A History of the Ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry

In the opening months of the Civil War, German immigrants from Belleville, Millstadt, Mascoutah, and Lebanon answered Lincoln's call and marched to Springfield under August Mersy, a veteran of the failed 1848 revolt in Baden. But when they arrived, Mersy was rejected as commander because his English was too limited. Replaced by Colonel Eleazer A. Paine, Mersy fell to second in command until Paine's promotion left him leading what would become the "Bloody Ninth." Marion Morrison wrote this history in 1864, while the war still raged, capturing the regiment's desperate fighting at Fort Donelson and Shiloh Church, where they held until their ammunition ran dry. This is not a retrospective account but a contemporary witness preserving the stories of soldiers who received little recognition in their own time. It is a vital, urgent document from the war's bloodiest years, written by someone who watched it unfold.