100 Days Men: A memorial of Eugene Place

The Leonard line, as it runs through Michael, has ancestors who fought in every conflict since Europeans arrived on this continent. From King Philip’s war through World War 2, his ancestors have served, but thankfully none in his direct line have lost their lives in combat. Today, for Memorial Day, we remember one of his extended family members who gave the ultimate sacrifice: Eugene H Place.

Eugene, who was Michael’s 4x Great Uncle, lost his life in the Civil War. He was the grandson of one of the first Americans to settle in the Wisconsin territory (Finding the Yeomans), and came from a family that was staunchly committed to Abolition. In-fact, the farmers of Eastern Racine County were notoriously anti-slavery. Eugene’s parents, Thomas and Susan Place, owned a large farm in Mount Pleasant, WI in the neighborhood of the unknown safe house that Joshua Glover was smuggled to after he was freed from the Milwaukee jail. His older brother Luther enlisted as a regular in the Union army when he was 19 years old. Eugene, at 16, was the oldest son left to help on the farm. Many of the boys Luther’s age enlisted the day the war broke out, and Eugene’s younger sister would marry one of those men when he returned from service.

“100 Days Men”

Thomas and Susan had 4 sons. Luther was born in 1844, Eugene in 1846, Thomas Jr. in 1847, and Theron in 1853. Thomas was lost as an infant. By the Spring of 1864, when Eugene turned 18 years old, the Union campaign in Georgia was gaining momentum. The Governor of Ohio proposed a surge of lightly trained soldiers to replace seasoned troops who were doing rear-guard duty. The concept of a short-term enlistment for these rear guard troops was immediately adopted by President Lincoln. The 80,000 soldiers who joined were known as “100 Days Men” and Eugene enlisted 3 months after this 18th birthday (100 Days Men). The Place family’s two oldest sons were now serving in the Union Army.

The impact of the 100 Days Men like Eugene was just what the Union had hoped for. By the time they mustered out in September of 1864 Atlanta had fallen. Sherman was resting and preparing for his glorious March to the Sea while the regulars re-positioned to their original posts.

The Wisconsin 39th Regimen mustered into service on 3 Jul 1864, and he was assigned to Company D. The 3 Wisconsin 100 Days regimens were sent to Memphis after a week of training. They performed guard and picket duty while the veteran troops they replaced shifted to the battle for Atlanta.

On 21 Aug 1864 the Wisconsin 39th was the only of the 100 Days forces from Wisconsin to see combat. Confederate Calvary under Nathan Bedford Forrest attempted a raid in Memphis to capture Union commanders, but they were ultimately rebuffed. During the time of the raid, Eugene was likely already in hospital in Memphis suffering through his last days of the disease that would take his life. He died on 23 Aug 1864 at the age of 18. His body was returned to Racine where it was buried in a family plot in Mound Cemetery.

Mound Cemetery

Thomas Place arrived in Wisconsin Territory at age 16, before the Native Americans had been pushed off this land. The first winter Thomas worked for the French fur trader in the area. He became acquainted enough with the local Potowatomi band that he was invited in the winter of 1835 to a mound-building performed for the death of a tribal leader. Those ceremonies were held in an area of Racine that was dotted with burial mounds. Now almost 30 years later, that land had become the cemetery Thomas buried his middle son.

Photo of a granite headstone reading "Eugene H Place", Company D 39 Regimen, Wisconsin Volunteers. Feb 28, 1846, Aug 23, 1864. Son of Thomas and Susan Place.

The impact of the 100 Days Men like Eugene was just what the Union had hoped for. By the time they mustered out in September of 1864 Atlanta had fallen. Sherman was resting and preparing for his glorious March to the Sea while the regulars re-positioned to their original posts. 3 men of the 39th died in combat, while nearly 10 times that many would fall to disease. In November President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address memorializing the men like Eugene who died for this country. By April 1865 the war ended.

Eternal Sacrifice, and Gratitude

Michael’s maternal line was just starting to taste their first freedom in this country. That was in no small part due to the sacrifices of men like Eugene H. Place. The Place family’s commitment to the ideals that people like Michael should be treated like human beings gave his later ancestors some of the rights the Place’s themselves held dear. The could now own property, vote, and to serve this country.

Without the sacrifices of men like Eugene, generations of people like Michael with African ancestry would likely still be enslaved in the brutal system the Southern States fought so traitorously to preserve. On this Memorial Day, it’s with profound thanks for the wonderful life we all enjoy today that we thank Private Place, and the countless others like him, for their service, their commitment, and their sacrifice.

A Profile in Political Courage: E. A. Morse
An Ancestor Stands Against a Tyrant and Fellow Republican

The political upheaval the United States has experienced over the last decade can seem so extreme it’s historically unprecedented. At times it has felt that the country was facing a challenge to its democratic traditions unlike anything we’ve ever faced. However, our family history reminded us that the country has faced this political tyranny before, when one man wielded control over the White House and both houses of Congress due to Republicans not having the will to stand up to an American despot. It also reminded us that we can celebrate that ancestor who dethroned that tyrant with a courage and sacrifice that seemed completely absent from today’s Republican Party.

Elmer Morse, portrait, c. 1910 (P17-0054) — Elmer Addison Morse, c. 1910

Michael’s 2xGreat Grandfather Elmer Addison Morse was born and raised in the farming community of Franksville, WI but he was elected to Congress in 1906 as a Representative from Antigo, WI. E.A. (as he was known) was aligned with the Progressive wing of the Republican Party and was one of the founding members of the National Progressive Republican League along with Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette in 1911.

The Progressive bloc of the Republican party came from the Panic of 1893 (Panic of 1893) which was so devistating to the economy many started to re-evaluate their political positions. The Republican party had become very business aligned, matching the historic position of the Democrats, but more and more citizens in the electorate saw the monopoly’s, the trusts, the Guilded Age businessmen as the main problem in the United States. At the same time there was a clear undercurrent of dissatisfaction in the greed of the market praying on people as they increasingly left the farm for urban jobs, and a feeling that the Federal government should protect people from predatory business as well as use it’s power to improve the quality of life amongst the public¹. The Progressive wing of the Republican party was born of this movement, as politicians across the country started openly agitating for this new political perspective.

“I believe the Republican party is progressive to the core, and I want it thoroughly understood that I am not a stand-patter in any sense of the word.

The Republican party was born to make men free from slavery, and I believe that there is vitality enough in it still to free this generation from the aggressions of Trusts and oppression of Monoploy, and to protect the remainder of our natural resources from being plundered by the favored few, to the entitlement of the many.”

E.A. Morse, 1910

By 1900 the Progressives were gaining steam, with the ascension of Vice President Teddy Roosevelt to be the 26th President, Bob La Follette being elected Governor of Wisconsin, and a significant bloc in the Republican-majority Congress. Upon his election to President in 1904 Roosevelt leaned in to his Progressive nature and pushed reforms such as eliminating the rampant corruption in politics at all levels, seizing land valuable in natural resources from private companies to ensure those now Public resources would be used for the public good, initiating actions to break up the large company “trusts” that monopolized large sectors of the US economy, creating Federal agencies to regulate the safety of Food, Medicine, and Meat for the first time.

During first Roosevelt’s Presidency, and then Morse’s time in Congress, the main block to many Progressive reforms was the Republican Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. “Uncle Joe” Cannon was a conservative Republican and led the “Old Guard/Stand Pat” wing of the Republican Party. He served as Speaker of the House starting in 1903 and quickly amassed an unprecedented amount of power. He was not only Speaker, but he was also the chair of the House Rules Committee which determined how bills could be debated, amended, and voted upon. Bills couldn’t reach the floor unless Cannon approved of them, and he alone could determine what form they would take if they reached the floor for a vote. Additionally, he solely appointed all committee members, of both parties, which ensured that the blossoming group of Progressive Republicans were kept off of important committees and could leverage very little influence.

His power was such that even the Presidency was diminished under Cannon! While Cannon was a key foe to Teddy Roosevelt, the election of William Howard Taft in 1908 led to Uncle Joe taking complete control of the Republican Party and thus dictating the actions of the Senate as well as the President. One man now controlled two of the three branches of government.

In the 1908 Presidential election, the majority of Republicans (and all of the Progressives) ran on a platform of lowering tariffs. Protectionist tariffs had been passed years earlier, but since they were designed more to protect business interests than consumer interests, prices on key consumer items had skyrocketed. Cannon understood his power, and sensing that Taft was not as formidable as Roosevelt, he decided to break Taft of any Progressive leanings while crippling the Progressives. Against the wishes of almost the entire party, Cannon ensured that the 1909 Payne-Aldrich Tariff was signed into law.

The tariff bill was a thinly veiled punishment to those that challenged Cannon, and a threat to those that supported him, in a bid to ensure they continued that support.

Instead of the promised reduction of tariffs, Payne-Aldrich raised them on many of the 2000+ items listed. The few reductions were largely given out as political favors. The Republicans ultimately felt that failing to pass any tariff bill would be seen as a fiasco for the party, and they chose party above the relief they promised their constituents. Cannon recognized that and used it to bend the party to his will, and even many of the reformers (likely even our E.A.) fell in line and supported the bill.

Time_Magazine_-_first_cover — Joseph “Uncle Joe” Cannon on the cover of the first issue of Time Magazine

Taft spun the bill that had been forced upon him by Cannon as “the best tariff bill that the Republican Party ever passed.” Taft also admitted that he put the interests of the party over the interests of the country: “I believe…the interests of the party required me to sacrifice the accomplishment of certain things in the revision of the tariff which I had hoped for, in order to maintain party solidarity.” Cannon had become the single man in charge of the American political system, and he effectively controlled both the Executive and Congressional branches of government. From this time on he was widely referred to as “The Tyrant from Illinois”.

E.A. Morse ran openly against “Cannonism” and was a part of a minority group of Republicans that bucked the party and stood up for what they felt was right. They wished to protect and expand the democratic institutions of this country and they did so at the risk of their political careers.

The Progressives had plotted their attack on Cannon for several years, and openly voiced their intention to break his power. But it took a long time before they finally found their opening and executed their courage move to stand up to Cannon. When they did move, they politically neutered him in spectacular fashion.

On March 17, 1910, the House was in session but lightly attended. There was a quorum, but many regular Republicans were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and had either left for the week, or a long weekend. Many had celebrated well into the night and were in no shape to return to the Capital even if they could be found. It was during an otherwise routine management of House business that the full group of Progressive insurgents struck out at Cannon.

George Norris, a Republican from Nebraska, had been laying it the weeds waiting for this moment. For two years he’d carried the text of a resolution in his pocket to amend the House rules to remove Cannon from the chair of the Rules committee and to strip him of his ability to appoint committee members and leaders. There had been a seemingly innocent debate the day before on if bills could be introduced directly to the House floor if they dealt with a Constitutional question. Cannon and Stand Patters ruled that it was permissible, even if the bill was not pre-printed and that the House as a whole would have to vote directly on those bills. Cannon couldn’t control those bills from being debated and voted upon.

St. Patrick’s Day morning, Norris, sensing his opening, copied the text of his resolution on the back of an envelope and rose to introduce a “resolution privileged by the Constitution.” Cannon, not knowing the danger of what was unfolding, allowed Norris to proceed. Very quickly it became apparent that Cannon had accidentally allowed a direct challenge to his power and he didn’t have the votes to stop it. One of Cannon’s allies made a Point of Order that Norris’ resolution wasn’t privileged, and that set off 26 hours of political gamesmanship. Ultimately Cannon couldn’t muster the votes and allowed the Point of Order to be voted on by the House. 42 Progressive Republicans joined 149 Democrats to ensure that Norris’ motion passed, largely because there weren’t enough regular Republicans available to beat back the challenge.

This move broke the greatest concentration of power in American political history. Cannon’s hubris and display of punitive power in the tariff bill hadn’t broken the Progressives, it laid the groundwork for them to rise up and seize control back from Cannon.

These Progressives voted for Country over party, and saved this country from tyranny but at the cost of their political careers. In the 1910 election Democrats took over the House, while many of the Progressives survived re-election. However, the 1912 election was a disaster for the Republicans and the death of the Progressives in the party.

The Progressives planned to seize control over the Republican Party during the 1912 Presidential election, but they didn’t anticipate Teddy Roosevelt’s return to American politics and his usurping of the Progressive Party. The Republican Progressives were planning on their electoral reforms helping Democratic Progressives joining them to defeat the Democratic candidate, however Roosevelt had no support amongst Democrats, so when La Follette finished 2nd in the Progressive nomination even Roosevelt admitted the Democrats would win the 1912. Additionally, a dethroned Cannon had enough power to ensure that each of the Progressives that voted to remove him faced well-funded challengers in their House elections, as well as newly drawn districts that disadvantaged them. He also pulled strings to make sure that promised Federal projects like new Post Offices which were key to legislators in Progressive districts were delayed until after the election.

Article, EA Morse, Marshfield Times (D17-0020) — E.A. Morse campaign ad defending his stand against Speaker Joe Cannon and “Cannonism” and making no apologies.

In E.A. Morse’s case, in addition to facing a Democratic “wave” election in 1912, the Old Guard Republican governor of Wisconsin helped ensure that this district was merged with another and that he faced a challenge from a popular Republican Secretary of State. In the end, Morse was handily defeated and returned to private life, in no small part due to his challenge to Uncle Joe Cannon.

Morse left public life after his loss, and had a long career as the principle of the Morse-Tradewell company in Antigo which specialized in insurance, banking, and logging. Their logging operation was so great that at one point they were the largest private holder of land in Northern Wisconsin and had a private railroad, including a steam engine, that would haul their timber for sale to the shipping depot in Lena, Wisconsin.

We don’t want to ascribe only the noblest of intentions to our ancestors, and there are troubling aspects of E.A.’s life and politics. In-fact, by 1932 Morse rant again for Congress in support of Herbert Hoover despite his overseeing our decent into the Great Depression, and explicitly denied any Progressive alignment. But that’s true for all politicians and in his case he was a part of a small group of Republicans that stood up for what was right and for what was best for the democratic institutions of this country over his political career, and he’s a heroic legend in our family. Each House Progressive paid for their courage by losing their seats soon after their insurgency.

We saw during the 2nd Impeachment of a Republican President 110 years after Morse and the Progressives stood up for what was right that the Republican Party couldn’t muster 3 people courageous enough to put an insurrectionist tyrant in check. The risk of losing their seats continues to allow a single man to dictate policies that the large majority of Americans are deeply disturbed about.

Just know we’ve seen this before, where one man stood above the Constitution and the country, and that it took just a handful of people to let their courage and sense of duty to what was right and best for the country be greater than their own needs. We can be proud our relative stood on the right side of history and ignored the political cost.

Let’s be honest, it wasn’t the “public” it was white, Protestant men…no one else had power in the politics of the United States in the late 1800’s. ↩︎

Patriotic Service in the Revolutionary War
Honoring Israel Standish (1721-1802) and his stand on principles

Patriotic Service in the Revolutionary War <h4>Honoring Israel Standish (1721-1802) and his stand on principles</h3>

With the arrival of the 250^th Anniversary of the founding of the United States there’s renewed interest in all our patriot ancestors, and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) have been helping us establish the genealogical lines to those patriots for well over 100 years. The most common route to establishing a patriot ancestor is establishing them as soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and we have 20 or so DAR ancestors who followed that pattern. But we want to examine one ancestor who highlights a lesser-known path to being recognized as a patriot by the DAR: Patriotic Service.

Patriotic service covers those nascent Americans who didn’t pick up arms to fight the British, but still provided material support for the revolution. This could include providing funds or supplies to the Continental Army, or signing an oath of allegiance or a petition to support the cause.

In 1777 the US Revolution wasn’t going particularly well for the States. The siege of Boston had been broken in 1776, but the ousted British troops had sailed to New York and established control over the city, soon driving General Washington’s army off of Long Island and then out of New York completely. The British had captured a large number of prisoners of war from various battles and established their largest prisons in the New York city area. The largest, and most notorious was the Sugar House on Manhattan but the prison ships anchored off Long Island held just about as many POW’s. Conditions in these prisons can only be called horrific. There were no sewage systems, the food was rotten and there was very little of it (for example a standard ration at the Sugar House was 1 pound of rotten meat and 4 pieces of moldy bread every 4 days), there was no furniture to sit or lie on, on land prisoners would sometimes receive 30 min. of fresh air a week but often times they would just be granted turns standing and breathing out the windows for 10 minutes. On the ships, due to the waste-based diseases, it was almost impossible to come out of the holds for air…and if a prisoner could make it up the ladder the deck was usually so slick with excrement it wasn’t possible to stand (The Prisoners of New York). Mortality rates for captured Revolutionary soldiers was 75%, and the descriptions of their conditions can only be matched by the description of the conditions on the ships that traversed enslaved humans across the Atlantic for centuries.

It’s under this cloud of mistreatment that 32 men from Connecticut signed a petition to the newly formed General Assembly of Connecticut on 5 May 1777, pleading for the body to interve on the behalf of citizens of that State who were being held in New York. The petitioners are clear they are in favor of the revolution, and call those who risked their life for the cause as “noble”, but they are clearly pained by the conditions of imprisonment calling it: inhumane, barbarous and deplorable. However, they are also honest that they have no idea how to accomplish any solution since they know we can’t effectively pressure the British. They do however voice the opinion that if the Assembly can figure out how to accomplish this, the “Army [will] soon be supplied with a number of men sufficient to repel our enemies”.

Text of the petition for prisoners, 1777
To the Honourable the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut to be convened at Hartford within and for said State on the Second Thursday of May 1777.
Whereas. Since the commencement of the present unnatural War, it has so happened that great number of our Friends who have nobly ventured their Life for the Defense of our Injured Country have unfortunately fell into our Enemies hands and by them are held captive and prisoners of War and treated in the most inhumane and barbarous manner many having been stripped of their clothing, exposed to the weather and denied a sufficient supply of food for the support of life and under which suffering many of our Respectable and Worth friends have lost their life: and others who still survive are yet in the same deplorable circumstances in New York and on Long Island. Suffering under the insults of the enemy and destitute of necessities and clothing or money to purchase that necessities of life; all which are so publicly known that they are undeniable facts.
Whereupon we the subscribers inhabitants in the State aforesaid pray this Honorable Assembly to commiserate and take into consideration the disgusting condition of our Friends in captivity as aforesaid who are belonging to this State and in your wisdom devise some method for the support and relief when we know not how it can be effected without some exertion of the public and which if done by your Honour and publicly known among the people. We humbly conceive would be a very great inducement to other voluntarily to insist and engage in the cause of our country and our Army soon be supplied with a number of men sufficient to repel our enemies, or in some other way grant relief.
As your Honours in your wisdom shall judge most reasonable and just and you memorialize as in duty bound shall memorialize as in duty bound shall coc. (?) Pray. Dated in Connecticut this 5th day of May 1777 (Link)

Michael’s 7xGGF Israel Standish (1721-1802) was living in Preston, Connecticut when he was one of the 32 signatories to this petition. He was the great grandchild of Mayflower passenger Myles Standish, so he likely had at least some notoriety (not as much was we’d think today, but that’s for another day!), and he was an established farmer in his mid-50’s. His children lived in Preston as well, and he had at least 10 grandchildren under 5 years of age at the time living near him. Even a simple petition asking for something to be done to save the son’s of Connecticut from the horrors of British prisons was a deeply treasonous act. He had publicly attached himself to the cause of revolution, and he would have likely lost all that mattered to him, if not his life, had the rebellion failed.

Image of signature of Israel Standish — Israel Standish standing ten toes on principle and putting his name down on paper!

And at the time, the Americans (outside of Boston) hadn’t shown much capability of defeating the British. His farm was just to the East of New York (and just across the sound from Long Island, which was easily crossed) and it was firmly under the control of the enemy. He was influential and known enough to be included in joining the petition, and doing so left him no chance for him to deny where his loyalties lied, so this was a significant act of defiance even though on the face it seems like a simple enjoinder. We can guess there would have been an effect on his neighbors. Those loyal to the cause of freedom stood up and be known as such, and there was a group on one the other side equally loyal to England, however those in the middle would have likely felt swayed by their neighbors risking everything to publicly support a United States free of the crown.

So in someways these acts of Patriotic Service had impacts as strong as those who served militarily, which is why the DAR recognizes the “simple” act of signing a petition as worthy of veneration for having served the cause of liberty.

Chart showing Israel and Content Standish descendants — Israel and Content Standish’s descendants

In Remembrance – Daniel Walter Leonard (1868-1924)

Today we remember Michael’s 2xGGF Daniel Walter Leonard, who died on this date in 1924.

Dan (as he was known) was born in Algoma Township, Wisconsin on 12 May 1868 to John Leonard (1829-1891) and Louisa (Phalen) Leonard (1840-1925). He was the 5^th of 11 children born to John and Louisa, and he was raised on the Leonard farm just outside Oshkosh on Lake Butte des Morts. Unlike his brothers, and most of his sisters, Dan didn’t continue farming as an adult, instead focusing on physical labor.

Newspaper article describing the death of Sheriff Dan Leonard, with a photo of him

He was still living at home when he wed Emma Marrion Kupps (1879-1953) on 29 Oct 1902, although family lore is he met Emma when she was a waitress in Antigo, Wisconsin. Emma was known as one of the first European children born in Langlade County. Dan moved to Antigo after they married, and in 1903 the first of their 8 children was born. In 1904, after 2 huge fires in Antigo within 10 days of each other, the city voted to pay their firefighters, and Dan was named the first paid Fire Chief. By 1910 he was listed as a laborer doing odd jobs, and by 1920 he was a teamster for a logging company.

Dan ran, as a Democrat, for Langlade County Sheriff in 1922 and he was elected to a 2 year term. The role of sheriff, beyond just law enforcement, also encompassed management of the County Jail which would usually have prisoners not just waiting trial, but also those serving sentences less than a year. The Sheriff, and usually his wife, would be responsible for the feeding and laundry of those prisoners and usually they would live on-site to provide needed services 24 hours a day. Their youngest child was 4 when Dan was elected, so they moved into the jail as a family. Just over a year into his term Dan became sick with what would be diagnosed as stomach cancer. He was seen in Oshkosh for treatment, and went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota as well, but with no success. He was moved from a hospital in Oshkosh to his home, but died the next day, 11 Mar 1924 at age 55.

Soon after Dan’s death, Emma was appointed Sheriff to complete Dan’s term by Governor John Blaine, making her the first woman to be a Sheriff in Wisconsin history. As she had effectively executing all of the functions of the office for the 6 months before her husband’s death Gov. Blaine felt she’d be the best candidate. Emma would go on to sell insurance for the Morse Tradewell Company in Antigo, where her 4^th child Gerald Francis Leonard (1908-1967) would meet the owner’s daughter Catherine Suzette Morse (1911-1990), and they would wed in 1937.

In remembrance – Peter Charles Leonard (1944-1976)

In our renewed effort to document, discover, and share this special family tree we’re celebrating the birth anniversary of Michael’s paternal Grandfather Peter Charles Leonard (1944-1976). Pete was born January 1, 1944 and was the first baby born in Antigo, Wisconsin that year…lamentably the year before prizes were awarded. He was the middle of 5 boys born to Gerald and Catherine (Morse) Leonard and was a kind, mischievous, happy child who loved the outdoors. He was not a particularly good student, and his mother was shocked when he announced he wanted to go to college then relieved when he was admitted to the University of Wisconsin – Superior. He pledged TKE at UWS, and during his time there he met JoAnn Jewell. He graduated with his Bachelors in Education from UWS, and moved to Racine, Wisconsin (living at first with his brother Jerry) and accepted his first teaching position. He soon after married JoAnn, and they had two boys Richard and Michael. Pete continued his education at UW-Whitewater and Madison, earning his Masters degree and shifting his career to School Administration. He had a love of racing (both motorcycles and snowmobiles) and the tinkering with engines that goes with it, as well as family road trips. Pete had risen to be the Director of Elementary Education for the Howard-Suamico School District (just outside Green Bay) when he was diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life too young. Pete died at home in Green Bay, surrounded by his family, on 28 Sep 1976 at the age of 32.

An American Genealogy

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Tag: Family History