Civil War soldiers spotlight of upcoming cemetery tour

After the Civil War, the state of Kansas was a welcoming place for numerous military veterans due the vast farmland available. Many made their homes in Jackson County, raised families and pursued their passions after the conclusion of the four-year war.

The service and life of several of these veterans will be highlighted Saturday during a special tour of the Holton Cemetery.

Sponsored by the Jackson County Historical Society and presented by students from Royal Valley High School, “Civil War Soldiers and Their Stories” will be held at 1:45 p.m. at the Holton Cemetery on the west edge of town.

Nate McAlister, Royal Valley Middle School social studies teacher, said that for the past five years, as seventh-grade students have been studying the Civil War, they’ve been assigned a Jackson County veteran to research as part of the Kansas Historical Society’s “Sleeping Heroes” project.

As part of the project, students throughout the state have been visiting cemeteries in their communities and researching obituaries in order to compile more information about the veterans and their service for an online database.

“The students have researched all the Civil War veterans in the two Hoyt cemeteries and the Mayetta cemetery and most of the Holton cemetery since we started,” McAlister said.

There are Civil War soldiers from almost every state who found their way to Kansas after the war, McAlister said.

“Kansas was flooded with Civil War veterans,” McAlister said. “The Homestead Act allowed them to purchase land very cheap, and the soldiers had money in their pockets to spend.”

Soldiers from New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan and more, in almost every division of the Union military, found their way to Kansas.

“There aren’t a lot of southerners who migrated here, but there are a few,” he said.

One of the more unique discoveries the students found in their years of research was a nine-year-old named James Wash, who enlisted with the colored troops during the war in Kentucky, McAlister said. Wash is buried in the Mayetta Cemetery.

“No one has been able to discredit the students’ research on him,” McAlister said of Wash.

During Saturday’s tour, 10 to 15 freshmen students will share the “ups and downs” of working on the project, as well as quick facts about some local veterans.

“There were some instances where different names or spellings were used, or the person wasn’t buried where we thought they were,” McAlister said.

One of the notable Civil War veterans buried in the Holton cemetery is Shepard Linscott, who owned most of the land in Holton at one time and was the president of the Banking House of S.K.

Linscott Park, located just off the Square, is named in his honor.

Another soldier, Samuel Segrist, fought in the Battle of Port Gibson, the Battle of Champion Hill, the Battle of Big Black River, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads and the Battle of Cedar Creek. He was also a bodyguard for President Abraham Lincoln and reportedly had the night off when Lincoln was assassinated. 

The founder of The Holton Recorder, Moses M. Beck, is another Civil War veteran buried at the Holton Cemetery. Beck originally mustered in as a private and mustered out as a captain. He was also a druggist, merchant and farmer.

“The students have done their research, and it is a great project from them to work on,” he said. “I don’t think we realized how many Civil War veterans we had here. It’s amazing to find out who came here to live out the rest of their lives. They all have their own story.”

So far, the students have researched more than 100 Civil War veterans. In the next few years, McAlister said that seventh-grade students will continue to complete their research of veterans in the Holton Cemetery, as well as those buried in the northern part of the county.

Saturday’s 45-minute program is free to the public, and participants are asked to meet at the cemetery entrance at the corner of Kansas Highway 16 and P Road that day.

Members of the historical society’s program committee, who helped organize the event, include Shelly and Dan Robinson, Layne Hunley and Steven Banaka.