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When the regiment was thus flanked again and nearly out of ammunition, their colonel ordered a retreat, which was effected in good order to about half a mile of the Landing.  Even in this desperate position, one private, Enoch Keithly [sic], Co. I, all honor to his heroism, persisted in remaining and firing his last two cartridges.1

That quote is from a contemporary account about Wisconsin soldiers during April 6–7, 1862 Battle of Shiloh.  Enoch, my 3rd great grandfather, was a Union soldier in Company I, 16th Infantry Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteer Army.2  Not many details of Enoch’s life still exist but there’s one other account, written 44 years after that Battle.

It was during the summer of 1906, when two Missouri men attended a convention in Jefferson City, Missouri that they discovered they had met 44 years earlier.  J. H. Keithley’s ears perked up when happened to hear Mr. W. H. Haughawout say he was from Wisconsin.  When Keithley found an opportunity to talk with him, he inquired further.  The article below is a story unto itself.


Enoch Keithley married Amy (Turner) and their three children were Joseph Henry, Lewis Oded, Arthur.3  He died of disease on 8 May 1862 at Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee.4

I just love finding stories like these!

Reference Notes:
  1. “From the Milwaukee Wisconsin, Our Wisconsin Boys in the Pittsburg Battle,” Janesville (Wisconsin) Daily Gazette, 24 April 1862, p. 2 col. 2-3; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 19 January 2019).
  2. Wisconsin Adjust General’s Office, “Wisconsin volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 : arranged alphabetically,” digital image, Wisconsin Historical Society (https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS4267 : accessed 8 March 2020), entry for Enoch Keithley, p. 531.
  3. Declaration of Minor Children for Pension, 11 November 1865, Amy Burgess family, minor application no. 116,388, certificate no. 111,208, service of Enoch Keithley (Pvt., Co. I, 16th Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers, Civil War.  Amy resided in Fairview as did Elisha and Sarah Turner, who testified for her.
  4. U.S., Civil War Roll of Honor, 1861-1865, database with digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 March 2020), Enoch M. Keithley, p. 193; citing Roll of Honor (No. XX.) Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defence [Defense] of the American Union, Interred in the National Cemeteries at Corinth, Mississippi, Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and Jefferson Barracks, Missouri,” Washington: Government Printing Office, 1867.
  5. For additional reading about Enoch see my mother’s blogpost “52 Ancestors #13 – Enoch Keithley” Donna’s Weblog, 29 March 2014 (https://dmbr622.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/52-ancestors-13-enoch-keithley/ : accessed 30 April 2020).