» Veteran honored:
Blanchard’s grave marked with stone showing service
The last Civil War veteran in Milwaukee County is honored at Forest Home Cemetery 75 years after his death.
It’s likely a teenage Charles Blanchard watched the first Milwaukee men to enlist in the Civil War train at camps in the city before marching off to their destiny.
When he joined the fight at the age of 18, he served just four months in Company D of the 40th Wisconsin Infantry in Memphis, Tenn., where future Wisconsin Gov. Cadwallader Washburn fled in his nightshirt to escape a Confederate raid seeking to kidnap the general.
Blanchard was an otherwise ordinary private who did not earn a chestful of medals. But he did live for more than eight decades after the Civil War ended. And when he died at age 96 during World War II, Blanchard ended up outliving every Civil War veteran in Milwaukee County.
On Sunday, a dozen members of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War dressed in replica blue wool uniforms marched to Blanchard’s grave at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee to commemorate the 75th anniversary of his burial. They installed a brass medallion that proclaimed him the last Union veteran buried in Milwaukee County.
“Let us remember Comrade Charles Blanchard here at rest under the blue skies of heaven, today kind of gray, guarded by the silent stars that in life watched over him when he bivouacked on the battlefields or lay down weary and foot-sore on the soil of the south land,” said Danielle Michaels, dressed in a Civil Warera replica hoop skirt.
Michaels is the former national president of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Auxiliary and a descendant of a Civil War soldier.
Two years ago, the national commander of the veterans group issued an order to chapters in all states to determine the names and burial locations of the last Civil War veterans and to mark their graves in some way, said Tom Mueller, commander of the Milwaukee chapter of Sons of Union Veterans. Using local newspaper accounts and historical records, Wisconsin officials compiled the list of the last Civil War veterans to die in each of the state’s 72 counties.
Brian McManus, a member of the Sons of Union Veterans chapter in Racine County, created the medallion and on Saturday the first in Wisconsin was placed on the grave of Racine County’s last Civil War veteran, Lewis Rolfson, a member of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry who died in 1936 at age 94 and was buried at Norway Lutheran Cemetery. Blanchard in Milwaukee County was the second to get a medallion.
The last Civil War veteran in Wisconsin was Cpl. Lansing Wilcox, who served in the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry and died in Chippewa County in 1951 at age 105.
Marge Berres, who conducts historical tours at Forest Home Cemetery, told the crowd of around 20 people Sunday afternoon that Blanchard came from a Milwaukee family and was buried by his two daughters in September 1942. Blanchard recalled seeing Abraham Lincoln when the future president visited Milwaukee in 1859 to speak at the Wisconsin State Fair, according to Milwaukee County Historical Society records Berres found in her research.
Blanchard enlisted in Madison in May 1864 in a unit needed to work behind the front lines — picket and railroad guard duty — allowing more experienced units to fight, said Billy Cole, senior vice commander. But on Aug. 21, 1864, a Confederate cavalry detachment burst into Memphis shortly before dawn and penetrated enemy lines all the way to the headquarters of commanding generals, including Washburn.
“The 40th Wisconsin was promptly put in line soon after the alarm, and marched through the city at a double quick, and out on the Hernando road, where they were ordered to support a Missouri battery which was engaged with the enemy,” said Cole.
Blanchard returned to Milwaukee, married, fathered a family and in 1883 founded Standard Paper Co., located on Milwaukee St. Of the more than 7,600 Civil War graves in Milwaukee County, Blanchard was the last to be buried.
Following a threeshot volley with replica muskets by Sons of Union Soldiers members, the placing of wreaths and flowers at Blanchard’s simple headstone and Taps sounded by bugler Bill Seaman clad in a Civil War replica uniform, the crowd bowed their heads in prayer led by Chaplain Dean Collins, whose great-grandfather fought with the 24th Wisconsin Infantry.
“A soldier cannot leave his post without being properly relieved,” said Steve Michaels, former commander-inchief of the Sons of Union Veterans. “Charles Blanchard you are now relieved. We, the sons, have the post.”
“A soldier cannot leave his post without being properly relieved. Charles Blanchard you are now relieved. We, the sons, have the post.”
STEVE MICHAELS FORMER COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE SONS OF UNION VETERANS