Ransom Mack
Ransom Mack was born around 1820 in New York. He married a woman named Elizabeth, and they had at least two children: Emma, born around 1843; and Francis, born around 1849. The family lived in West Van Buren, Indiana, and Mack worked as a farmer. They moved to Jackson, Indiana, in the 1850s, and by 1860, he owned $300 of personal property.
Mack enlisted in the Union army on January 16, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company G of the 48th Indiana Infantry later that day. The regiment took part in the Siege of Corinth, the Vicksburg Campaign, the Chattanooga Campaign, the Battle of Missionary Ridge, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign.
Although he remained devoted to the Union, he gradually grew disillusioned with the war effort. In January 1863, he declared it a war of “speculation as much as for freedom.” If Union leaders had “done their duty,” he wrote, “this war might have been closed long ago the poor souldier at home the war debt stoped and our government restored.” In an undated poem, he longed for the “End of this rebellion,” which would bring a “second independence with no more slavery.” He was discharged for disability on May 24, 1865. He applied for a federal pension soon afterward and eventually secured one.
He settled in Elkhart, Indiana, after the war and resumed his work as a farmer. He died in Indiana on June 13, 1893.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (2386) | Mack, Ransom | 1820 | 1893-06-13 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: Private
- Rank out: Private
- Rank highest: Private
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 17
- (6937) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6938) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack to Elizabeth Mack and Francis Mack, undated
- (6939) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6940) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6941) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6942) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6943) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6944) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack to Elizabeth Mack, 11 January 1863
- (6945) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6946) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6947) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6948) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, 1865
- (6949) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6950) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Speech, undated
- (6951) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6952) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Poem, undated
- (6953) [writer] ~ Ransom Mack Diary, 1862
People - Records: 4
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (725) [enlisted] [G] ~ 48th Indiana Infantry
SOURCES
1850, 1860, and 1870 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com; General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934, available from Ancestry.com; Ransom Mack to Elizabeth Mack, 11 January 1863, Nau Collection; Ransom Mack Poem, undated, DL0987.003, Nau Collection.
