History of Indiana - Civil War

Civil War

Indiana, a free state and the boyhood home of Abraham Lincoln, remained a member of the Union during the American Civil War. Indiana regiments were involved in all the major engagements of the war and almost all the engagements in the western theater. Hoosiers were present in the first and last battles of the war. During the war, Indiana provided 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery, and 13 regiments of cavalry to the cause of the Union.

In the initial call to arms issued in 1861, Indiana was assigned a quota of 7,500 men—a tenth of the amount called—to join the Union Army in putting down the rebellion. So many volunteered in the first call that thousands had to be turned away. Before the war ended, Indiana contributed 208,367 men to fight and serve in the war. Casualties were over 35% among these men: 24,416 lost their lives in the conflict and over 50,000 more were wounded.

At the outbreak of the war, Indiana was run by a Democratic and southern sympathetic majority in the state legislature. It was by the actions of Governor Oliver Morton, who illegally borrowed millions of dollars to finance the army, that Indiana could contribute so greatly to the war effort. Morton suppressed the state legislature with the help of the Republican minority to prevent it from assembling during 1861 and 1862. This prevented any chance the Democrats might have had to interfere with the war effort or to attempt to secede from the Union.