BENJAMIN L. CHURCHILL -- 6th ARTILLERYBENJAMIN M. CHURCHILL -- 192nd INFANTRYFATHER AND SON BURIED IN NATIONAL CEMETERIES - When 44-year-old BenjaminLevery Churchill enlisted in the 6th Artillery in September 1864, heand the five men who enlisted with him in Plattsburgh were sent straightto the Shenandoah Valley at Cedar Creek. They were in Kitching'sDivision of the Army of the Shenandoah and the regiment sustained 94casualties while there with 26 deaths resulting. Two months later, theregiment was in the field around Petersburg with the Army of the James.Before the 6th Artillery came out of winter quarters in April toattack Petersburg, Benjamin had died of diphtheria at Point of Rocks. Hewas first buried there and later was taken to City Point NationalCemetery to be reburied. At present, we have found eight Clinton Countymen who are buried there.About a week after his father died in Virginia, Benjamin M., his son,enlisted at 17 years old in Plattsburgh for a town bounty of \$300. Heenlisted on March 21, 1865 and was mustered in two weeks later leavinghis grieving mother, the former Mariah Fassett, at home on the farm inMooers. Young Benjamin spent only a few months in the Shenandoah Valleywith the Army of the Shenandoah performing guard and provost dutiesuntil August 22nd.After the war the family went their separate ways. Some stayed inMooers, but, by 1870, Mariah and some of the family were living inIllinois. She finally died in 1895 in Varco, MN, with her childrenscattered as far away as the states of New York, Washington andWisconsin.Benjamin, Jr. was a rolling stone. He never married and lived mainly inIllinois. However, he was in and out of veterans hospitals -- Milwaukee,WI, Fort Leavenworth, KS, Danville, IL, and finally at the Mountain HomeVeterans Hospital in Mountain Home, TN, where he died of a cerebralhemorrhage in 1920. He was buried in the Mountain Home National Cemetery-- the first of our soldiers to be buried in Tennessee.
