24
Frederick Hale and Theodore Willis, 43rd Wisconsin Infantry
January to June 1865
On January 1, 1865, Theodore Willis was moved with the 43rd Wisconsin from Nashville to Decherd, Tennessee. He would stay there for the remainder of the war, guarding the Elk River bridge and the Nashville-Chattanooga Railroad.
At about the same time that the regiment was moving, Fred Hale was transferred from the Jefferson hospital in Indiana to the Keokuk General Hospital in Keokuk, Iowa. This was a very large Federal hospital during the war. We don’t know why he was moved. Perhaps his condition worsened and they could not treat him in Jefferson; perhaps Keokuk was just larger and had better facilities; or it may have been due to the common practice of trying to send men to hospitals close to their homes. In any case, Fred was in Iowa within the first few days of January.
The move to the new hospital did not help. His condition continued to get worse, and Fred died on January 8, 1865. He is buried in the Keokuk National Cemetery.
The immediate cause of Fred’s death was acute hepatitis. He had originally become ill with rheumatic fever. It is possible that the hepatitis was a natural complication arising from that. But we also know that the Jefferson hospital had diagnosed him incorrectly as having only "dyspepsia" (indigestion, or ulcers). Hepatitis is a disease of the liver that is often caused by improper medication, and we have to wonder whether Fred’s death was actually caused by poor treatment in Jefferson.
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Theodore Willis remained with the 43rd Wisconsin through the rest of the war; nothing significant happened over the next few months.
In March 1865 the 43rd Wisconsin became part of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Subdistrict, District of Middle Tennessee, Department of the Cumberland. On April 23 Colonel Cobb took command of the 3rd Brigade, and Lt Colonel Paine moved up to command the regiment. By this time Richmond had been captured and Lee had surrendered.
The remaining Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi all surrendered by the end of May, ending the war in Tennessee. The 43rd Wisconsin was removed from railroad garrison duty on June 17 and moved back to Nashville.
The 43rd Wisconsin Infantry was dissolved on June 24, 1865, and Theodore Willis was discharged from service on that date in Nashville.
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