Veterans column: Hebron brothers die from disease during Civil War
During the American Civil War, 29 families in Licking County were impacted by the death of at least two family members in the war. The Wharton’s were one of those families. George and Arthur Wharton were from Morgan County and moved to Hebron in the 1850s.
On May 26, 1853, George Wharton, 22, and Jane Rhenick, 21, were married. When the war began on April 12, 1861, the couple had four children, the oldest a boy, was seven years old. One week later they welcomed a daughter to the family. On Sept. 23, 1861, George left his wife and five children and enlisted with the 31st Ohio Volunteer Infantry at Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. On September 27 they were moved to Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky where they stayed until mid-December. The 31st then marched south through Kentucky and Tennessee until they arrived outside Corinth, Mississippi on April 29. For the next month, they participated in a siege of the town that resulted in the Confederates withdrawing from the city. Wharton and the 31st then pursued the retreating army. According to George’s military record, he contracted a “disease with intermittent fever” and died on June 18, 1862. Captain John Putnam noted in George’s record, “The above-named soldier contracted this disease from exposure while on the march to Booneville, Miss. on or about the 10th of June 1862. The Regiment at that time was without tents and rations were short, heat very oppressive.”
In September 1862, Jane filed for a widow’s pension. The next June she was granted the sum of $8 a month. Adjusting for inflation this is approximately $150 in today’s economy. The five children suffered another loss when Jane died on Dec. 23, 1865. Her father was appointed the guardian of the children. In 1866 the pension bureau granted them each $8 a month, with an additional $2 a month until they reached their sixteenth birthday.
After George’s death, his brother Arthur enlisted on Aug. 22, 1862, in Company B of the 113th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. When he left his home in Hebron he had two children at home ages one and three. Whether his wife Samantha and he were aware of it or not is unknown, but she was one month pregnant with their third child.
On April 18, 1863, Arthur, 29, died in Franklin, Tennessee. The surgeon's statement in his record reads, “I, James R. Black, on honor certify having held the position of surgeon of the 113th Ohio Vol Infantry from the 12th Aug 1862 to Aug 1863, that on or about the last of April or first of May 1863, Arthur Wharton was attacked while in Franklin TN, with chronic diarrhea which assumed in a short time a severe character with typhoid fever which soon proved fatal.” How soon Samantha learned of his death is unknown, but on April 23she gave birth to a daughter she named Arthur Belle. Samantha was also granted a pension and when she died in 1899, she was receiving $12 a month.
Even in death, the brothers were separated. George was interred at the Corinth National Cemetery in Corinth, Mississippi while Arthur’s body was returned to Hebron, where he is buried at the Hebron Cemetery.
Doug Stout is the Licking County Library Local History Coordinator. You may contact him at 740.349.5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Veterans column: Hebron brothers die from disease during Civil War
