Otterbein Civil War Soldiers Biography

A. J. Willoughby’s full name was Andrew J. Willoughby.  It was first seen spelled Walloughby, but in all the sources that I found, it was spelled Willoughby.  This difference in spelling could be due to the fact that things were not as well documented as they are now, so due to this different spellings came about.  No exact birth date could be found. It was not listed in his obituary or in any of the other sources that were found.  He did enter the war at the age of twenty-two in 1862, so he was born probably sometime in 1840.  He died June 30, 1917, which meant that he had survived the war and lived a long full life.  Willoughby was from Dayton, Ohio.  He attended the Martin-Boehm Academy, which was a part of Otterbein University.  The Academy was an entrance school to Otterbein.  He graduated from there in 1868.

He entered the army at the age of twenty-two.  He was enlisted into the Ninetieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and was part of Company A.  He was first promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant on July 22, 1862.  On August 5, 1864 he resigned.  He survived the Civil War and was able to return to the Academy and graduate.  In his obituary, it did not state very much information about his life.  It was full of many adjectives about his life and what a good man he was.  For example, it said, “He had stood in the midst of Dayton’s education advancement for forty years, while the lightnings and thunders of storms which always accompany development along educational lines played about him.”^[1]  It explained that he was the dean of the education department of the Dayton, Ohio Y.M.C.A. (the Young Men’s Christian Association).  It further says that he loved children and that they were a huge part of his life.  This was the main focus of Willoughby’s obituary.

^[1] Dayton Daily News: Sunday Morning. Volume 3, Number 13.  July 1, 1917.

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