Emory J Blanding
10th Michigan Cavalry
Pension File Excerpts
(The word “claimant” has been replaced by “Emory” throughout)
Captain Harvey Light
I did know Emory J Blanding several years prior to enlistment. Known him since about 1860. Was an acquaintance of mine before enlistment and much of the time under my personal directive in his early military service.
I met him occasionally while I was (traveling) in Montcalm Co. Michigan selling nursery stock. I (used) to stop at his house when in his neighborhood. I met him other ways occasionally. Met him at Republican conventions – was very well acquainted with him.
Thomas Kain
Before the war Emory was engaged in chopping and clearing land. He seemed to be a strong robust man in good health.
James O. Callaghan
Emory was a very cheerful, hearty, rugged man when he enlisted and when we (were) together here in Camp Lee.
Thomas A Mayes
I formed Emory’s acquaintance in 1863 in September I believe after our enlistment and while the regiment was in camp at Grand Rapids Michigan and were members of the same Company at that date. So far as I could see or know he was in good condition physically. A portion of the men of our Company were required to strip for examination though I was not.
Emory J Blanding
I enlisted on the 23rd of August 1863 in company E of the 10th Michigan Cavalry as 1st Sergeant and discharged I think for muster in as 2nd Lieutenant in November 1865 and was commissioned a month or so before. I came home about November 24th 1865.
I contracted a severe cold while in Grand Rapids Michigan from exposure in the fall I enlisted. I had command of the company and there was a mutiny. The commanding officers ordered all the 1st sergeants to stand in and keep the men in line. While standing with my company from dark till 11 p.m. I took this cold. It was very cold and many broke ranks and ran to their quarters.
John B. Lackey
The mutiny originated with rough characters of different companies.
Johnson B Reed
Emory J Blanding had charge of the Company from the time we went in Camp at Grand Rapids until about the first of November 1863. At that time there was a mutiny in camp. The men broke into the (commissary) quarters for rations and the company was ordered out in line until further orders and remained standing in line until late in the night. The weather was cold and raining. Emory J Blanding stood in front of the company during all the time they (stood) in line. The day following said Emory J Blanding was taken down with a hard cold and pain in the head and was sent home to his family at Lowell Michigan and was not able to rejoin the regiment until after they left the state.
I remember inquiring about said Blanding while he was absent and was told by Captain Light that he was very sick and would not be back in a long time if he ever did.
James O. Callaghan
Emory was very sick here in camp from exposure and I think he had a fever and congestion of the lungs. I remember he went (home) from Camp Lee and (someone) took his place. It must have been in November 1863. I was digging potatoes in my place here in the city. I know that Captain Light said in my presence that Blanding would not be back and thought he would (never be) back to do duty as he was very weak on account of the fever.
Emory J Blanding
I was allowed a furlough to go to Lowell Michigan to be with my family on Sunday. I was then taken with a very severe chill while in church and went directly home to my bed. Delirium soon set in, fever following and did not leave my home for about 7 weeks. That Sunday Dr. Ellsworth of Lowell was called to treat me and he shaved my head to apply an (ice pack) and can just remember as I came to that it was good a doctor saw me then. Doctor called my attack Typhoid.
Jane E Blanding (Wife)
When Emory came home to Lowell he was suffering from a very bad cold which he said he contracted in Grand Rapids while on guard standing in the cold rain. This attack resulted in Typhoid fever. I nursed him all through it and Dr. Ellsworth of Lowell attended the case. Emory lay sick with fever about 7 weeks. At one time the Dr. called it congestion as well as Typhoid. Emory’s care ran its course when rheumatism set in and before he left (home) to go (back) his legs were much swollen and he couldn’t walk straight when he went away.
Emory J Blanding
I recovered so that I desired to join the regiment but the physician advised not to do so as I was not fit for the service. I got out about Christmas and found my regiment Christmas day 1863 at Camp Nelson Kentucky. Was not put on duty as I had not recovered strength. We remained in winter quarters in KY during the month of February.
James O. Callaghan
We were at Lexington I think when Emory joined us if we were not on our way to Nelson. It rained all day and when we put up in Camp Nelson it was a cold January. As we first got our tents up January 2, 1864 it began to freeze us up. Emory was then very pale, white (and) haggard and almost like a man that couldn’t stand. Fatigued. I didn’t see him use a cane when he joined us but he appeared as though he had been a very sick man.
Samuel Trill
At Camp Nelson Kentucky sometime in the first part of January 1864 as near as I can remember he came to the Company and went on duty. I didn’t hear him say whether he had recovered from his sickness.
David B. Averill
I remember he was with us soon after we got to camp Nelson Kentucky. Why I remember that is because soon after we got there he bucked and gagged me.
A New Jersey Soldier on being bucked and gagged (internet source)
“A bayonet or piece of wood was placed in his mouth and a string tied behind his ears kept it in position,” then the man was “seated on the ground with his knees drawn up to his body. A piece of wood is run through his legs, and placing his arms under the stick on each side of his knees, his hands are then tied in front, and he is as secure as a trapped rat.”
Elias R Ferguson
I saw Blanding directly upon his return to the Company after his illness, which (was) at Nelson and he was then quite feeble and much reduced in flesh, which I considered a result of fever.
Regimental Surgeon David Spaulding
I first saw Emory while in camp Nelson and Burnside Point in the winter of 1864 sick with rheumatism in both hips and throughout his lower extremities generally, and ____??___ or rheumatic affection of his pleura – which side I do not recollect and treated Emory for both these diseases in Regimental hospital at Burnside Point about January 1864. I think Emory’s exposure while living in a dirty, filthy old camp that had been long previously occupied and that was the cause of his disabilities. That camp depopulated many of my men, I’d made a fuss about it and our regiment was sent to Burnside point.
Emory J Blanding
I did no duty until February and was permitted to go out foraging. Johnson Reed went with me and we both contracted measles at the same time and place. The regiment had (moved) to Camp Burnside to (gather) supplies for our command – this is where we (were) at the first night foraging and about 40 of us got the measles or were exposed at a house where the children of the family were all down with measles. We encamped in the orchard adjoining the house. In 10 days I with others were sent to hospital at Burnside Point. The hospital was not regimental, I think field hospital.
Johnson B Reed
I was sick with the measles at the same time he was at Burnsides point Kentucky in February 1864. While we were in the hospital the Regiment crossed the mountains into East Tennessee. We joined the regiment at Mossy Creek, East Tennessee March 1864.
Emory J Blanding
Our regiment was ordered on to Knoxville about the time we were sent into the hospital. I stayed in that hospital for about a month leaving there the last of March going to Nashville then 3 or 4 days waiting for transportation when __?__ Knoxville Tennessee. (The) regiment remained in Knoxville doing Provost duty that summer. I was unfit for duty while there for 2 or 3 months and Surgeon Spalding treated me in the regimental hospital or in my tent you might say. He said “Sergeant you must not try to do duty, you have the pleurisy and got it bad.” And he would not allow me to wear a belt. He told me to keep quiet.
Regimental Surgeon David Spaulding
In the spring of 1864 I told Emory that he could not wear a belt on account of soreness of the diaphragm pleura. It seemed to be chronic with him at this time.
Elias R Ferguson
Emory joined us at Knoxville in the spring of ’64 and he then looked bad and showed sickness but I cannot state any particular disability that he then complained of.
James O. Callaghan
I saw Emory at Burnside Point and Knoxville and at Memphis where I loaned him $5.00. I was detailed at General Smith’s __?__ as Orderly and when we were paid off at Jackson Michigan Emory paid me the $5.00 I can’t say what ailed Emory after we left Camp Nelson until we reached Memphis and there he looked a good deal better and so far as I know he was about all right while in Knoxville Tennessee.
Emory J Blanding
Unknown to me a transfer was made out assigning me to the Invalid Corps. I then told Surg. Spalding and Captain Light to permit me to remain in the Company and I got their consent.
Elias R Ferguson
There was a talk among our Company Officers and the Sergeants of putting Blanding, myself and others in Invalid Corps but Blanding would not go. He said he would make his way home before he would go into that corps. We remained in Knoxville that summer.
Regimental Surgeon David Spaulding
Emory was one of several men that were to be transferred into the invalid Corps, __?__ such an order I remember was countermanded in part through my instructions after giving Emory a re-examination.
Chester McIntyre
I was away from Knoxville 20 days on furlough and frequently away on scouting expedition. Sometimes he was with us and sometimes not.
Minor P. Spaulding
I think Blanding was pretty well, I don’t remember of his having any sickness in service although I remember of his getting (excused) of going out over some pretty rough scouts with us at different times but on what grounds I can’t now remember.
Thomas A Mayes
I do remember at times he was not able to saddle his own horse.
Nelson Robinson
At Powder Springs Gap East Tennessee there was something the matter with him so that he was off duty and I had to make his reports for him and took his place as orderly sergeant and most of the time during the summer of 1864 when we went on a scout I performed the duty of orderly sergeant in his place. He was complaining and was on light duty in camp but when we had heavy duty like hard marching or scouting then I took his place, he remaining in camp. My impression is that Emory’s health was better after the summer of 1864 for I didn’t perform his duty for him after that summer nor do I remember of anyone else performing it for him. While I was sergeant Emory and the commissary sergeant Elias Ferguson and myself tented together most of the time.
Elias R Ferguson
The Regiment went west into Tennessee and I went home on a recruiting furlough. I returned to the company in the Spring of 1865 from Jackson Michigan but I found only a part of the Company who had been left behind and could not go on the Stoneman Raid near Knoxville or Bull’s Gap. Emory then was with the Regiment proper, on duty in the Stoneman Raid and after the Capture of Davis the command returned to Sweet Water Tennessee and then I again met with Emory.
Description of Stoneman’s Raid (Internet source)
In the spring of 1865, Federal Major General George Stoneman launched a cavalry raid deep into the heart of the Confederacy. Over the next two months, Stoneman’s cavalry rode across six Southern states, fighting fierce skirmishes and destroying supplies and facilities. When the raid finally ended, Stoneman’s troopers had brought the Civil War home to dozens of communities that had not seen it up close before. In the process, the cavalrymen pulled off one of the longest cavalry raids in U.S. military history.
Stoneman divided his men and sent detachments throughout the region, securing the destruction of the region’s factories, bridges and railroad lines. The army relied heavily on local citizens for food and supplies, often emptying storehouses. Stoneman’s raids in North Carolina lasted from late March until May when they assisted in the search for Confederate President Jefferson Davis as he fled the collapsed Confederacy. The men had marched more than 1,000 miles during the raid and historians credit their march with assuring the death of the Confederacy as they captured artillery pieces and took thousands of prisoners while destroying Confederate army supplies and blocking a line of possible retreat for both Lee and Johnston ’s armies.
Capt. Harvey Light
We had a mutiny in Tennessee at Sweet Water. At that time the whole regiment kept in line all night. This was in 1865 after the war was over.
Elias R Ferguson
Emory came home on sick furlough while we were at Sweet Water Tennessee in June. And he was then unable to do duty on account of some general disability. I took care of Emory in his tent there for several weeks. I do not know why Emory’s discharge papers were returned but I think it was owing to a general order to that effect.
James O. Callaghan
At time of discharge at Jackson Michigan, Emory appeared all right, glad to get home.
Susan Shoak-Ross
My father was Hospital Steward of Emory’s regiment. I remember of hearing my father say that he treated Emory and that he was in a rather bad condition, that was during the last 5 years. I have heard the doctor say that Emory was never a well man since he left the army.
Capt. Harvey Light
I think his occupation was principally farming. It is my impression that he was disabled for severe labor. I think he was wholly incapacitated at times judging from his appearance. He was emaciated and weakly. He did not look so rugged as before he went into the army.
Emory J Blanding
The first eight years after discharge my occupation was farming. Since that time I have been trying to do legal business. Was obligated to quit farming on account of poor health