Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Armstrong, Julius C 1840 - 
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Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy, 1900

Julius C. Armstrong

Julius C. Armstrong, D. D., the third son of George W. and Nancy (Green) 
Armstrong, was born at the old homestead in the eastern part of La Salle 
county, Illinois, on the 18th of August, 1840.  He worked on the farm in the 
summers and attended the district school in the winters until his eighteenth 
year, when he was sent to Morris, Illinois, to a high school, where he 
studied, with some intervals at home or teaching school, until he was of age.

A year after the breaking out of the great civil war he entered the army as a 
volunteer in behalf of his country.  He left his home in July, 1862, and was 
mustered into the United States Army in September, and served for three years 
in Company D of the Ninety-first Infantry Volunteers.  He was absent from his 
company a part of the fall of that year, on account of sickness, and thereby 
escaped capture with his regiment by the Confederate General John Morgan.  
Joining his company at Benton Barracks, Missouri, in December, he was employed 
as a clerk in the office of the provost marshal of St. Louis until the 
exchange of his regiment in the summer of 1863.  They were then sent to 
General Grant’s command, arriving just after the capture of Vicksburg.  They 
were too late to participate in the siege, but in time to relieve a part of 
General Sherman’s command sent to drive General Johnston out of the state.  
Guard duty was done here and at Port Hudson, with an occasional pursuit of 
detachments of the Confederate troops out in quest of forage or to harass our 
movements.

In September, 1863, a considerable force of United States troops under the 
command of General Gordon Granger established a camp at Morganza Bend, below 
Port Hudson on the Mississippi river, to prevent the Confederates from 
shipping cattle and other supplies across the river from Texas.  Several 
severe skirmishes occurred with portions of General Dick Taylor’s army, in 
some of which Mr. Armstrong’s company participated.  During this time Mr. 
Armstrong was the standard-bearer of his regiment.

The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson and the elimination of the armies of 
Generals Johnston and Gardner from the Confederate forces, together with the 
precipitate retreat of General Johnston, after the fall of Vicksburg, left 
General Grant without occupation.  Something more important than skirmishes 
with small foraging parties was needed to crush the rebellion.  General 
Grant’s troops were therefore shipped to Carrollton, Louisiana, and sent 
across the Gulf of Mexico with an army to seize Brazos island and Brownsville, 
Texas, two points of great value to the Confederates for the export of cotton 
and the import of arms and ammunition.

As soon as the expedition had accomplished its purpose all but one brigade of 
the corps was returned to New Orleans for the ill-starred expedition up the 
Red river.  The Ninety-first Regiment, with its brigade, was left behind to 
garrison Brazos island until the following Christmas, when it also was shipped 
to New Orleans to increase the army gathered there to move on Mobile, 
Alabama.  The troops in strong force under the command of General E. R. S. 
Canby left New Orleans in February, 1864, and landed near Fort Morgan, on the 
east side of Mobile bay, and, marching from that point, invested Spanish Fort 
and Blakely, two strongly fortified forts, forming a part of the defenses of 
the city of Mobile.  Spanish Fort was evacuated after a close siege of twelve 
days, the Confederates leaving in such haste that a large amount of 
ammunition, many small arms and all their cannon, fell into our hands, 
together with some three hundred prisoners.  Blakely was then stormed and 
captured, with considerable loss of life, the prisoners numbering several 
thousand.  The loss of the two forts and the men and arms with which they were 
garrisoned left the Confederates no recourse but to abandon the city.

The army of General Canby was then shipped across the bay and entered the city 
without opposition, on the 8th of April, 1865.  Without stopping the army was 
sent northward in pursuit of the retreating Confederates, overtaking their 
rear guard three or four miles from the city at a small railroad station.  Two 
of Mr. Armstrong’s comrades fell by his side as his company charged at a run 
across a burning bridge.  This proved to be the last blood shed by any of his 
company before the collapse of the rebellion.  After a few days the troops 
marched northward to the Tombigbee river and constructed a fort and placed 
cannon in position to prevent the escape of General Taylor’s gunboats.  An 
expedition was then planned and started to strike the Confederates in the 
rear, at Selma, Alabama.  After a few miles of marching the troops were turned 
back with a flag of truce, sent with the information that the greatest 
rebellion of all history had suddenly become a thing of the past.  The troops 
were then returned to Mobile by water, using for their transportation General 
Taylor’s captured gunboats.  In conspicuous letters on captured ambulances and 
army wagons on the boats were the words, “General Dick Taylor never 
surrenders.”  The professor in charge of the steam calliope on one of these 
boats played at the request of his captors “Dixie”, “Way Down South in the 
Land of Cotton”, and other southern airs, and then with the remark, “I haven’t 
played them for so long a time I am afraid I have forgotten how”, “Yankee 
Doodle”, “Star Spangled Banner” and “Hail Columbia”.

The troops were sent to their respective states and mustered out of service as 
rapidly as possible, Mr. Armstrong arriving at his home in July, 1865.  He was 
appointed sergeant in September, when mustered into the service, and promoted 
to be first sergeant in September, 1864, and brevetted second lieutenant at 
the close of the war.  This office would have been conferred nearly a year 
earlier had not the depletion of his company by disease and death limited the 
number of commissioned officers to two.

After his discharge Mr. Armstrong returned to his home and was married to 
Hattie Vanelia, the oldest daughter of Mr. Henry B. Goodrich, a farmer living 
in Grundy county, Illinois, five miles south of Morris, the county seat of 
that county.  The following year he rented the farm of his father-in-law and 
later he purchased a part of the farm, building a house and barn and buying 
stock and tools with the expectation of devoting himself to farming.

He was elected a deacon of the Congregational Church in the neighborhood and 
superintendent of its Sunday-school, delivered addresses in that part of the 
county at various Sunday-school gatherings, and began thereby, as it proved, 
his life work as a minister of the gospel.  He sold his farm in 1871, 
returning to the plan formed and given up before the war.  He took his family 
in September of that year to Chicago and entered upon a course of theological 
study in the Chicago Theological Seminary and completed his course in the 
spring of 1874.  While pursuing his studies he preached for a time at Walnut, 
in Bureau county, Illinois, and also at East Waupansie, this state, and in 
February, 1873, began preaching at Lyonsville, fifteen miles west of Chicago; 
and on concluding his studies at the seminary was installed as pastor of that 
church. During the nearly ten years that he preached for this church he 
conducted a Sunday afternoon service at Western Springs for over five years, 
and later returned to this field and organized a Congregational church of 
fifty members as a result, in part, of his previous labors there.  He preached 
at Lyons, a town five miles east of Lyonsville, and organized a church there 
of twenty-five members.  Later he began an afternoon service at La Grange and 
organized a church there of thirty-five members.  Grounds were purchased and a 
building erected for the last named church, at a cost of four thousand five 
hundred dollars.

In the spring of 1882 a unanimous call came from the Congregational churches 
of Chicago to accept the position of “Superintendent of Mission Work” in the 
city of Chicago.  While his church refused to accept his resignation they 
agreed to spare him for the new work provided a council of the churches should 
decide that such a step was best.  He began his labors in the new field in 
August, 1882, and in the following December was made the superintendent of the 
Chicago City Missionary Society on its organization, and he has continued to 
superintend its work to the present time, nearly eighteen years.

About four hundred thousand dollars have been gathered and expended in 
organizing and supporting the missions and churches under the society’s care.  
Thirty to forty missionaries and visitors are employed and missions are cared 
for all over the city.  When the work was begun there were seventeen 
Congregational churches in the area now covered by the city, and there are now 
seventy-seven Congregational churches in the city, all but twenty-seven of 
which were formed by the aid of this organization.  Seven thousand five 
hundred church members have been gathered into these new churches and over 
fifteen thousand children cared for in their Sunday-schools.  Thirty young 
ministers have been raised up in these churches for their Christian ministry.  
The value of the property held by these churches exceeds four hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars.

Mr. Armstrong was the registrar of the Chicago Association of Congregational 
churches from April, 1880, to April, 1886.  He was one of the incorporators of 
the Ministerial Relief Society, an organization formed to aid indigent and 
aged ministers and their families within the state of Illinois.  For some 
years he was its secretary and treasurer, and he is still on its board of 
direction.  He has been a member of the board of directors of the Chicago 
Theological Seminary for twelve years, and has been the secretary of the 
executive committee of the board for the same length of time.  He received the 
honorary degree of Bachelor of Divinity from the seminary at his graduation, 
and the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Wheaton college in 1898.

Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have three children.  Arthur Henry, the oldest, 
graduated at Beloit College, and, choosing his father’s profession, graduated 
also at the Theological Seminary.  He organized the Waveland Avenue 
Congregational Church of Chicago six years ago, and is still its pastor.  
Grounds have been purchased and a building erected under his direction, and a 
membership of over two hundred has been gathered under his pastorate.  He was 
married to Miss Kate Schultz in 1895.  Anna, the second child, has made a name 
for herself as an artist in water colors, and as a decorator of china.  She 
draws her own designs from nature.  She instructs teachers and supplies nature 
studies by correspondence throughout the country.  She was married in 1898 to 
Dr. T. S. Green, a practicing physician and surgeon on the south side of the 
city.  Mrs. Green continues her chosen profession, however, and is an 
enthusiastic artist.  Julius Roy, the youngest child, is in the Armour 
Institute of Technology, fitting himself to be an electrical engineer.

Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p456-460

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