Lisbon pioneer John Watsons remaining service in the 28th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment consisted mainly of garrison duty with the occupation Army of rebel state Arkansas, and waiting to be assigned to the next big push.
The Waukesha Regiment had 961 men, 36 were from the Town of Lisbon. During its garrison duty in Arkansas from April 1863 to February 1865, 10 soldiers from Lisbon died and four more were discharged from further duty because of debilitating diseases. Another deserted.
Notable among the deceased were Charles McGill, Watsons immediate neighbor, and Thomas Lannon, from the Pheasant Farm area near todays Highway 164, who was a close relative of William Lannon, the namesake and original postmaster of the Village of Lannon.
Then in February 1865 the 28th mounted paddle-wheelers for a trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans for a momentary stop to load supplies and ammunition. The regiment then shipped out to Alabama via the Gulf of Mexico to join the battle to take Mobile.
Admiral David Farragut had secured the entrance to Mobile Bay in February 1864 with the capture of Fort Morgan. From there, the Union generals planned to go up the bay, both on land and on the bay waters, to capture Mobile.
Union Gen. Edward R.S. Canby gathered his forces, some 45,000 troops, in the early spring of 1865. The beleaguered Confederates could muster only 10,000 soldiers, but they had the advantage of defensive rifle pits, trenches and Fort Blakely and the Spanish Fort.
Watson and the 28th were assigned to take the massive Spanish Fort. Bombarded from land and sea, its Confederate defenders surrendered April 8 to the 28ths Company C under Capt. Thomas S. Stevens. The first to enter the Fort, the 28th went to assist the attack on Fort Blakely, but marched up just as it was surrendering.
Shorn of its defenses, the Confederates began to abandon Mobile on April 12, and the Union forces, including the 28th, marched through Mobile to a holding area north of the city.
The capture of the Spanish Fort yielded 265 officers, 538 enlisted men, five mortars and 25 pieces of artillery. The capture of Fort Blakely took even more, including 2,400 prisoners.
It was on April 16 that Watson and the rest of the 28th heard that the war had ended on Palm Sunday, April 9, when the Confederate commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Gen. Grant at Appomattox Court in Virginia. Gen. John B. Gordon surrendered an additional 20,000 Confederate troops nearby.
News of the wars end had taken a long time getting from Virginia to Washington, then down the Ohio River Valley to St Louis, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then over to Mobile Bay and north toward the city of Mobile and its environs.
There was great jubilation in the ranks of the 28th when it was lined up and told of the April 9 surrender, but by then its original complement of 961 men had been thinned down to less than 600.
Then on April 23, nine days after it had happened, the 28th was lined up again to announce that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated on Good Friday, April 14, at Fords Theater in Washington D.C.
The entry in Lisbon-born Sgt Alfred S. Weavers diary reads, We heard very (sic) bad news today that Abraham (sic) Lincoln was shot at Washington, April 13 (actually 14). The bands all played dirges in memory of Lincoln.
The men of the Waukesha 28th Regiment thought that they would soon be marched back to New Orleans and discharged, thought they feared that the regiment might be assigned to more garrison occupation of the South, delaying their discharge.
Little did Watson and his cohorts know that they were about to start a new chapter in Texas, along the Rio Grande River, to stand ready to back a Mexican revolt against the French-imposed Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian of Austria and his wife, Empress Carlotta.
Next week: Texas duty, oysters and, finally, discharge in August 1865.