A piece of Dixon history: Dixon’s remarkable role in the Civil War

DIXON — Many American towns, like Sterling, Oregon and Byron, have a major outdoor monument dedicated to citizens who fought in the Civil War, the nation’s bloodiest war.

Indeed, more American soldiers died in the Civil War than in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.

In Dixon, however, to see the major Civil War monument, you need to go indoors into the old Lee County Courthouse. On the first-floor wall at the base of the stairs hangs a huge bronze memorial that lists the names of 2,400 Lee County veterans of the Civil War.

Think about that number. In 1860, Dixon’s population was only 2,218. So, imagine the impact of 2,400 Lee County sons heading off to war.

One in four go off to war

“On a per capita basis, Lee County sent more manpower to the … battlefields during the Civil War than it did during World War II,” said George Lamb, a Dixon historian from the 1960s.

Concerning Dixon alone, about 850 Dixonites fought for the Union in the Civil War, serving in 31 infantry regiments, 13 cavalry units, three artillery units, and four “colored” units. If Dixon’s population averaged about 2,800 during the war years, about one of every four Dixonites marched off to battlegrounds of the Civil War. Many never returned alive.

Why Dixon was significant

Dixon’s patriotic military fervor may have been driven by its long association with Fort Dixon, built on the river’s north banks during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Dixonites had always respected the local veterans of that war, such as “Col.” John Dement of Dixon.

The community’s strong anti-slavery stance was likely fueled by the fact that most Dixonites hailed from anti-slavery states in the Northeast. In addition, the Telegraph had strongly opposed slavery ever since its first issue in 1851, which helped to keep the locals firmly opposed to pro-slavery sentiments in the South.

A strategic reason for Dixon’s central role in the Civil War was its unique location at the crossroads of two new railroad lines. In 1855, only six years before the war, the Illinois Central Railroad laid its rails to Dixon from the south, and the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad completed its line to Dixon from the east. In that same year, the new railroad bridge at Dixon allowed train traffic, for the first time, to cross the major barrier of the Rock River.

Consequently, Civil War recruits could travel from any direction to Dixon for weeks of training and then be shipped via rail to battlefields throughout the South.

Dixon’s remarkable role

Dixon’s relationship with the Civil War was unique in many respects. Consider these facts:

• Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the presidents of the opposing sides of the war, were fellow soldiers here at Fort Dixon during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
• General Winfield Scott, who headed the Union army at the beginning of the Civil War, was also in Dixon during the Black Hawk War.
• General Joseph E. Johnston, who surrendered the largest Confederate army after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, served as a lieutenant in Dixon in 1832. When he surrendered in 1865, he was facing the 34th Illinois Infantry Regiment, which initially assembled at Dixon.
• General Albert Sidney Johnston was another lieutenant at Fort Dixon in 1832. When he was killed in battle at Shiloh in 1862, he was also facing the same Dixon-based regiment of Union troops.
• Major Robert Anderson, who commanded Fort Sumter in the opening salvo that sparked the Civil War, was also a lieutenant at Fort Dixon in 1832. Lincoln himself credited Anderson with mustering Lincoln into military service as a private at Dixon.

Dixon’s Civil War battles

Besides these remarkable facts, Dixon distinguished itself in many ways during the war years.

• From 1861 to 1865, Camp Dement at Dixon was a major training center, which then sent thousands of Dixon-trained soldiers to clash with the Rebel army in nearly every southern state, from Missouri to the Atlantic.
• Soldiers who were recruited, assembled or trained at Dixon fought in many famous pivotal battles, including Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, the siege of Atlanta, and Sherman’s March to the Sea.
• Dixon-based soldiers also fought in dozens of other major battles, such as Jackson and Corinth in Mississippi; Stones River, Nashville, Missionary Ridge, and Lookout Mountain in Tennessee; and Ringgold Gap and Chickamauga in Georgia.

Civil War remnants in Dixon

Besides the large plaque inside the Lee County Courthouse, Dixon itself retains a few historic remnants of its connection to the Civil War.

The Dixon Barracks building, which still stands today on Depot Avenue, was built in February 1864 to house 1,000 men and officers who trained at Dixon. During the war, the building was only a few feet from the railroad tracks to enable swift onloading and offloading of soldiers.

Old Camp Ground Avenue, the major road stretching through Oakwood Cemetery, was so named because Dixon’s initial training camp was located on today’s cemetery grounds.

Col. Obadiah J. Downing, who lived in Dixon from the 1860s until his death in 1925, was at Ford’s Theater in April 1865 on the night when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Downing testified that he was one of the five who carried the body of Lincoln across the street from the theater to the place where the president died.

Downing’s signed statement hangs in the archives at the Loveland Museum in Dixon. The museum also holds many other authentic Civil War artifacts such as guns, swords, spurs, hats, pouches, photos and documents.

In our next episode, this column will identify the little-known activities of the soldiers who trained here, including where in Dixon they trained, their struggles here, the impact of local families, the first Civil War soldier wounded in Dixon, and the first soldier killed in Dixon.

• Dixon native Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.