Honoring A Licking County Veteran, George Washington Preston

 

Record of the Month!

For the month of November, in honor of Veteran’s Day, we are featuring a Civil War Discharge for First Sargent George Washington Preston of the 76^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company C.  The formal discharge record displayed here was unearthed in a box of other records at the Licking County Records and Archives Center.

George Washington Preston was born November 10, 1839 in Newark, Ohio and was the second oldest of eleven siblings. His parents Jacob L. Preston and Elizabeth Sophia Harding owned a farm near Chatham in Newton Township. They were devoted Methodists and regularly attended services.

George was approximately 20 years old when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina in April of 1861, sparking the beginning of the Civil War. Shortly after the attack George enlisted and was mustered into the 76^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company C. In his three years of service, George fought in several major battles, including Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, as well as in the Chattanooga Campaign.

It seems George, like many other soldiers, would focus his attention on news from home to distract himself from the horrors of the war. The September following the Vicksburg campaign, George was stationed at Camp Sherman, and found time to write a heated letter to his father. George expressed his concern over the various things he had heard happening in Licking County, as well as his intense hatred for the copperheads there. The name copperheads was given to northern sympathizers that opposed the policy of war to restore/preserve the Union, and instead wanted to negotiate a peace settlement with the armed rebellion. In the letter, George asserts that the copperheads in Licking County and throughout the North were causing more harm to the effort to preserve the Union than the armed rebel forces he was fighting on the front lines.

The war for George ended on November 27, 1863, when he suffered a gunshot wound to the left shoulder in the Battle of Ringgold Gap, Georgia. His military records note that George suffered a gunshot wound to the left shoulder and left scapular. These wounds led to a mitral insufficiency, a heart condition that occurs when the mitral valve does not close and allows blood to flow backwards causing the heart to not pump properly. The wounds George received were too severe for him to return to active service, and he was discharged on August 10, 1864. George was one of over 275,000 Union soldiers wounded and faced with the challenge of reintegration into society after the war.

Shortly after being discharged, George married Catherine Haas of Washington Township, Licking County. In 1866, George’s father Jacob passed away, and as the eldest son George became responsible for his mother’s care. George decided to seek his fortune west and moved with Catherine to McLean County, Illinois. The young couple bought a farm and adopted their one and only son, who they named William C. Preston. Once George became established, his mother, Elizabeth, moved in with him so that he could care for her and she could be closer to him and her other children in the area. 

Elizabeth died at the age of 78 in 1893, and almost two years later Catherine died from an unknown disease. With both his wife and mother gone, the remainder of George’s life was spent alongside his only son. Although George was a farmer, his son William C. Preston made a living as a dealer in sewing machines and then later as a mail carrier. According to the 1900 census, George had retired and it can be inferred that over time his injuries from the war did not allow him to continue with the demanding labor required as a farmer. 

After the war, the Union veteran’s group known as Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) organized small regimental companies called “Posts,” to help support their fellow Union veterans (somewhat similar to the American Legion Posts today). G.A.R. Post membership was exclusive to Civil War Union veterans. It was in Gibson City, Illinois that George became a Senior Vice-Commander of Lott Post. No. 70. Coincidently, Lott Post No. 70 was named for its founding Commander, Union veteran Jonathan B. Lott, another Licking County, Ohio transplant to the area.

As George’s health declined, he made his home at the Soldiers Home in Danville, Illinois. He frequently took furloughs from the Soldier’s Home to visit friends, family, and fellow veterans. In 1926, while on furlough, he fell and cracked his hip. Between George’s advance years and his war wounds, a full recovery was unlikely, and he died three weeks later at age 86. George was laid to rest in the Drummer Township Cemetery alongside his wife and his mother. At the funeral ceremony the recently founded American Legion provided an escort and played the ceremonial taps alongside other members of the G.A.R. Lott Post No. 70.

George lived through one of the bloodiest conflicts fought on American soil and carried the mental and physical trauma home with him. Despite suffering through personal tragedy and the incommunicable experience of war, George lived an active and happy life with his family and friends. George’s story was put together after his formal discharge record was unearthed in a box of other records at the Licking County Records and Archives Center. Who will you discover?

To see all of the sources used to write this article, please check out the Bibliography Page. If this information interests you, please feel free to contact us by phone at 740-670-5121 or email archives@lcounty.com.