John Ticknor

(c. 1838 - 1863)
Home State: Wisconsin
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 6th Wisconsin Infantry

Before the Antietam Campaign:
In the 1860 Federals census he was listed as a 22 year old laborer and saw mill hand living in Germantown, Juneau County. He enlisted from Wernersville in Company K, 6th Wisconsin Infantry on 24 June 1861, and was 5th Sergeant in August. Promoted to First Sergeant. In November 1861, returning to camp from a review at Bailey's Crossroads, VA, just outside Washington, DC, the Sixth Wisconsin was at the head of the column of McDowell's Division. Riding with them was visitor Julia Ward Howe. As Rufus Dawes remembered it,

As we marched the "evening dews and damps" gathered, and our leading singer, Sergeant John Ticknor, as he was wont to do on such occasions, led out with his strong, clear, and beautiful tenor voice, "Hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree." The whole regiment joined the grand chorus, "Glory, Glory, hallelujah, as we go marching on." We often sang this, the John Brown song. To our visitor appeared the "Glory of the coming of the Lord" in our "burnished rows of steel" and in the "hundred circling camps" on Arlington, which were before her.

Ticknor was appointed 2nd Lieutenant on 12 December 1861 and First Lieutenant on 24 June 1862.

In the Antietam Campaign:
He and Captain Converse (B) led their Companies as skirmishers at Turner's Gap on the 14th, and Ticknor was wounded in action on 17 September 1862 in or near the Miller Cornfield at Antietam.

The remainder of the War:
He was promoted to Captain of the Company on 22 October 1862. He was killed in action on 1 July 1863 at Gettysburg, PA.

References, Sources, and other notes:
Basic information from State of Wisconsin1. Further details and the quote above from Dawes' Service with the Sixth2.

Birth State: IL
Death Date: 07/01/1863 Death Place: Gettysburg, PA Burial Place: New Lisbon City Cemetery, New Lisbon, WI

Notes

1 State of Wisconsin, Adjutant General's Office, and Chandler P. Chapman, Adj. Gen., Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, 2 volumes, Madison: Democrat Printing Co., State Printers, 1886, Vol. 1, pp. 531 - 533 [AotW citation 10443]

2 Dawes, Rufus Robinson, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, Marietta (OH): E.R. Alderman & Sons, 1890, pp. 28 - 29 [AotW citation 10447]

« Search for Another Participant