Charles Newell Hammond 1835-1891

Charles Newell Hammond (b. 25 June 1835 in Medina Co., Ill., d. 1891) was the sixth child of Ward K. and Sophronia.
He served with the 96th Volunteer Illinois Infantry in Kentucky and Tennessee in the Civil War and later volunteered for a Pioneer Corps that later became the First Organized Army Engineer Unit. The Engineer group was to aid in construction projects, forts, bridges and roads and to reconstruct the railroads the Army needed. At his post in Chattanooga, Tennessee he served as a quartermaster in ordering, receiving and dispatching building materials to the projects of the War in 1863-65 as the Federal Army moved on to Atlanta, Georgia, and beyond. Several notes and letters from him were preserved by his family and relatives.
After his discharge from service Charles N. returned to Hanover, Illinois, married Miss Edna C. Dean of that place and returned to farming. They were comfortably situated and their first three children were born in Illinois before they sold their farm and moved to Madison County, Tenessee about 1877.
His brother Edwin O. had served with the Federal Forces there in 1862 after the Battles of Shiloh and Corinth, Mississippi.
Charles and Edna bought near Jackson, Tennessee about 900 acres of timbered and farming land and harvested timber there for the next several years. They had been well received there and they encouraged Charles' youngest brother, Orson Ward Hammond, to come from Texas and join him in his venture, which he did in 1886. However Orson had worked at carpentry since 1873 in various places and preferred to try his hand at farming. More capital was needed to pursue Charles and Edna's dreams and was hard to find.
Charles died in an incident (1891) on his farm as he protected his chickens from robbery.
They had five young children and Edna and the children continued on the property and prospered.
Descendants are now prominent leaders in the city of Jackson and Memphis, Tenn.