Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States |
| Circular No. 5,
Series of 1900, Fort Leavenworth, June 1, 1900 Whole No. 216, The following report is published as the Memorial of our late Companion Major Duncan McKercher.
Companion Duncan McKercher The subject of this memorial was born in York, Livingston County, New York, January the 14th, Eighteen Hundred and Nineteen. Was mustered in as Captain Company H, Tenth Wisconsin Volunteers; October the fifth, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-one, as Major of the same regiment July the thirty-first, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three; was appointed Colonel of the same regiment October the twentieth, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-four; but was never mustered in. After leaving Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November the ninth, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-one, Captain McKercher served with the regiment under General O. M. Mitchell, in the campaign of Bowling Green, Nashville, Murfreesboro, and Huntsville, Alabama, until the early part of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two; also under General Buell on retrograde movement, from Huntsville to Louisville, Kentucky, in September, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two; also in Harris’ Brigade, Rousseau’s Division, in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, October the eighth, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two; also in the battle of Stone-River, Tennessee, on the last days of the same year, and the first days of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three. In the reorganization of Gen. Rosecrans’ army, which followed that battle, Captain McKercher’s regiment was placed in the First Brigade, First Division, Fourteenth Army Corps, and at the battle of Chickamauga was ordered by Colonel Scribner, commanding of the brigade, on that terrible Twentieth of September, to hold the line all the succeeding night, if possible. The line was held until the enemy had surrounded and captured nearly all, who were not killed. Major McKercher was among the captured, and was held a prisoner, with all the terrible suffering that Union soldiers, at that time, were compelled to endure, for seventeen months and ten days; ten months of that time being passed in Libby Prison, Richmond, Va. Major McKercher was slightly wounded. After his release from imprisonment, like the thousands of others, similarly treated, he was physically unfit for duty in the field, and was honorably discharged the service, on the eleventh day of March, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-five. Major McKercher, like many thousands of Veterans of the Civil War, settled in Kansas, making his home at Peabody in this state. His death, in Axtell Hospital, Newton, Kansas, was due to a disease contracted on the terrible journey, while a prisoner, from Georgia to Charleston, S.C., where he, with others, were nine weeks under fire, the Union forces shelling the city that length of time. |