I found out that the name of the McHenry, Illinois, newspaper published during the war was the McHenry Plain Dealer. (I wonder if there was some connection with the Cleveland newspaper?)
Dick Stilling's very first weapon from the war was an 1863 Springfield Model 2 made in Massachusetts that was carried by some McHenry County veteran, but he doesn't know who. During innovations at one of his family's farms north of Johnsburg (perhaps here in Spring Grove) milk houses, it was found in a wall. How it came to be secreted there he knows not, but he did use it a lot for rabbit hunting as a youth.
The 15th Illinois Infantry Regiment, Co. A, was out of Woodstock, Illinois. One of its members wrote a letter that Stilling has that said, "Grant is no more fit to lead the Army than I am," referring to the debacle of the first day of the Battle of Shiloh.
Deaths were so numerous at Shiloh that the men on burial detail used hooked bayonets to pull the bodies and Mr. Stilling had one.
More to Come. --Old Secesh
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