Soldier: Daniel McCleary
Regiment: 96th. OVI
Company: C
Age: 28
Date Entering Service: July 26, 1862
Period of Service: 3 Years
Remarks (When discharged, re-enlisted, wounded, captured, died of disease or killed):
Transferred to Company B on November 18, 1864. Captured near Fish River, Alabama March 25, 1865. Confined at Andersonville prison. Died on the steamboat Sultana when it exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tenn. on April 27, 1865.
Battles in which he fought:
Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss. Dec. 28-29, 1862
Arkansas Post, Ark. Jan. 11, 1863
Vicksburg, Miss. May 18-July 4, 1863
Jackson, Miss. July 9-16, 1863
Grand Coteau, La. Nov. 3, 1863
Sabine Cross Roads, La. April 8, 1864
Moneti’s Bluff, La. April 23, 1864
Forts Gains and Morgan, La. Aug. 5-23, 1864
Spanish Fort, Ala. March 26-April 12, 1865
Other interesting information discovered:
Daniel McCleary is shown living in Cardington in 1860. It appears that he married Almedia Mathers on Feb. 3, 1859, and then married a second time to Mary Rodgers on Sept. 9, 1861. Tragically, he made it through to nearly the last days of the war, but was captured just days before its end. He was imprisoned at Andersonville for just days, eventually being transported to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he was one of about 2,200 released prisoners that was boarded on the Sultana for the first leg of his trip back to Cardington. The results of the explosion of the Sultana resulted in the deaths of about 1,700 of its passengers. McCleary did not survive.
Date of Death: April 27, 1865 Place of burial: Mississippi River; body never found
Adopted By: FC Bank Researcher: Patrick Drouhard