My Genealogy Hound

B. J. WILCOX.
When the call to arms sounded in the Civil war men from all stations of life flocked to the standard of the nation. They came from the counting houses, the offices, the shops and the fields, actuated alike by the common purpose to defend the union and preserve it intact. Among the residents of this county who wore the blue uniform is numbered B. J. Wilcox and throughout his entire life he has been as loyal and as faithful to his duties of citizenship as when he followed the old flag upon southern battlefields. Long a resident of Union county, he now resides upon a farm of eighty acres on section 35, Jones township, which he owns, having made his home here since 1874.

Ohio claims him as one of her native sons, his birth having occurred in Logan county on the 23d of October, 1838. His parents were Thomas and Hannah (Gates) Wilcox, natives of Kentucky and Ohio respectively. The father, however, was reared in the Buckeye state and there followed farming, living in two or three different counties. His last years were spent in Hardin county.

It was in that county that Mr. Wilcox of this review was reared to manhood and from the early age of fourteen years he has been dependent upon his own resources. At that time he started out in life for himself and when a young man learned the blacksmith’s trade, which he has long followed. All business considerations and personal interests, however, were put aside at the time of the Civil war that he might go to the front in defense of the Union. He was the second man to enlist in Hardin county, joining the army on the 16th of April, 1861, as a member of Company G, Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served with the army of West Virginia under General G. B. McClellan and participated in one of the first fights of the war at Phillipi, Virginia. He was also in the engagements at Rich Mountain, Romney, Blue Gap, Winchester, and was wounded near New creek by bushwhackers, sustaining a gunshot wound in the wrist which disabled him and sent him to the hospital. Later he was granted a thirty days’ furlough, which he spent at home, and then because of disability was honorably discharged in 1862. Mr. Wilcox, however, could not be content to remain at home while the safety of his country was a matter of question and in July he joined Company B, of the Forty-fifth Ohio Volunteers, as a private. He went south with the Army of the Ohio and was later with the Army of the Cumberland. He served under six celebrated generals, including Burnsides, Scofield, Sherman and Foster. He participated in the battle of Dalton Hill, Scott’s Raid, and in the movements against Morgan when the rebel general was making his raid through Ohio. His company and Company K, Forty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry brought Morgan to a stand, and had the privilege of disarming his troops. They traveled fifty-seven miles by two o’clock P. M. on the day Morgan surrendered—July 27, 1863. Mr. Wilcox was also at Philadelphia, Tennessee, with seven hundred Union men who were surrounded by twelve thousand Confederates and cut their way out but lost three hundred and sixty-five men in so doing. He was also at Marysville, Tennessee. At that time he belonged to the mounted infantry but twenty-eight of the men dismounted and went into the engagement, only seven, however, coming out alive. Mr. Wilcox was exceedingly fortunate in that he escaped. He was also in the siege of Knoxville, where he commanded the company, the officers above him all being killed or captured. He was next at Bean Station and afterward was with the company at Resaca, New Hope Church, Peach Tree Creek, Kenesaw Mountain, Pine Mountain, Atlanta, Franklin, and the two days’ battle of Nashville. There he was mustered out, receiving an honorable discharge at Columbus, Ohio, in June, 1865. His was a splendid military record, characterized by bravery and loyalty in every phase of his army life.

When the war was over Mr. Wilcox returned to Ohio, where he worked at the blacksmith’s trade until the spring of 1866, when he removed to Wisconsin, settling at Plain, Sauk county. There he established a town and opened a shop, continuing in business at that point for eight years, when he sold out preparatory to coming to Iowa. He arrived in Union county in 1874, driving across the country in February with a span of mules and his family came by train. He had been married in Hardin county, Ohio, to Miss Lucy A. Pickering, who was born and reared in the Buckeye state. On reaching Union county Mr. Wilcox purchased a farm and also established a blacksmith shop. For years he carried on the farm with the aid of hired help and at the same time followed blacksmithing, his shop being of much benefit to the community, his neighbors greatly appreciating the marked change in the appearance of his farm, setting out fruit and shade trees, erecting a good residence and also putting up substantial outbuildings.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox have been born three daughters: Eva, the wife of I. E. Tash, postmaster of Alliance, Nebraska, by whom she has three children; Rosetta, the wife of Ira A. Gripp, a retired farmer of Afton; and Eliza the wife of J. R. Iles, of Holdenville, Oklahoma. The parents hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal church of Thayer and their lives are in harmony with their professions. Mr. Wilcox is a Master Mason who has filled all of the offices and is a past master of the lodge of Thayer. He was a charter member of the Odd Fellows lodge of Hopeville and later became a charter member of the Odd Fellows lodge at Thayer, in which he has passed through all of the chairs. His stalwart republicanism is never doubted and his position on political questions is never an equivocal one. He proudly cast his first presidential ballot in 1864, supporting Abraham Lincoln, and has voted for each nominee at the head of the national ticket since that time. He has been officially identified with the schools of this locality for a number of years and for two years served as assessor. For more than a third of a century he has been a resident of this county and has been much interested in its development and progress, giving active cooperation to many movements for the public good. More than all, he has a splendid record as a soldier, having for four years and three months been a defender of the Union cause in the south, during which time he participated in twenty-seven important engagements and a number of lesser skirmishes. The fires of patriotism still burn brightly in his breast and he finds genuine pleasure in meeting with his old army comrades and in recalling scenes and events which occurred upon the tented fields of the south.