Benjamin Hall Stillman

"His mother [Hannah Hall] was killed by lightning [in 1843] when he was a small boy, and he moved with his father [Almeron P. Stillman] to Michigan, and then to Wisconsin when he was about ten or eleven years old, passing through Chicago when it was a small village, and the mud in the street was axle deep to the ox wagons in which they traveled. He lived in these States and Minnesota in the pioneer days." Then living in Utica, he enlisted in Company D, 7th Wisconsin Infantry on 10 August 1861. He was detached to Battery B, 4th US Artillery on 28 November 1861.

He was with the Battery on the Maryland Campaign.

He remained with Battery B until he reenlisted in November 1863, when he returned to his Regiment after a brief furlough. In May 1864 he got himself detailed back to Battery B. In August 1864 he transferred to Hart's (15th Independent) New York Battery. He served with them into October 1864, when he was returned to the 7th Wisconsin. He mustered out of the service on 3 July 1865. "He was in thirty-nine major engagements, including the second battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc., and was more than three hundred and ninety days under fire."

He moved to Eugene, OR in 1907, and lived in Oregon or Washington afterward. His last four years he lived with his son the Rev. O. A. [Orson Almeron] Stillman, at White Salmon, WA.

Basic information from the Roster1. Personal details and the quotes above from his obituary in The Sabbath Recorder, pg. 543, of 24 April 1922 [GoogleBooks], posted online on RootsWeb by Jon Saunders. Further details from family genealogists. Thanks to Brian E. Hess for bringing him to our attention. Thanks also to GGGrandaughter Jennifer Gerdes Stillman Hess, who notes:

He was a friend of Augustus C. Buell who stayed with him and his family while writing "The Cannoneer". Buell autographed a first edition to BH Stillman’s mother-in-law, Adelaide Campbell Burdick, that I have now. The sense I get from the notes written in the margins of the book is that quite a bit of the book is from BH Stillman’s experiences. It’s my belief that he didn’t want to be credited directly and that his identity was hidden on purpose throughout much of the book. Even though everyone knew that Buell was “creative” with details and was sloppy with his research, the sense of things, the story itself, was spot on, even though it wasn’t necessarily Buell’s personal story. It was my ancestor’s story, among others, and should be valued for that at least.

For more about Stillman's experience, including an extensive interview he gave the Eugene (OR) Register Guard, see a post by Zulan on the Civil War Talk forum.

05/26/1837; Hebron, PA

03/24/1922; White Salmon, WA; burial in Odd Fellows Cemetery, White Salmon, WA