A Soldier's Story of Civil War

Testament:

A soldier's story of Civil War

Benjamin W. (Webb) Baker was a son, grandson, brother and dedicated civil war soldier. To the members in his life he was known as; very strong, able, self reliant and somewhat a head strong young man. Webb was born in Coles County, Illinois on the 25th day of November in the year of 1841 to the wonderful parents of John B. Baker and Sarah Eliza Adams. He has a two blood siblings, a sister in which died at a young age by the name of Mary and then a brother by the name of John, after his father. The relationship between Webb and his younger brother John was what people called "rare". The two of them were said to have been inseparable. Webb is also a descendent of John Adams, second president of the United States of America. But he took more pride in knowing that he is a great grandson of a wonderful soldier of the Revolutionary War, Elijah Adams. When Webb was not but three years of age he lost his great grandfather, Elijah, as well as his loving father, John B. Baker. He grew up a man of the farm and the man of the house for many years and was very good at it. When he was on the job he had a lot of chores to do; clearing the ground for planting, planting of crops, bundled wheat and other grains and would gather the corn when it was ready for harvesting. He also had to keep an eye out for the dangerous animals such as the grey wolf that would eat the animals of the farms and the little critters suck as rabbits, opossums and raccoons that would eat the crops. He was not well educated and didn't have much time, except for the winter months, to go to school, yet he always stayed up on it by reading the Noah Webster Dictionary for spelling, and definitions of words he wasn't sure about, learned how to read from McGuffey's reader and was always a man of knowledge from a book know back then as The Science of Common Things. He had hobbies he liked to do when the time allowed him too. The hobbies he enjoyed were hunting for arrowheads and bones, fishing, hunting and swimming. His favorite pet was his sow bellied pig by the name of Moses. Over the years Webb accumulated many Step siblings as well as half sibling when his mother remarried twice to help save there farm. By the age of sixteen, Webb began to think about having his own land to farm, but then his dream of soldiers became a reality. On the 18th of September the year of 1860, a campaign for Presidency was held in Charleston, Illinois. Webb's mother, brother, grandparents, uncle and himself attended the debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas. Webb, only being sixteen, was unsure of the meaning of the entire debate, but did understand what Lincoln had to say. He understood the Declaration of Independence and believed that it was written for a reason and there for deserved to be upheld. In early August of 1862, Webb volunteered and enlisted as a private Union Soldier on Abraham Lincolns side of the war, and was signed up for three years in the service upon doing so. Over the three years Webb was in service he traveled to many places and seen many horrible things and lost many people that he loved and had known for many years. Some of the places in which he traveled over those years in service were Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Georgia to name a few and covered approximately three-thousand miles by foot alone. He fought in many battles and took wounds in two of them, the Battle of Pea Ridge where he took two minor shot wounds and then in the Battle of Chickamauga where he about lost his left arm do to a gun shot wound. On the first of August in 1864, His service expired and he left as an honorable Corporal of the army. Once the War had died down, he returned home to the family he had left and the farm. Thou, no longer having the hunger for the outdoors and the fields, he returned to school for teaching. He graduated from Illinois State Normal University in 1870 and became the principle of a practice school right out of the gate. A few years later he married a wonderful woman named Martha and started a family of his own. He was also a man of god and soon