokomoore, another veteran, he played hide-and-seek as a youth inside the untenanted frontier cabin of Abe Lincoln, between Gentryville and Dale. Just after his eighteenth birthday he enlisted in Company H, Forty-second Indiana Volunteers, under Capt. James H Bryant. At Snodgrass Ridge (web author’s note: Snodgrass Ridge was located on the Chickamauga Battlefield), Sept. 21, 1863, he was captured with 11 isolated, hungry Hoosiers in the same company, after surviving heavy fighting the preceding day.
Camp To Camp
They were given hardtack and a pint of hot coffee and started marching
to a prison camp.
After being shifted from camp to camp he was sent to Andersonville to help
Negro laborers erect a pine log stockade, hastily built to hold 10,000
men. It was turned into a human corral of 31,678 prisoners guarded by 400
armed sentinels.
Men burrowed into holes, others crawled under blankets that were
improvised tents, crowded so that they slept against each other’s
elbows.
Heat, bad food, polluted water and despondency were chief causes for the
deaths among the men at the rate of 100 a day for several months, Mr.
Wilsman has often said.
Mr. Wilsman later bore no malice toward Capt. Henry Wirz, his "tough
Dutchman" prison master who was, Mr. Wilsman believed, unjustly
hanged for reported in-humanity to soldiers.
Own Comrades Fought
"My prison experience, chiefly suffering from scurvy and hunger,
indicted the frenzies of wartorn humanity." Mr. Wilsman said two
years ago.
"My own comrades inside the pens fought me for food, clothes and
trinkets. Men were killed for their skillets and battered drinking
cups." We prisoners hanged six of our own boys for murder and
scourged 18 others, made them run the gauntlet before thousands of men.
Some died.
Was Exchanged
"Though stern, Commander Wirz, the guards and sentries over us
were less barbarous than the prisoners to one another.
"After the war Yankee vengeance forgot that a weakened,
famine-encompassed South, throughout that last year of disaster, was
unable to properly care for its prisoners of war, that not until late 1864
did the North afford any arrangement for exchange of prisoners."
Mr. Wilsman was exchanged, sent North in March, 1865, and discharged in
Indianapolis.
He was married in 1870 to Miss Louise Schaaf, Dale, who died in 1923.
After the war he returned to Spencer County, where he spent his youth, and
farmed for 50 years near Lincoln City. He came to Evansville in 1917 after
retiring.
Surviving besides Mrs Heady are; sons, John & Elmer, both connected
with the L & N Railway Company; a half sister, Mrs. Rosena Kolenberg,
Dale; a half brother Charles Wernke, Longmont, Colo.; nine grandchildren
and three great-grandchildren. The body is in Klee and Burkhart’s
Chapel.
END
George Wilsman's grave is located in the Campground
Cemetery (also know as the German Methodist Cemetery) Santa Claus, Indiana
(Spencer County, Carter Township).
Submitted by Tim Beckman
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