A candle for a Civil War loss: Pvt. Edwin Maydole

A familiar name, Edwin H. Maydole, jumped out at me last week as I was transcribing Dr. Tom Morford Throckmorton's account of the life and times of pioneer Lucas County physician, Dr. Charles Fitch.

Dr. Tom named Maydole and William Parmenter as among those afflicted during an outbreak of smallpox at Lagrange during 1854 and went on to say, "The writer well remembers the pockmarked faces of William Parmenter and Edwin Maydole, as they were tenants on his father's farm in 1857."

Six years after that last memory of him, Maydole joined the roster of some 150 young men from Lucas County whose lives were lost in defense of the Union during the Civil War. I've done quite a bit of research about these men --- and continue to do so now and then --- so their names are familiar to me.

Edwin was 32 and living in Cedar Township with his wife, Martha, and son, Elmer, when he enlisted as a private in Co. H, 1st Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, on 13 June 1861. He was mustered 3 August 1861 at Davenport and died two years later, on 11 September 1863,  of dysentery in a Union hospital at Brownsville, Arkansas. The disposition of his remains is unknown but most likely they are interred as "unknown" at Little Rock National Cemetery.

Edwin Holmes Maydole, son of John Joseph and Christina (Holmes) Maydole, was born 15 July 1829 in Broome County, New York, but moved to Medina County, Ohio, with his family as a child. He married Martha Jane Pelton there on 1 May 1851 and in 1854, they moved west to Lucas County, Iowa, locating on a farm in Cedar Township near Lagrange. Their only child, a son named Elmer W. Maydole, was born in Chariton on Jan. 12, 1858.

Edwin's assigned duty with his unit was blacksmith. He fell ill during the Little Rock Campaign, which led to the capture of that city on Sept. 10, 1863, and died in a military hospital at Brownsville, Arkansas, east of Little Rock, the day after the city fell. Cause of death was given as chronic diarrhea and hemorrhage of the bowels.

Martha, who by this time had moved back to Medina County, applied for a widow's pension a month after Edwin's death --- during October of 1863. The pension ended, although benefits for Elmer continued, when she married as her second husband Daniel Belden on 14 July 1870 at Medina. He died on 21 January 1874 in Grafton, Ohio, and Martha married as her third husband Dorastus Waite on 18 December 1874. He died on the 31st of December, 1893, in Lorain County, Ohio, after which Martha requalified for a pension as Edwin's widow. She died on the 23rd of June, 1912, about 50 years after Edwin's death. The document used as an illustration here is one of many found in her widow's pension file.

I tend to think, on the 4th of July and at other times, of those who gave up their lives over the course of this nation's history in defense of it --- unintentional heroes who have presented those of us here and now with opportunities to carry their dreams forward. Are we worthy? I don't know. But at least I can light a small candle here this morning in Pvt. Maydole's memory.