BLOCK 12
Section : G.A.R. Terrace
LOT : 6
ROW : Tier 1
GRAVE # SINGLE
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Benjamin Wicoff Schenck
b. August 12, 1837
Butler County, Ohio
d. February 19, 1916
Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois
buried: March 1, 1916
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FATHER
Daniel Schenck
(1811-1896)
WRIGHTS GROVE CEMETERY
MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
MOTHER
Sarah Ann DeNise
(1815-1897)
WRIGHTS GROVE CEMETERY
MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
MARRIED
Martha Jane Bohrer
(1844-1935)
June 4, 1867
Decatur, Macon County, Illinois
FAIRLAWN CEMETERY - DECATUR
MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
{Daughter of Wesely Bohrer, purportedly the first man murdered in Macon County}
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CHILDREN
with Martha
Edward D. Schenck
(1868-1930)
Alice M. (nee-Schenck) Onyett
(1870-1953)
FAIRLAWN CEMETERY - DECATUR
MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
Henry L. Schenck
(1872-1950)
Emma M. Schenck
(1878-1953)
Frank Schenck
(1880-1917)
George Garrett Schenck
(1880-1948)
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NOTE:
Benjamin W. Schenck,
fought in the
CIVIL WAR
CORPL. CO. D. 116 ILL. INF. |
NOTE:
Benjamin's great-grandfather,
Roelof Garretsen Schenck,
fought in the
REVOLUTIONARY WAR |
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MILITARY SERVICE:
He served as a Corporal in Company D, 116th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, enlisting at Maroa, Macon County, Illinois, on September 6, 1862. The regiment was recruited almost entirely from Macon County, three companies being from neighboring counties. It was drilled at Camp Macon (Fairview Park) in August, 1862, went into service Sept. 6 and into Gen. W.T. Sherman's Fifteenth Army Corps. It was near Vicksburg, Mississippi on May 22, 1863, that the action occured in which Corporal Schenck's heroic actions won him the nation's highest hero award.
The gallantry was displayed when it became necessary to bridge a ditch in the earth works before Vicksburg in May, 1863. A volunteer party of 150 was called for and Mr. Schenck was among the volunteers from the 116th. The bridge was built out of lumber from a house in which General Ulysses S. Grant had been sleeping. the assult failed and many of the volunteers died. When General Grant issued an appeal for volunteers to silence the menacing guns of Fort Hill, Mr. Schenck was among the foremost to step forward. He was chosen among the 120 heroes who crawled on hands and knees through three hundred yards of perilous gulley directly under the fire from the southern fort, and at last reached a vantage point under the very walls of the Confederate stronghold. Here they found the way unsurmountably blocked by a debris of fallen trees, all of whose branches had been sharpened as a safeguard against Union approach. The little band worked at the barrier until nightfall when the order to retreat came, and then crawled through the darkness to the Union lines, Corporal Schenck being one of them (85 percent of the men who made the charge did not make it back). He would go on to serve through the end of the war, and was honorably mustered out on June 7, 1865 at Washington, DC. During his war service he suffered a severe back injury when a cannon ball cut off the top of a tree which fell on him. It was thirty years after his discharge that Mr. Schenck recieved a letter from the War Department inquiring if he was among those 120. Upon his reply he was awarded his Medal on August 14, 1894. The inscription engraved on the back of the medal tells its eloquent story. "The Congress to Corps. Benjamin W. Schenck; Co. D. 116th Ill. Inf. Vols. Vickburg, May 22, 1863." , and on the face two words-"For Valor." But let the clipping tell the story. As related in earlier account, Mr. Schenck was well known in Decatur, having been custodian of Oakland Park in the days when a mule-drawn street car connected the park with the downtown district. This injury forced him to leave the farm two miles south and three miles west of Maroa where he had lived since his discharge from service.
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Benjamin and Martha Schenck with daughter, Alice Onyett and daughter in law Olinda Schenck.
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Benjamin and Martha Schenck with Edward, Alice and Henry.
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The Decatur Herald
(Decatur, Illinois)
1 MAR 1916 * page 3
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