Harrison Camp No. 53-2
Wisner, Nebraska (Northeast Nebraska)
Camp Officers:
Camp Commander: Mark Glaubius
Sr. Vice Commander: Rick Marx
Jr. Vice Commander: Nathan Raabe
Secretary/Treasurer: Norman Weber
Counsel: Reid Weber, Elliott Fullner, Christopher Weber
Camp Namesake
Named in honor of Benjamin Harrison, (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901). Union General and U.S. President.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for more recruits for the Union Army; Harrison wanted to enlist, but worried about how to support his young family. While visiting Governor Oliver Morton, Harrison found him distressed over the shortage of men answering the latest call. Harrison told the governor, “If I can be of any service, I will go”.
Morton asked Harrison if he could help recruit a regiment, although he would not ask him to serve. Harrison recruited throughout northern Indiana to raise a regiment. Morton offered him the command, but Harrison declined, as he had no military experience. He was initially commissioned as a captain and company commander on July 22, 1862. Governor Morton commissioned Harrison as a colonel on August 7, 1862, and the newly formed 70th Indiana was mustered into Federal service on August 12, 1862. Once mustered, the regiment left Indiana to join the Union Army at Louisville, Kentucky.
Harrison drilled his recruits in tactics and emerged as a strict disciplinarian. His men called him “Little Ben” due to his short stature of 5 feet 6 inches tall. For much of its first two years, the 70th Indiana performed reconnaissance duty and guarded railroads in Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1864, Harrison and his regiment joined William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and moved to the front lines. On January 2, 1864, Harrison was promoted to command the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the XX Corps. He commanded the brigade at the battles of Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peachtree Creek and Atlanta. When Sherman’s main force began its March to the Sea, Harrison’s brigade was transferred to the District of Etowah and participated in the Battle of Nashville.
On January 23, 1865, President Lincoln nominated Harrison to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers, to rank from that date, and the Senate confirmed the nomination on February 14, 1865. He rode in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. before mustering out on June 8, 1865.
After the war, Harrison continued in his law practice and entered into politics as a United States Senator, serving in various committees which propelled him into the 1888 election in which he became the 23rd President serving from 1889 – 1893. Learn more here.
“I have never been able to think that this day is one for mourning, but think that instead of the flag being at half mast it should be at the peak. I feel that the comrades whose graves we honor today would rejoice if they could see where their valor has placed us. I feel that the glory of their dying and the glory of their achievement covers all grief and has put them on an imperishable roll of honor.”
Benjamin Harrison
Decoration Day, May 30th, 1891