Joe W. Fifer: From Private to Governor to the Soldiers and Sailors Home

J

oseph W. Fifer and his brother George enlisted in the 33rd Regiment, Illinois Volunteers at Stout’s Grove, Illinois, on the August 15, 1861. The Fifer family, originally of Staunton, Virginia, had moved to Stout’s Grove, a small community located just east of Bloomington, in 1857, some years after the death of their mother Mary. In Illinois, their father John established a brick making business, in which the boys helped out, while attending rural schools, hunting, farming, and being boys.  

The 33rd Regiment was formed at Bloomington, Illinois, in the wave of patriotism which followed the Union defeat at the first battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861.The president of Normal University, Charles E. Hovey, recruited heavily for this unit, which because of the quick response of his student body, became known as the “Normal” or “Teachers’ Regiment.” Much of their war time service, as was commonly recorded in regimental histories and personal letters from the troops, was spent with marching, camping, manning picket lines, and participating in skirmishes, interspersed with brief intervals of intense battle and war time horror. In this war, both brothers would be wounded, one fatally. For Joe, who survived, his war experiences would shape the remainder of his personal and professional life.  

Although the military history of the 33rd has been told in the Regimental History and the Adjutant Generals Reports, it is the letters Joseph and George wrote home during their service which tell the personal tale of their war time experiences. A small collection of their letters is archived in the Fifer-Bohrer Papers at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and State Archives in Springfield, Illinois. 

For the 33rd, the first 14 months of service was spent primarily in Missouri and Arkansas “participating in numerous expeditions.” During this time, Joe and George wrote that they were “well and harty,” although as George notes in a letter from Ironton, Missouri, in October 1861, “B. P. Leavick has had the typhoid fever, but he is quite smart now,” and “There are a good many sick at this time but not many serious cases, it is primarily the measles and they do not seem to be bad.” In fact, non-battle related diseases, many of them borne by bad water and mosquitoes, would claim many lives, both Union and Confederate, throughout the war.  

During this period, the letters of the brothers are filled with common concerns, their own health and that of their regiment, longing for letters from home, awaiting their army pay and sending a portion of it home, and asking for pictures of loved ones. George writes on January 13, 1863, “I want you to send us all your miniatures. You must dress up nicely when you have them taken … you and pap can have yours taken together, and Git and Vic. theirs.” 

After a winter spent in southeast Missouri, the regiment was ordered further south and into the heart of the war. As George writes in February 1863, “There is some talk of us going to Vicksburg, but I think it uncertain where we will go,” and on March 17, “We are now aboard the steamer Illinois going down the river. We embarked yesterday. We are ordered to report to General Grant at Vicksburg.” On May 30, George wrote home that the regiment had been involved in several battles in route to Vicksburg, and now were entrenched, and “our men are firing constantly from behind our rifle pits with small arms.” He wrote, “you must excuse this letter as I write while my comrades are firing within 25 steps of me, but this excitement has almost worn away as we have been under fire since the 19th.”

 Although both brothers survived this extended siege, Joseph W. Fifer was gravely wounded soon after the surrender of Vicksburg, during the battle for Jackson, Mississippi. As described by Lewis in Co. C Historical Sketch, “July 13, 1863, Joseph W. Fifer was dangerously wounded in the siege in battle in front of the rebel works at Jackson, Miss. Wm. J. Bishop was shot through the head; B.P. Levick was wounded in the arm. Both Fifer and Bishop were thought to be fatally injured, but both lived and finally recovered. The company carried them, on the 18th of July, a mile and a half to the corps hospital. Lieut. Geo. H. Fifer, a brother of Joseph, being on Division Staff, obtained leave of General Sherman and sent Johnathan B. Lott, an old comrade, on a special trip to Vicksburg to bring some ice for these wounded men. The best possible care was given them in hospital, but with all the special attention their survival was considered astonishing, especially in this deadly climate where even a scratch was dangerous.”  

George’s anguish is evident in his letter home on July 13. “Dear father, this news will be painful to you. Jo is seriously wounded, but not mortally, he is shot in the side passing through the lower corners of his lungs…” It was later discovered that the bullet had also nicked his liver. “I would like you to come down immediately and take Jo up home.” George sent money for the trip. This trip proved impossible, and on July 29 the three friends were among those sent north for further treatment of their wounds. All three survived their wounds, with Bishop being discharged for disability on July 8, 1864. Levick was promoted to Corporal and then Sergeant and mustered out a veteran on December 6, 1865. Joe Fifer mustered out at the expiration of his service on October 11, 1864. This obscure soldier was soon to be nicknamed “Private Joe” and have a statue of him erected at the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Illinois. To be continued….

Sources

33rd Illinois Infantry Regimental History: Adjutant General’s Report. History of 33rd Illinois Infantry (illinoisgenweb.org)

Elliott, Gen. Isaac H. History of the Thirty-Third Regiment Illinois Veteran Volunteer 

Infantry in the Civil War. Gibson City IL: The Regimental Association, 1902.

The Fifer-Bohrer Papers. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Springfield, Illinois.

Lewis, Edward J. Co. C Historical Sketch. Unpublished manuscript in the Lewis 

 Collection. Bloomington IL: McClean County Historical Society.