83rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment

The 83rd Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Service

The 83rd Illinois Infantry was organized at Monmouth, Illinois and mustered into Federal service on August 21, 1862. Commanding the regiment was Colonel Abner C. Harding.^[1]

The regiment was heavily engaged on February 3, 1863 at Fort Donelson when it repulsed an attack by 8,000 Confederate troops under Joseph Wheeler and Nathan Bedford Forrest. The loss to the regiment was 13 killed and 51 wounded.^[2] This engagement is known as the Battle of Dover (1863).

The regiment was mustered out on June 26, 1865 in Nashville, Tennessee and discharged in Chicago, Illinois on July 5, 1865. Future lawman Virgil Earp served as a private in the regiment.^[3]

Total strength and casualties

The regiment suffered 4 officers and 34 enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds and 1 officers and 82 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 121 fatalities.^[4]

Commanders

• Colonel Abner C. Harding - Promoted to brigadier general February 1863.^[5]
• Colonel Arthur Arnold Smith^[6]

See also

• List of Illinois Civil War Units
• Illinois in the American Civil War
• Regimental Flag of the 83rd Illinois Infantry

Notes

1. ↑ 83rd Illinois Regiment History
2. ↑ 83rd Illinois Regiment History
3. ↑ Fletcher, Randol B. (2011). Hidden History of Civil War Oregon. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press. ISBN 1609494245. 
4. ↑ http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unilinf7.htm#83rd The Civil War Archive website after Dyer, Frederick Henry. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. 3 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
5. ↑ 83rd Illinois Regiment History
6. ↑ 83rd Illinois Regiment History

References

• The Civil War Archive
• Fletcher, Randol B. (2011). Hidden History of Civil War Oregon. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press. ISBN 1609494245.