Dixon and the Civil War: Some Famous People At Fort Dixon Before the War

I've been in Dixon, Illinois, since Tuesday and preparing to leave tomorrow with perhaps a Civil War encampment on the way home in Franklin Grove.

Today, we mostly had talks and one was on Dixon's history. Obviously no battles were fought here, but there were some Civil War coincidences going back to the Black Hawk War in 1832. A major staging and supply fort was located here called Fort Dixon, named after the town's founder and ferry operator John Dixon. It wasn't all that much of a fort, an earthen wall surrounding two wooden blockhouses.

The fort's commander was one Zachary Taylor who went on to become president. He was in command of the regular army troops and had a Lieutenant Jefferson Davis who went on to become president of the Confederate States. Others at the fort included Robert Anderson, the Union commander at the fall of Fort Sumter, Winfield Scott, W.S. Harney and future Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnson.

One other man was there as well, a lanky Illinoisan who was captain of the militia by the name of Abraham Lincoln.

Whether or not the two met while there is not known, but our speaker said that the regular army didn't have much to do with the militia, so probably not.

The only statue of a young Abraham Lincoln from his Blackhawk War days stands on the site of Fort Dixon on the Rock River. I believe at one time I heard it is the only statue of Lincoln in his younger days.

Wouldn't That Have Been Something Had Lincoln and Davis met? --Old B-Runner