Augustus M. Dickson was born around 1839 in Meadville, Pennsylvania, to Joseph Dickson and Elizabeth Mason. His father was probably a wool carder in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He apparently grew up with his grandparents, Robert and Alice Dickson. His grandfather was a farmer in Hayfield, Pennsylvania, who owned $3,000 of real estate in 1850. By 1860, Dickson was living with relatives in Vernon, Pennsylvania. He met Margaret Elizabeth Jones that year, and (as she later recalled) “our attachment was mutual.” They spent the next few months going on walks and rides and attended Republican rallies together. They both supported Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860, and Dickson belonged to his town’s Wide Awake chapter.

 

The couple got married in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 1861, and they had at least three children: Abbie, born around 1862; Elsie, born around 1866; and Lansing, born around 1870. They moved to Bureau County, Illinois, soon after getting married, and they settled in Maquon, Illinois, in 1862. Initially, he assured Margaret that he “would not have to go to War.” By 1862, however, he “could not stand it any longer—there were calls and calls for men.”

 

He enlisted in the Union army on August 13, 1862, and mustered in as a private in Company F of the 86^th Illinois Infantry two weeks later. According to his military records, he was 5 feet, 8½ tall, with sandy hair and hazel eyes. The army transferred him to the 2^nd Illinois Light Artillery for about eighteen months, but he eventually rejoined the 86^th Illinois. He took part in the Atlanta campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas campaign. He was promoted to corporal on April 1, 1865, and he mustered out in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 1865.

 

Dickson returned to Maquon after the war and began working in a clothing store. The following year, they purchased a farm outside of town, and he remained there for the rest of his life. By 1870, he owned $2,800 of real estate and $1,100 of personal property. He died there on January 10, 1876. Almost fifty years later, his widow Margaret described him as her “first love and the father of my children, and the one I will ever grieve for.”

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