Otterbein Civil War Soldiers Biography

   Abolition, the Union, state’s rights, freedom, slavery, inalienable rights, duty, glory, honor – these were all words in which civilians and politicians both threw around in the decade preceding the Civil War.  But what did these words actually mean?  Perhaps it depended on whom you asked and where they lived.  Regardless of the  many interpretations that were given, these ideals led the country into a long and deadly war.

Henery Thomas Schrock was born on October 29, 1843 in Franklin, Ohio.  He was the son of William Schrock and Elizabeth Gulick-Schrock.  In the fall of 1860, Henery enrolled in Otterbein College, when tuition was only $9.00 a quarter, as a freshman, English major.  However, as he pursued his education, he would find that it would have to be pushed aside for a while, as his country had just entered a terrible Civil War and duty called.  Thus, Henery, at the age of twenty joined the Union side, in the 95th Regiment of the Ohio Voluntary Infantry on August 5, 1862.  The 95th Regiment Infantry was organized at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio in August of 1862 under Colonel William L. McMillen, and mustered in August 19, 1865.

Over the course of the next three years, Henry found himself engaged in several bloody battles and he was also captured as a prisoner of war and taken to Andersonville Prison Camp, which most the most notorious of all prisons in the Confederacy.  He survived the war, but he died at a young age due to prison treatments.  Henery was a victim of the suffering, pain, and dehumanization in which the life of a soldier encompassed, and the consequences of this were surely endless.  However, he was also victorious.  I am sure that by 1865 he was glad to leave his role as a soldier behind, and resume his life as an ordinary American citizen in the restored Union in which he had so patriotically fought to preserve.  I would have loved to have been able to talk to Henery Schrock after the war.  If I could talk to Henery, I would want to ask him why he fought in the war.  What was his reason?  Was it abolition?  Duty?  The preservation of the Union?  Honor?  What would motivate a man to lay down his life for his country? What would drive him to leave his life (school, career, family, friends), and to basically endure several years of hell on earth?  I believe that we can learn a lot from Henery, because he  was a brave and patriotic man, whose legacy still lives on today. 

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