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History Mystery: Last of the Park City Grays: Charles A. Leonard Jr.

BY DIANE GILES

dgiles@kenoshanews.com

Last week’s History Mystery question:

Who was the last surviving member of the Park City Grays?

The answer:

The Park City Grays was the first group of Kenosha’s young men to answer Abe Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men to join the Union forces.

Charles A. Leonard Jr. was the last surviving member of the Park City Grays, and the city mourned his passing when he died here at age 98 in 1936.

Born in New York, Charles came to Southport with his parents Elijah and Dorothy when he was a toddler. The family initially lived near 60th Street, and moved to a farm in Bristol.

But the Civil War changed the family’s life as Charles and two of his brothers enlisted in the Union army and Elijah could no longer work the farm alone. The family then returned to Kenosha.

Charles and the Park City Grays were part of the First Wisconsin Regiment, commanded by John C. Starkweather of Milwaukee.

The Kenosha company was under the leadership of Capt. Donald C. McVean, who would later lose a leg at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Years later, Leonard told the Kenosha Evening News about his first action at Falling Waters in July 1861.

After wading across the Potomac, the soldiers followed the rebel forces for about six miles.

“As we went south, the land made a gradual rise, and our army suddenly came out upon the brow of a hill,” Leonard was quoted as saying. “Spread out in the valley below, drawn up in battle formation, was the rebel force. I can plainly remember seeing Stonewall Jackson down there on his white horse.

“Just as we came into view, they opened a heavy fire on us, which we immediately returned. Several Kenosha men were wounded, among them Myron Baker, Billy Mathews and myself. Sgt. Graham of Racine was killed. It was here that our company’s flag, which is now in a case at the high school, was first fired upon.”

That very same flag was moved from the hallway of Reuther High School to the Civil War Museum, where it has been properly conserved and today hangs in the main exhibit, “The Fiery Trial.”

Upon his return from the war, Charles became a carpenter, and in his later years he assisted his sons in their grocery store on the southeast corner of Garden Street (54th Street) and Third Street (16th Avenue).

This week’s mystery:

In the spring of 1914, the principals of the Kenosha public schools paid children 10 cents per hundred of what commodity?

History Mystery

appears weekly in the Kenosha News. The answer to today’s question will run next Tuesday.