Faulk County, SD Biographies.....Shirk, John H. 1835 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/sdfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 9, 2005, 11:11 am Author: C. H. Ellis JOHN H. SHIRK was born in Lancaster county Pennsylvania, March 12th, 1835; was a descendent of Uhlrich Scherch (now spelled Shirk),a French Huguenot, who upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV, fled to Switzerland. His son Uhlrich, from whom our branch of the Shirk family are direct descendants, in company with two brothers, emigrated from Switzerland to America about the year 1729 and settled in eastern Pennsylvania. The subject of this sketch worked on the farm, with the exception of about four months schooling each winter, until eighteen years of age, then worked at the blacksmith trade two years, after which he attended a summer term of ten weeks at a normal institute at Millersville, Pa., conducted by Hon. J. P. Wikersham, then county superintendent, afterwards state superintendent of schools, colonel of a Pennsylvania regiment in the Civil War and United States Minister to the Netherlands. Mr. Shirk taught his first term of school in Salisbury township, Lancaster county, Pa., in the winter of 1855-56, and followed this occupation most of the time until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he enlisted in Co. E. 79th Pa. Vol. Inf. in September, 1861, and was mustered into service October 8th, 1861, at Pittsburg, Pa., and assigned with the 77th and 78th Pa. into a brigade commanded by General James S. Negley, and embarked on steam boats to Louisville. He served in the army of the Ohio, first under General Anderson of Fort Sumpter fame, and subsequently under General Sherman. In August, 1862, the brigade was assigned to McCook's corps and participated in the Buell-Bragg campaign. In December, 1862, they were assigned to the 14th army corps under General (Pap) Thomas, where they remained until after the battle of Chickamauga, when Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in command of the army of the Cumberland. Mr. Shirk was taken prisoner September 19th, 1863, at the battle of Chickamauga and taken to Richmond where the prisoners were confined in large tobacco warehouses, under the name of Libby prison. About December 12th they were transferred to Danville, Va., and confined in the prison at that place. He was in No. 5 military prison from which in February, 1864, in company with a few trusty comrades, he dug a tunnel and about one hundred and twenty-five prisoners crawled through, at last to breathe God's fresh air again, if not to regain liberty. The squad he was with was out twenty-one days and got within eight miles of our lines near Suffolk, Va., when they were recaptured and sent back to Richmond and confined in Libby prison dungeon and Belle Island until about June 1st, 1864, when they were transferred to Andersonville prison. In September, 1864, when the rebels feared that Gen. Sherman would release the prisoners at that place, they sent them to different parts of the confederacy. The detachment, he was with was sent to Charleston, S. C., where they herded them on the grounds of the race track for a month, until the stockade at Florence, S. C., was completed, to which place they were then transferred October, 1864, and kept until Sherman, on his famous march, had already paralleled them, then were loaded on trains and taken under a flag of truce without exchange or parole within three miles of Wilmington, N. C., and within our lines just one week after Wilmington surrendered. They there, for the first time in nearly eighteen months beheld the glorious Stars and Stripes supported by Uncle Sam's boys in blue, a sight never to be forgotten. From Wilmington he was sent on a transport to parole camp at Annapolis, Md., and home to Lancaster, Pa., just three days before Richmond fell. Mr. Shirk was married in 1867 to Margaret J. Kuhn and in the spring of 1872 moved to Iowa. The climate of south-eastern Iowa not agreeing with him, in the spring of 1883 he came to Faulk county, S. D. He was a member of the school board of Bryant school township from its first organization, 1884, except one year, until 1889 when elected register of deeds and served two consecutive terms, since which time he has held no public office. Additional Comments: From: HISTORY OF FAULK COUNTY SOUTH DAKOTA CAPTAIN C. H. ELLIS TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND PROMINENT CITIZENS ILLUSTRATED 19O9 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/sd/faulk/bios/gbs16shirk.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/sdfiles/ File size: 4.9 Kb