Lansing Wilcox last surviving G. A.R. veteran in Wisconsin
As human lifespans measure, Corporal Lansing A. Wilcox lived a long time—long enough to marry four times in strict succession, the fourth wife surviving him at death. The last surviving veteran from Wisconsin to fight for liberty and union in the War of the Rebellion (as the Civil War was once known north of the Mason-Dixon Line), Corporal Wilcox served in Company F of the Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry of what was known as the “Grand Army of the Republic,” having been born at Kenosha in March of 1846. It was the Grand Army of the Republic as called up by President Lincoln which put down Southern attempts to leave the Union over state’s rights, and more specifically, the claimed right to own people. Skeptics of this last point can read the supporting documents of said claim for themselves over at www.battlefields.org — we won’t belabor the point.
That being said, those wishing to visit the gravesite of G.A.R. Corporal Wilcox won’t have to travel far, as he is buried complete with a explanatory historical marker on the west end of Cadott’s Brooklawn Cemetery, just outside Cadott along Highway X. Resting together with Corporal Wilcox are many brothers in arms, Among the places seen by Corporal Wilcox during his war service was the lesser known western Civil War theater of Louisiana and Mississippi, where the Union sought to cut off river steamboat traf_c coming up the Mississippi from New Orleans and so starve Confederate supply lines as an important war measure, in tandem with an Atlantic blockade along the eastern seaboard.
But while war can often blur the lines of what is considered to be morally acceptable behavior, we do know that at least one of_cer from Company F of the 4th Wisconsin Infantry, a Colonel Halbert Eleazer Paine, was “disciplined” (per the Wisconsin Historical Society) for refusing to return escaped slaves to their putative owners when ordered to AND for likewise refusing to put Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the torch, when he was given the order to do so. Soldiers aren’t generally allowed to choose what orders they do or don’t want to follow from superior of_cers but Paine de_ed this, when the order appeared in conflict with justice. It was for this very refusal that he was “disciplined” by his superiors..
Enlisting after Vicksburg fell, Wilcox joined up to the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry on February 17, 1864, when he was just 17 years old. While state-provided free education would only become fully established in Wisconsin within the last decades of the nineteenth century, Wilcox would have been a high school junior, or potentially a senior, at the time of his enlistment. Starting as an Army Private per the site www. 4thWisconsin.com, Corporal Wilcox served at a time before the founding of either the V. F. W. (founded for veterans advocacy after the 1898 Spanish-American War) or the American Legion (founded after the “Great War” of Europe in 1919).
As for veteran’s organizations of years prior, Wilcox joined the George C. Ginty Post 183 of the Grand Army of the Republic when it was _rst chartered at Cadott in 1891, said organization meant for Union Army (G. A. R.) veterans to stay in touch and united. As to those he served with in Company F, Wilcox is listed in the Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers for the War of the Rebellion with residence at Eagle Point when he enlisted, Along with Corporal Samuel Shaffer, also of Eagle Point, and Adna Warner of Bloomer, mustered out with Wilcox in 1866.
Among those who didn’t make it back were Robert Baker of Eagle Point and Henry Smith of Sigel, both of whom died of “disease” at Baton Rouge, Louisiana on August 24, 1864. Alongside bullets, disease and infection killed a large number of troops in the war. Counting just the 620,000 killed in battle, almost two percent of the nation’s enlisted were was snuffed out by war in North and South, with disease even deadlier. Among Wilcox’s wartime activities was establishing a mail route from Laredo to Brownsville, 400 miles when done round trip.
After the war, Corporal Wilcox returned to Chippewa County Wisconsin to work in a sawmill near Chippewa Falls, saw his only son killed in an accident at the same mill, went on to homestead in Kansas for a while before returning in 1887, and then taught school at Cadott as well as being the postmaster there from 1902 to 1912, according to materials sourced pre-pandemic at the Cadott Historical Society and at the state historical society website.
Reportedly leading a religious life, he did not drink or smoke, and was “waiting for the last trumpet” to call him home during the final years.
Last attending the state G.A. R. convention in Milwaukee in 1949, Wilcox lived to see the final encampment of the organization in 1949 as its members succumbed to age and human frailty, while the war itself passed into the history books and those with a living memory of the conflict passed to their final reward. With the rank of corporal dating from February 17, 1864, Wilcox’s obituary is carried in a short frontpage write up on the October 4, 1951 issue of the Stanley Republican, continuing into page 8, as follows: “Participate In Lansing Wilcox Rites In Cadott The pages of history now encompass the complete Wisconsin contingent of Civil War veterans. Wisconsin’s last surviving Civil War veteran was that well-known old gentleman from Cadott, Lansing A. Wilcox, who celebrated his 105th birthday on March 3 at the Grand Army Home at King (near Waupaca). The former Past National Commander of the G. A. R. died at the Grand Army home at King on Saturday and funeral services were held there Monday. National Guard units furnished military escort as his body was taken to Cadott where funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at the high school auditorium. Reverend William Warner of_ciated with a G. A. R. military ritual at the graveside. Military units and civilians from near and far representing of_cial and homefolk were in evidence in the crowd assembled to pay tribute for the last time to the well known Grand Army veteran and citizen. All Chippewa county posts of Veteran’s organizations were represented with colors at the funeral.”
The last few years of Wilcox’s life spent in the veteran’s home at King would have been lonely, as the G.A. R. veteran’s “encampments” were increasingly sparsely attended, then finally disbanded near the mid twentieth-century once the G. A. R.’s final affairs were wrapped up.
Buried at Cadott’s Brooklawn Cemetery, Corporal Wilcox lived to see the Union greatly tested, and overcome.
The grave of Corporal Wilcox near Cadott is marked by a large historical marker.
