Fountain County IN Archives Biographies.....McClure, Thomas Wesley 1833 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 25, 2006, 4:54 am

Author: H. W. Beckwith (1881)

   Contributed by Rev. John M. Bishop:
   Thomas Wesley McClure. Indiana was represented among the seventy brave men
under Major Anderson, in Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861. A native of Fountain
county was among the few survivors of the Fort Pillow massacre, April 12, 1864.
T. W. McClure was born in Wabash township, Fountain county, Indiana, October 4,
1833. His father, from Kentucky, settled in that township in 1824. Young McClure
learned the cabinet-maker's trade in Covington. In 1858 he removed to Wabash
city, Indiana. On May 30, 1860, he was married in Covington to Miss Ann E.
Silver. He enlisted in the 14th reg. Ind. Vols. in 1861, and was sent to the
front, reaching Shiloh April 8, 1862, the day after the battle. In 1863 McClure,
J. D. Hill and W.m. [sic] Smith were requested—not detailed—by Gen. Dodge to
recruit among the freedmen, at that time a most disgraceful as well as dangerous
service. They were very successful, for the negroes were loyal to a man, and in
Col. Phillips' raid to Grenada, Mississippi, hundreds of brave black men
enlisted, anxious to fight for the old flag. McClure was first lieutenant in the
1st Alabama Siege Artillery. When Sherman began his march to the sea, 500 men —
one half freedmen, and the rest, for the most, loyal southerners — were left at
Fort Pillow. Gen. Forest, with 5,000 rebels, attacked this little band, who,
after a brave defense and the loss of some twenty-five men, surrendered. But
their surrender was not accepted, and a horrid, premeditated massacre resulted.
Not more than sixty men escaped death. Some of them were badly wounded, and some
were taken aside and shot down. McClure was spared chiefly because he was from
the north. But when taken in charge by a soldier to whom he gave himself up, he
heard Forest say, with an oath, " My orders were to kill every ____ ____ one of
them, but you have taken them prisoners, and I want you to treat them as
prisoners." Then taking off his hat he waved it, exclaiming, "We can now
proclaim that the Mississippi is ours." After this to the end of the war McClure
was a prisoner, and saw the sad sights over which humanity shudders, and which
christian charity would conceal and forgive. He passed through Cahaba,
Andersonville, Macon and Savannah. At Charleston, with 500 prisoners, he was
placed under the shell of our own guns, fired from Morris Island. At length,
through the heroic efforts of his wife, he was paroled February 20, 1865, and
reached home on the 15th of March. McClure was one of the 208,367 men Indiana
sent forth to maintain the honor of our flag. Brave men all of them! And as we
make this little tribute to the peculiar merits of one of them, not a leaf shall
be taken from the laurels of the rest. Their memory shall be cherished and
honored while the Union last. And may it be perpetual.


Additional Comments:
Troy Township

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF FOUNTAIN COUNTY,

TOGETHER WITH
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE WABASH VALLEY,

GLEANED FROM EARLY AUTHORS, OLD MAPS AND MANUSCRIPTS
PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE, AND OTHER AUTHENTIC, THOUGH, FOR THE MOST
PART, OUT-OF-THE-WAY SOURCES.

BY H. W. BECKWITH,
OF THE DANVILLE BAR; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES OF
WISCONSIN AND CHICAGO.

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHICAGO: H. H. HILL AND N. IDDINGS, PUBLISHERS.
1881.

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