Finding Uncle Fred in Kalkaska, Michigan

This past Tuesday, I finally visited my uncle Fred in Kalkaska, Michigan. Now we’ve never formally met, as you see Uncle Fred died in 1905, more than 70 years before I arrived here during the country’s bicentennial. And I would wager our meeting Tuesday was rather one sided, as I did the talking and his gravestone listened patiently.

          He was born Frederick McLargin on June 2, 1835, in the wilds of the Black Swamp of Wood County, Ohio to James and Barbary McLargin, his father from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and Barbary variously reported as being from Pennsylvania or Germany. Fred didn’t come into the world alone- if family records are to be believed, his twin sister Sarah arrived either shortly before or shortly after Frederick’s first cries greeted his mother’s ears. Frederick and Sarah would be the fifth and sixth children of the growing McLargin family, and my great-great-great-great grandmother Isabelle Jane was the oldest.

          The McLargin’s were hacking a farm out of the swamp near Stony Ridge, Ohio, in those days and it was a tough life. The only road through the region was the Maumee & Western Reserve Road, a muddy morass most of the year that wasn’t macadamized until 1841. As farmers worked slowly to clear the virgin forest, they had to contend with wild animals such as wolves, bears, wild hogs (a parting gift from General William Henry Harrison’s army in 1813) that attacked either their livestock or the settlers themselves. Even smaller forest creatures such as squirrels and birds would set upon a farmer’s corn crop and wipe it out in hours.

Visiting Uncle Frederick McLargin's grave at Evergreen Cemetery in Kalkaska, Michigan in July 2024 was the culmination of more than 25 years of researching his Civil War service with the 21st Ohio. I placed in front of the gravestone an 1890 21st Ohio reunion ribbon from Perrysburg along with an original copy of the regimental history. Uncle Fred didn't make the 1890 reunion (quite a long trek from Kalkaska to Perrysburg even in 2024) so I figured I'd bring the reunion to him. 

The miasmic grounds bred swarms of mosquitoes which passed along a virulent form of malaria that settlers called the Maumee ague. “The victim began the ordeal with a feeling of extreme chilliness; lips and fingernails turned blue as if the blood was stagnant,” one settler recalled. “Then greater chilliness followed by shivering and chattering of teeth. The chilly period lasted from 45 minutes to an hour or more and was followed by a raging fever in which the patient constantly called for more water which he gulped down by the quart and still the thirst was unquenched and unquenchable. This fever is turn would be followed by a relaxation of the system and the most profuse and exhausting perspiration until the sheets and clothing would be wringing wet, leaving in the clothes a disagreeable odor hard to describe but always the same. There was no mistaking an ague sweat by its odor. Quinine when it could be found was the chief antidote.”

It was a tough life just making a living in those days. But this was the world in which Uncle Fred came of age. And then came the Civil War.

 He didn’t go out with the first volunteers that momentous spring of 1861. But when Arnold McMahan of Perrysburg returned home from the 90-days’ service in August 1861 and announced that he was raising a company of men for three years’ service with the 21^st Ohio, Uncle Fred and Uncle James both signed their names to the rolls of Co. C, taking their place in the ranks as high privates. Uncle Fred was 25 years old living on the family farm with his parents and older brother James (age 29), both men working as farm laborers. Uncle Fred signed first on August 9^th; James signed on 20 days later. At the time of his enlistment, Uncle Fred was a strapping young man, 5 feet 10-1/4” tall with blue eyes, light colored hair, and a fair complexion. Uncle James was just as tall, but had grey eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion.

Uncle Jim and Uncle Fred both served under Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Arnold McMahan of Perrysburg led Co. C for the first two years of service. McMahan was known as a strict disciplinarian but a great fighter- I've always wondered what the McLargin brothers thought of McMahan, and what he thought of them.

The story of the 21^st Ohio has been told repeatedly through this blog but suffice it to say that both McLargin brothers went off to war side by side, seeing their first battle at Ivy Mountain, Kentucky in November 1861. The regiment, part of General Ormsby M. Mitchel’s division, marched south through Tennessee into northern Alabama the following spring, taking Huntsville on April 11, 1862, effectively breaking the crucial Memphis & Charleston Railroad just four days after the Federal victory at Shiloh.

Shortly after seizing Huntsville, the two brothers would be separated by the fortunes of war and would never see one another again. On Friday May 2, 1862, as Colonel John B. Turchin “shut his eyes for two hours” and allowed his command to sack Athens, Alabama (my great-great grandfather was there with the 37th Indiana), Uncle Fred was escorting a wagon train near Pulaski, Tennessee when it came under attack by Confederate cavalry. As reported in the St. Clairsville Gazette, a detachment of 7 officers and 70 privates from the 2^nd Ohio, 2 officers and 115 men from the 18^th Ohio, and three officers of the 21^st Ohio along with 53 privates “were taken prisoner at Pulaski by 1,000 of Morgan’s cavalry after a fight of two-and-a-half hours. The prisoners were subsequently released on parole,” and sent on to Nashville.

The cartel being then in force, Uncle Fred was sent north to Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio where he would serve out his parole until formally exchanged the following February. In the meantime, his older brother James continued to march and fight with the 21^st Ohio, taking part in the summer and fall campaigns near Nashville before suffering a mortal head wound on December 31, 1862, during the regiment’s fight in the cedars at Stones River. The McLargin toughness wrought from years of living in the Black Swamp perhaps allowed Uncle James to survive this ghastly wound for a few weeks before dying in Hospital No. 6 in Nashville, Tennessee. What date did he die? That all depends on which record you read- it’s been reported as January 11^th, January 20^th, and June 20^th. He is now buried at Nashville National Cemetery under a stone which misspells his name as Joseph McLargin. A few years ago, my son and I visited Uncle Jim at Nashville and paid our respects.

Uncle Frederick McLargin's gravestone at the left in Evergreen Cemetery in Kalkaska, while his older brother James' gravestone at Nashville National Cemetery is on the right. I suspect that James' name was misspelled because someone mistook Jas. McLargin for Jos. McLargin. 

As far as Uncle Fred, his military record states that he was ordered to report back for duty with the regiment “under arrest on March 4^th having been exchanged and ordered to report- this he did not do hence his arrest and return to the regiment.” Following the death of his brother, I can understand his reluctance to return to duty. But this is the only negative mark on his war record- he would remain on duty with the regiment until the fortunes of war again would intervene. Uncle Fred took part in the regiment’s gallant stand on Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga in September 1863 and suffered his first war wound in the process. I wish I could state the nature of the wound- his record merely states that he was wounded and in the hospital at Chattanooga in September 1863.

At the beginning of the new year, Uncle Fred signed the rolls to become a veteran volunteer which netted him not only a tidy $400 bonus but also granted him (along with the other veteranized men of the regiment) a 30-day furlough back home to Ohio. The regiment arrived in Ohio in early February and the men returned to their homes. Uncle Fred returned home to Wood County to visit with his family and with his siblings.

While Fred was away, his older brother John (aged 35) had served as a militia lieutenant for Troy Twp. On February 22^nd [Washington’s Birthday], John and his wife Anna welcomed the birth of their second son into the family. Uncle Fred was home on veteran’s furlough at the time so John and Anna named the boy Frederick Nelson McLargin in honor of Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred would not be the only McLargin going off to war that spring: Fred’s oldest brother Daniel, a 37-year-old carpenter with a wife and three children, perhaps surprised Uncle Fred by announcing that he was joining Co. B of the 25^th Ohio Infantry, signing the rolls just four days after baby Frederick's arrival. Uncle Daniel (pictured here) would serve with the 25^th Ohio in South Carolina until being discharged in December 1865; he would be the last of the four McLargin brothers to doff the blue uniform.

Uncle Daniel McLargin, pictured with his wife Emeretta,
 served nearly two years in Co. B of the 25th O.V.I. 

The 21^st Ohio returned to Chattanooga in March 1864 to take their place in the ranks of William Tecumseh Sherman’s army in the drive on Atlanta. This proved to be Uncle Fred’s last active service in the war; after two months of campaigning, the 21^st Ohio was ordered to charge a Confederate position at Vining's Station near Chattahoochee Bridge north of Atlanta on July 9, 1864. The 21^st was ordered forward to learn the position of the Rebel forces and brought on this engagement. Two Confederate regiments were encountered in rifle pits and driven back, the 21^st Ohio capturing 17 men and 33 Enfield rifles. The Rebels were driven back to their main works after a desperate struggle. Regimental loss totaled 15 killed, 39 wounded, and 1 missing. Uncle Fred numbered among the casualties, suffering a severe wound in the right leg. It was a nasty wound that Uncle Fred would take nearly 10 months to recover from, not returning to the regiment until May 1865, rejoining it in time for the Grand Review in Washington, D.C.

In the meantime, his older brother John, perhaps not wanting to be the only McLargin brother to not serve in the army, enlisted as a private in Co. G of the 189^th Ohio on February 21, 1865. The regiment didn’t see any significant action, being mainly engaged in patrol duty around Huntsville, Alabama, but John took sick and was discharged from the army on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on July 5, 1865. A month and a half later, John died. The war, even though the fighting had ended, had reached out and taken a second McLargin brother.

Uncle Fred was mustered out with the 21^st Ohio on July 25, 1865, at Columbus, Ohio. He owned an honorable war record- a prisoner of war and twice wounded, he veteranized in 1864 after the loss of his brother and served until disabled in combat. By any measure, Uncle Fred did his duty.

Sidney Brewster was another Stony Ridge boy who joined Co. C of the 21st Ohio and most likely knew my uncles very well. Sidney was captured in the cedars at Stones River and later was the first man of the regiment to be killed in action at Chickamauga. 

I wish I knew more about his life after the war. He returned home to working the family farm near Stony Ridge.  The 1870 census finds him living with his parents as well as my widowed great-great-great-great grandmother Isabelle Jane Helterbrake, along with her 19-year-old daughter Barbara Ellen Helterbrake, who would marry Hiram Francis the following November. Hiram and Barbara's firstborn was a daughter named Effie, and in 1893  Effie would meet a handsome young man named Samuel Adam Meeker at a logging camp south of Bowling Green, Ohio at a long-forgotten place called Mermill. She was working at the boarding house and Sam was a lumberjack. They would marry on September 17, 1893 [Antietam Day], and their first born (on June 1, 1894) would be my maternal great grandfather Clair Elton Meeker.

Uncle Fred married Sarah M. Joyce on October 17, 1870, in nearby Lucas County, Ohio. The couple would have three daughters (Ida Jane, Etta Mae [pictured], and Celia), and one son, William George, usually called George). By 1880, Uncle Fred, now working as a laborer, had moved the family to Hudson, Lenawee County, Michigan. The allure of northern Michigan drew the family even farther north as in 1883 Uncle Fred claimed 160 acres near Lodi in Kalkaska County under the Homestead Act; 5 years later, after successfully improving the land per the terms of the act, Uncle Fred was granted title to those 160 acres.

Etta Mae (McLargin) Six,
Fred and Sarah's daughter

The 1890 veterans’ census found him living on his homestead near Lodi; the 1900 census (his last) stated that he was a retired farmer living with his wife Sarah, son William George, married daughter Celia and her husband R.B. Herald, and his brother-in-law Horace Joyce. And there Uncle Fred spent his final years before passing away September 25, 1905, at the age of 70. He was buried at Evergreen Cemetery at the county seat of Kalkaska; Sarah, William George, and Celia would join him in years later in unmarked graves. A simple government marker notes the burial spot of our Uncle Fred.

Now I’ve spent the last 2,000 words explaining to you a bit of what I know about Uncle Fred. It has taken 25 years to provide this very cursory sketch of his 70 years here on earth with a perhaps undue emphasis on his Civil War experiences. What I don’t know about Uncle Fred would fill volumes- we have no pictures of him, I have no idea what type of personality he had, whether he was a thinker or a doer, what kind of politics he chose or religion he professed. What did he like to eat or drink, did he enjoy music, did he like to hunt or fish? Why did he move so far into Michigan, and so far away from family?

If I had an opportunity, I would probably bore him to death with questions about the war- what happened at Pulaski in May of 1862? How did you react to hearing about Jim’s death? What was it like up there on Snodgrass on September 20, 1863? Was Captain McMahan as tough a commander as I’ve heard? What did you think of “Old Stars” Mitchel, and Buell, and Rosey, and Uncle Billy? Who were your best friends in the army? Did you grow to like hardtack? What did you think of dessicated, condensed vegetables? What did the Rebel yell sound like? And the questions go on, and on.

Sergeant Reason Bates of Co. C served alongside
Uncle Fred throughout the war. 

I’ve known that Uncle Fred was buried in Kalkaska for a number of years but with it being 300+ miles from my home, I’d never had an opportunity to visit. It seemed hard to justify an all-day round trip to visit a gravesite of someone I’d never known personally. But when the family vacation plans for this year placed us near Torch Lake (and only 30 minutes from Kalkaska), I knew that I had to stop by and pay my respects like I had with his brother Jim in Nashville.

Kalkaska is located in the northwestern portion of Michigan not far from Traverse City. Traditionally, it’s been lumber country with scattered farms throughout the area. Today, the region is a tourist mecca with folks traveling north to partake of the cooler summertime temperatures and crystal-clear waters of Torch Lake and Grand Traverse Bay. In the wintertime, it’s a great place for skiing, too.

Evergreen Cemetery is located in the southwestern corner of the little bustling town of Kalkaska. My boys and I arrived on a warm summer morning equipped with little more than a printout from Find a Grave and my belief that someone who died in 1905 would be in one of the older sections of the cemetery. We started along the western edge of the cemetery and started working our way east; we found numerous interesting graves, lots of Civil War veterans (including some from Ohio) and even the grave of a WW1 Army Air Service veteran. Most impressively, we found the graves of two Medal of Honor recipients from the Civil War: Orderly Sergeant Charles H. Depuy of Co. H, 1^st Michigan Sharpshooters and Private Charles M. Thatcher of Co. B, 1^st Michigan Sharpshooters. Besides them being from the same regiment, they were both awarded the Medal of Honor for actions taken the same day at Petersburg, Virginia on July 30, 1864. Which happened to be 160 years to the day of which we were visiting them at the cemetery!

But after about 30 minutes of hiking, looking, and not finding Uncle Fred, I flagged down the maintenance guy who was cutting the grass. After I explained our dilemma, he readily agreed to take us back to his shop to look at a cemetery map and locate Uncle Fred's grave. In no time at all, he found plot 194 located just a few rows west of the chapel. He drove over with us and pointed out the general location.

I’m going to admit that I got a little emotional when we finally found Uncle Fred’s gravestone. Back in the late 1990s, I started researching our family’s connections to the Civil War as part of a genealogical project, starting first with my great-great-great Grandpa James Morrow's discharge certificate. It didn't take long before I discovered the compelling story I shared above about uncles Jim and Fred. Finding this connection really sparked my interest in the 21^st Ohio and the Battle of Stones River, an interest which has grown over the years such that I’ve written a 600+ page history of Stones River with Savas Beatie (Hell by the Acre to be published in November) as well as two follow-on books about the campaign.

That burning desire to learn more about Uncle Fred and Uncle Jim’s day-to-day experiences in the war (along with our other ancestors) eventually led to the development of the blog which you’re now reading. It certainly had been a long journey to get to Kalkaska, and more than half of my life had passed since I first learned about my two long-lost uncles. So finally, being able to visit the grave felt like reaching the end of a quarter century long quest.

The one thing that struck me as I knelt beside the grave was that with as much as I know about Uncle Fred, I really know so little about the man himself. And isn’t that true for so many of us historians who make connections with folks from the past? As we study historical events and the people that made that history, we read their words, study their pictures, perhaps walk the fields where they fought their life’s battles, but do we ever really get to know them? Can we, so many decades (or centuries) removed? We may get a sense of who they were but their true lives are lost, forever hidden from “the picklocks of biographers” as Shelby Foote so eloquently wrote. 

I wish I knew more about my family in the Civil War. Perhaps that will come with time. Who knows? Perhaps some collector or long-lost relative out there will have some letters that Uncle Fred wrote home?

Obviously, I understand Uncle Fred wasn’t there. As much as I’d like to, I cannot speak with him. But I cherish the hope that his spirit smiled down from Heaven upon his long-lost nephew as I struggled with what to say.

“Uncle Fred, you won’t be forgotten,” was all I could choke out. 

To learn more about the Stones River campaign, be sure to check out my upcoming book "Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign" scheduled for release in November by Savas Beatie.