Into the Heart of Dixie: Franklin Fox and the 15th Michigan

THE MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 40:1 (Spring 2014): 97-106© 2014 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved Into the Heart of Dixie: Franklin Fox and the 15th Michigan By H. Jason Combs, Donald Maness and Sally McVey The American Civil War left artifacts and debris scattered throughout much of America: uniforms, weaponry, diaries, letters, and photos. While some are housed in numerous museums and historical societies, others still remain to be found, hidden in the least likely of places. Occasionally passed down from generation to generation, these artifacts preserve a part of America’s rich heritage and provide detailed insights to the American experience. Scholars have extensively researched the Civil War and yet many personal experiences and accounts, as portrayed through letters and diaries, remain to be rediscovered and analyzed. Such is the case with Franklin E. Fox’s diary. The diary, discovered far from Fox’s home in Michigan, offers a glimpse into the last months of the Civil War and, subsequently, the final days of one private’s experience in the North’s infamous March to the Sea in America’s bloodiest war. This research note shares the story of the diary’s fortuitous finding and places Fox’s accounts of battles and events within the larger perspective of the war.1 A construction crew stumbled upon Franklin Fox’s diary in 1980 while working on the duct work of the historic Frank House located on campus at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. The house’s original owners, George and Phoebe Frank, built the home in 1889; originally from New York, the couple resided there for only ten years before the financial panic of the 1890s forced them to sell the property. From 1907-1911 the house functioned as the Kearney New Sanitarium under the direction of Ole and Georgiana Grothan. After their divorce in 1911, the home was sold to the State of Nebraska and from 1911 to 1972 it was partitioned off and functioned as staff quarters for the nearby Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis. In 1973 the Frank 1 Fox’s diary is quite accurate and closely follows official war records. 98 The Michigan Historical Review House was listed on the National Register of Historical Places, and today it operates under the guidance of the University of NebraskaKearney .2 How Fox’s diary made its way to the third floor duct work of the Frank House remains a mystery. After it was discovered, the diary was archived with little notice only to be rediscovered for a second time by archivist Rachel Downs in the spring of 2012. Since 2012 the diary has been transcribed and electronically preserved by Frank House staff. Michigan in the War President Lincoln reportedly remarked “Thank God for Michigan” upon the arrival of the first Michigan troops in Washington, D.C.3 Michigan played a significant role in the Civil War, contributing some 90,747 troops, nearly a quarter of Michigan’s male population according to the 1860 census. At least 14,343 Michigan troops died serving in the war, and approximately “one of every six Michigan combatants never lived to see the Union restored.”4 Michigan had no battles fought within its borders; as a result, the state’s economy flourished as it provided supplies and materials for Union forces.5 As historian Jack Dempsey has summed it up: the “Confederacy had been defeated; the Union had been preserved; slavery in America had been dealt a deathblow. Through it all, Michigan troops had served, fought, suffered, bled and died. At home Michiganders had done their part.”6 Fox’s regiment, the 15th Michigan Infantry, was organized and mustered into service on March 20, 1862 under the command of Colonel John Oliver.7 Less than two months later, members of the 15th Michigan Infantry found themselves in action at Pittsburgh Landing near Shiloh, Tennessee.8 Fox joined the regiment much later, enlisting in Company D on September 10, 1864 at Pontiac, Michigan.9 During his 2 Virginia Lund, George Washington Frank’s Stone House on the Nebraska Prairie (Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2010). Frank invested in the Kearney Canal and Water Supply Company which also brought electricity to the...