Thomas Albert Riggin: Spanish American War Veteran

Today is the 120th anniversary of the date on which President McKinley declared war on Spain. In commemoration of that anniversary, I am highlighting the service of Thomas Albert Riggin, my great uncle.

At the age of 21, Thomas Albert Riggin enlisted in the U.S. Army in St. Louis, Missouri. The date was 26 May 1898, one month and a day after President McKinley declared war on Spain. He was assigned to the Troop D of 2nd Cavalry. The Second Regiment of Cavalry had been organized in 1836, making the Second Dragoons the oldest continuously serving mounted regiment in the U.S. Army. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, the regiment was quartered in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas. They were assembled together in Chickamauga, Georgia, for the first time since the Civil War.

Troops A, C, D, and F entrained for Mobile, Alabama, and sailed to Cuba. They were assigned to Maj. Gen. William Shafter's Headquarters Troops and were the only horse-mounted regular Army troops under Shafter's command. The remainder of the regiment traveled overland to Tampa, Florida, and served as logistical support due to lack of transport ships to Cuba.

The mounted troops in Cuba fought along side Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders and fought at the battles of El Caney (1 July), San Juan Hill (1 July), Aguadores (1 July), and the siege of Santiago (which began on 3 July). Teddy Roosevelt observed, "the Second Cavalrymen are everywhere. All day long you see them. All night long you hear their clattering hooves.”[1]

The Battle of San Juan Hill was the decisive battle of the short war. It was also the bloodiest and most famous. During the armistice, D Troop was responsible for feeding and policing 22,000 refugees in a town with a usual population of a few hundred. In January 1899, the entire regiment was assigned pacification duties in Cuba. They remained on the island for three years and eased access to public education and improved sanitation.

Clementine (Wells) Riggin Collins with three of her sons. Thomas Albert
Riggin is on the far left; Henry Wilburn Riggin, middle; and I believe
Lawrence Wesley Riggin is on the right. Photograph courtesy of William A.
Shaffer

Thomas Albert Riggin, however, was sent to Huntsville, Alabama, where he was discharged from the Army on 26 January 1899. It was noted in his file that he had been an excellent soldier.

Albert, or T. A., as he was known throughout his life was the uncle of my paternal grandmother, Alice (Muir) Jennings. He was born on 23 April 1877 in Troy, Illinois, and was one of six children of his father, John Wesley "Wes" Riggin and his second wife, Clementine Wells. His father died when he was four years old.

His mother married William Collins, a widower, who worked in the coal mines, the year before Albert enlisted. Upon his return from Cuba, he, his brother Henry and his sister Ida, my great grandmother, lived in East St. Louis, Illinois, and boarded in the home of Otto and Mary Davis. Albert worked as a grocery clerk.

On 2 November 1904, he married Triphosa "Fosie" Bowker, daughter of Richard "Dick" and Elizabeth Ann (Mallalieu) Bowker. The couple honeymooned in Iowa. Albert and Fosie had one daughter, Alberta Riggin. They lived in Collinsville, Illinois, their entire married life and Albert owned and operated a fruit and vegetable business for several years.

He and Fosie hosted several Riggin family reunions at their summer place. My grandparents attended often, driving to Illinois from Virginia. Albert died on 3 September 1952 at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in St. Louis of heart disease. His widow, Fosie, died in March 1975.

In 1972 my grandmother, father and I drove to the St. Louis area and I had the opportunity to meet "Aunt Fosie," as my grandmother called her.

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[1] Golden, Chris. 2d Stryker Cavalry Regiment: History, Customs and Traditions of the "Second Dragoons," 2d Cavalry Association, page 11 (accessed on 27 Apr 2017)

Remember the Maine

Remember the Maine

Today is the 120th anniversary of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor exploding in Havana harbor. The Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect U.S. interests during Cuban War of Independence against Spain. Teddy Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was convinced the explosion was caused by "outside work," and was desperate for the U.S. to enter the war against Spain. He was aided, in part by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two newspaper barons. "Remember the Maine" became the battle cry of a nation which seemed eager for war thirty years after the bloody Civil War.

The cause of the explosion is a subject of speculation still today. The board appointed to investigate the explosion soon after it occurred determined the explosion was caused by a mine. However, several naval personnel thought the explosion was caused by an internal accident. The Navy's Steam Engineering bureau chief thought there had been a magazine explosion which caused the Maine to sink. A naval ordnance expert posited those magazine's ignited because of a spontaneous explosion in the coal bunker. Because the ship was powered by bituminous coal which was known for for releasing a gas prone to spontaneous explosions, his premise was quite plausible. Evidence now seems to indicate a fire in the coal bunker "cooked" off the ship's magazine.

Congress declared war on Spain on 25 April 1898. Hostilities were halted on 12 August after Spain was defeated in Cuba and the Philippines and its Atlantic and Pacific fleets were destroyed.  About 280,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines served in the war, many of them volunteers.

The mast of the USS Maine; recovered when the ship  was raised and refloated out
to sea and resunk; Arlington National Cemetery; personal collection

Graves of unknown sailors killed when the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor;
Arlington National Cemetery; personal collection

Corporal Joseph Bernard Stonesifer

During the Lange Cousins Reunion held at our home last month, my 93-year-old Aunt Katherine asked me to look into her father's family history. She said she didn't know anything about it and would like to learn something. However, if there was anything bad, she didn't want to know! I have more than one murderer in my tree and a few criminals and I've blogged about most of them -- the dead ones anyway. So what would Aunt Katherine consider bad? I'm sure lots of things less awful than murder.

The day after the reunion I started researching her father, Millard Aloyius Walter (1899-1974). Right off the bat, I started chasing the wrong Millard Walter. There were two living in Baltimore, Maryland, at the same time: Millard A. Walter and Millard Walter. The middle initial came in very handy.

It turns out her father's four times great grandfather was Nicholas or Nicola Walter, who was born in 1720 in Rhineland-Platz area of what is now Germany, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1751 and died in 1804. Along the road of discovering Nicola Walter, I "met" a lot of interesting members of the very extended Walter family.

Today, I'd like to introduce Aunt Katherine and readers of this blog to Joseph Bernard Stonesifer, Aunt Katherine's second cousin once removed.

Aunt Katherine's connection to Joseph Bernard
Stonesifer. John William Walter was a son of Nicola
Walter; image courtesy of Ancestry.com

Joseph was born on 8 November 1879 in Littlestown, Pennsylvania. The town is about 10 miles south and east of Gettysburg, just north of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. It was originally named Petersburg by German settlers. Joseph's father had moved the family to Gettysburg by 1895.

On 15 February 1898 the battleship USS Maine exploded in Cuba's Havana harbor, killing 260 crew members. News of the disaster splashed across front pages of newspapers everywhere in the country. The United States declared war on Spain and President McKinley called for volunteers.

Typical front page announcing the explosion of the USS Maine;
original source unknown

The 5th Pennsylvania Infantry, a National Guard regiment assigned to the U.S. Army's First Brigade, Eighteenth Division. The regiment's regular soldiers had arrived at Camp George H. Thomas in May. The regiment was ordered to recruit volunteers to enlarge the ranks. Young 18-year-old Joseph Stonesifer responded to the call. He enlisted in July of that year and on 15 July 1898 was stationed at Camp Thomas in Lytle, Georgia.

Lytle is in Walker County just north of Chickamauga, scene of a bloody civil war battle. The volunteers from several different regiments soon numbered over 60,000 raw troops and placed a strain on the Camp. Providing water and enough varied food became problems by the time Joseph arrived. At least two soldiers were shot by irate landowners as they attempted to raid neighboring peach orchards and chicken coops. One soldier wrote:

"Mothers, sisters, and sweethearts did all they could to gladden the hearts of their loved ones at the Park, but their efforts in this line were entirely fruitless, for as fast as the express wagons would deliver the loads of boxes of pies, cakes and pastries, the regimental surgeons would dump it into a sink dug for the purpose." The doctors were attempting to halt the spread of illness but their methods were unpopular I imagine.

Army officers and their tents at Camp Thomas; photograph courtesy
of the Georgia Historical Quarterly

Two days after Joseph arrived at Camp Thomas, Spanish troops marched out of besieged Santiago, Cuba, and the war was over. Hostilities formally ceased on 12 August 1898 and the treaty officially ending the war was signed in December and ratified by the Senate the following February.

The National Guard soldiers were given a 30-day furlough in September but, even though the war was over, Joseph and the other 5th Pennsylvania Infantry volunteers were transferred to Camp Hamilton near Lexington, Kentucky. Joseph was promoted to corporal in October. Camp Hamilton was abandoned about 15 November 1898 about the time Joseph was released from military service.

When the 1900 census was enumerated, Joseph attended college and lived with his parents in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where his father worked as the assistant superintendent of the Gettysburg National Military Park. Joseph moved to Chicago by 1906 when he married Bessie Sadie Novak, daughter of John L. Novak, senior member of the firm Novak & Steiskal, mortgage bankers, dealers in real estate, loans, insurance, and other financial matters. Bessie's father had immigrated from what is now the Czech Republic but was then called Bohemia and part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

When Joseph registered for the World War I draft on 12 September 1918, he worked as a bookkeeper. His physical appearance was described as being of medium height and build with blue eyes and dark hair. He and Bessie had two children by that time.

Between 1935 and 1940 Joseph and Bessie moved to the northern Virginia area and Joseph worked for the federal government as a guard in the Treasury Building in the District of Columbia.

Joseph died in December 1960 and was interred at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago.

52 Ancestors #45: Veteran of the Spanish American War

Ancestor Name: Edmund Lenwood WOMACK (1875-1937)

Edmund Lenwood Womack is my grand uncle by marriage. He married my paternal grandfather's half-sister, Leta Vernon Jennings, on 15 September 1906 in Roanoke, Virginia. They married four months after Leta's step-mother, Effie Davis (Beard) Jennings, died.

Edmund was a conductor on the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio (CC&O) Railway for over 30 years, but that's a story for another day.

Before his marriage, Edmund served his country in the Spanish-American War. His regiment mustered for the war with Spain on 21 May 1898 at a strength of 1,021 officers and men. The 2nd Virginia Volunteers Infantry was commanded by Col. James C. Baker and stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, which was in Richmond, Virginia, at the state fairgrounds. At the time the state fair was held at what is now 2500 West Broad Street.

The Virginia regiments left Camp Lee by 6 June 1898 and were transferred to Camp Cuba Libre in Jacksonville, Florida. The camp had been established just a few weeks earlier and was the assembly point for Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee's Seventh Corp, which was soon to be designated the Occupation Army for Cuba.  It was located about three miles north of Jacksonville near Panama Park.

General layout of Camp Cuba Libre, Camp Wells, and Camp
Springfield; image courtesy of Otis Historical Archives,
National Museum of Health and Medicine

Camp Cuba Libre soon became home to more than 30,000 men. Supplies were so short they had to eat with their fingers off roofing shingles. Medical necessities were so slow in arriving, Fitzhugh Lee turned to the Red Cross for support.

Most of the soldiers spent time drilling and at target practice. They were preparing to to invade and occupy Havana, but that became unnecessary with the victory at Santiago. Elements of the Seventh Corps were sent to Cuba as an occupation force, but the 2nd Virginia Volunteers Infantry was not among them. The regiment was mustered out of the Army on 11 December 1898. The U.S. occupied Cuba until 1902.

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge.

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Edmund Lenwood Womack was born on 10 November 1875 in Christiansburg, Virginia, to Jesse and Elizabeth (Pedigo) Womack. There is a discrepancy regarding Edmund's birth date. (His birth index record says 10 November 1875; his headstone, 1878; and his WWI draft card say 4 December 1878. However, I do not believe the 1878 date is correct as his younger brother was born on 18 August 1878.) At the age of 22, he volunteered to fight in the Spanish-American War. After the war he started working for a railroad as a brakeman and lived in Roanoke with his married sister's family. On 15 September 1906 Edmund married Leta Vernon Jennings in Roanoke. By 1918 when he registered for the World War I draft, he and Leta were living in Erwin, Tennessee, and he was a conductor on the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio railway, which was headquartered in Erwin. They remained in Erwin the remainder of their married lives and had five known children with four living to adulthood. Edmund was killed in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the southern terminus of the CC&O on 22 October 1937. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Erwin. His wife lived until 1959 and is buried beside her husband.

Wordless Wednesday: Spanish-American War Memorial
The Mother Nobody Knew
Body Mutilated, Crushed and Cut

Wordless Wednesday: Spanish-American War Memorial

I recently discovered my grand uncle served in the Spanish-American War.  The idea for this post came from GeneaBloggers.com.

Spanish-American War monument at Arlington National Cemetery

The Spanish-American War Memorial consists of a column of gray granite 54 feet high quarried in Barre, Vermont. Atop the column is a bronze eagle with outstretched wings, facing west. The eagle is mounted on a granite globe, which was quarried in Quincy, Massachusetts. A band decorated with 13 starts (representing the original Thirteen Colonies) is carved in high relief on the globe. The globe stands on a square base. The base stands atop a Corinthian capital which crowns the column.

The column rests upon a tall plinth with a square cross-section. Around the top of the plinth are bronze starts 5 inches across. There are 11 stars on each of the four sides, for a total of 44 stars. A bronze tablet affixed to the front (west face) of the memorial contains the following language:

To the soldiers and sailors of the United States who gave up their lives for their country in the war of 1898-99 with Spain this monument is dedicated in sorrow, gratitude, and pride by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the name of all the women of the nation. 1902.

The plinth stands on a larger square base, which sits atop a foundation set in the earth. On each corner of the foundation is a polished black granite sphere 18 inches in diameter.

1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic

My sister-in-law's 3rd cousin six times removed was St. George Tucker (1752-1827). He married Frances (Bland) Randolph, the widow of John Randolph. One of Tucker's step-sons, John Randolph of Roanoke, and his friend and distant relative, Joseph Bryan, were living together in Philadelphia in 1793 where they studied law under Edmund Randolph. St. George Tucker felt it was important for his children and step-children to have careers in either law or medicine as he did not believe the great plantations of Virginia would be economically viable much longer.

John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833)

While John Randolph of Roanoke was in Philadelphia the first major yellow fever epidemic hit the city in July 1793, a hot and humid summer with more than the usual number of mosquitos. The disease tore through the city like wildfire, claiming the lives of one-sixth of the population. An estimated 20,000 people fled the city, including President George Washington, who left on September 10 on his previously scheduled vacation. Children often suffered a milder case of the fever while their parents died, leaving many orphans which the city was unprepared to handle.

Arch Street Wharf and Ferry, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The first cluster of cases appeared at the Arch Street wharf, leading many, including Dr. Benjamin Rush[1], to conclude yellow fever was caused by unsanitary conditions around the docks, open sewers, and rotting vegetables. He also recognized weather played a part in the epidemic. The stagnant water, where mosquitos bred, froze over in mid- to late October, and greatly decreased incidence of the disease. Dr. Rush treated his yellow fever patients by blood leeching and purging, using a mercury compound. Later, he wrote an account of the 1793 epidemic, and described the symptoms and course of the disease. He also posited his thoughts on cures and causes.

An Account of Bilious remitting Yellow Fever as It Appeared in the City of Philadelphia in the Year 1793 by Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Philadelphia mayor, Matthew Clarkson, organized the city's response and established a committee to deal with the chaotic situation. They reorganized the fever hospitals, arranged to visit the sick, fed those unable to care for themselves, arranged wagons to carry the sick to hospitals and the dead to Potter's field, and they identified shelters for orphans. Aggressive attempts were made to improve the city's sanitary condition. In 1799, Benjamin Latrobe was hired to design and construct the first water system in the United States. Ironically, Latrobe died of yellow fever in 1820 while constructing a waterworks for New Orleans.

Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor, first proposed yellow fever might be transmitted by mosquitos in 1881. Since the losses from yellow fever were extremely high during the Spanish-American War in the 1890s, Army doctors began to experiment with a team led by Walter Reed. They were able to successfully prove Dr. Finlay's "mosquito hypothesis." Using methods first suggested by Dr. Finlay, the U.S. government was able to eradicate yellow fever from Cuba and later Panama, which allowed the completion of the Panama Canal after the French had abandoned the project in large part due to the decimation of their workers by yellow fever.

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[1] Benjamin Rush was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence, the surgeon general of the Continental Army, founder of Dickinson College, doctor, writer, educator, and humanitarian.

For more information about the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793, Penn State University has made this article available online. This post was a joy to write as I was able to pull out some of my old micro-history books on Yellow Fever and the building of the Panama Canal. Yes, my tastes in reading material are a bit quirky!

It's Ternes Time...Again

After reading the transcripts of voice tapes Edith Mary Madeline Ternes sent to grand niece, Sofee Ternes, I became much more interested in the Ternes family, which you will remember I am also related to by marriage through Harold Muir, my first cousin twice removed. (I've posted about these transcripts several times; just click Ternes in the Labels section to the right of this post to see them.)

I searched through old Detroit newspaper archives and discovered the patriarch of the family, Christian Ternes, was tragically murdered. Searching Google Books gave me a bit more information about the family. Findagrave.com provided yet more relationship information. So through several sources, I started building out the family tree.  Of course, the census records were very helpful, too.

Once the Ternes family tree started taking shape, I got hints from Ancestry.com about birth and death certificates, World War I and World War II registration cards, Social Security death records and so on. I have spent days building out this tree, connecting to other Ancestry.com members who maintain well-sourced public trees and sharing information, such as photos and documents about our common relatives.

By far the most interesting discovery has been the Ternes surname message board on Ancestry.com. Several great and grand daughters of Christian I. Ternes, son of Peter Ternes and grandson of Christian Ternes posted on the board. They live in Miami or Panama and told a fascinating story.

Peter Ternes, son of family Patriarch, Christian, and father of Christian Ternes/Charles Ternes De Reuter

Theresia Reuter Ternes, Christian/Charles Ternes De Reuter's mother

Apparently, as a young man, Christian (1870-1917) got into a bit of trouble in Detroit and one of his uncles told him to leave town.  He ended up in Colon, Panama, after fighting with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish American War. He married a woman in Colon and took the name of his youngest brother, Charles, and changed his last name to Ternes De Reuter, adopting the Spanish custom of including a mother's maiden name.

Christian I. Ternes/Charles Ternes De Reuter

He became Chief of the Fire Department in Colon and died on 28 Apr 1917 at 5:00 a.m. when he touched a live wire while fighting a fire.  I learned all this from a Death of an American Citizen report filed by the American Consular Service on 30 Apr 1917. The report went on to say Charles Ternes De Reuter married the daughter of Porfirio Melendez. Mr. Melendez was a former governor of Colon and head of a Panama separatist movement. Charles Ternes DeReuter left behind his widow, Felicidad (Melendez) Ternes De Reuter, and five children when he died. She is buried Corozal American Cemetery and Memorial in Panama City, Panama. Ternes DeReuter is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Colon.

American Consular Report, dated 30 Apr 1917, about Charles Ternes De Reuter

The American Consular Service report also said Ternes De Reuter was highly esteemed. So it appears that he recovered well from his early troubles in Detroit and went on to live a short, but eventful life.

Since finding this information, I've been in touch with one of Ternes De Reuter's granddaughters. She was born in Panama and told me more about his wife's family. His wife Felicidad's sister, Aminta, is considered Colon's favorite daughter. There is a bust of Aminta in Colon. When she was just 18 years old she smuggled a message across enemy lines to inform Panama city of a Colombian plot.  Throughout her life, it was traditional for the president of Panama to visit her home to pay homage.

Aminta Melendez's bust in Colon

Isn't it wonderful what old documents and new contacts can tell us about the past!