Lt. John Luther

Crown Point, Ind.
Became a self-made man of wealth after the war.

From President Abraham Lincoln's call for able-bodied Union Army volunteers in 1861 to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Va., in 1865, fighting Hoosiers of the 20th Indiana Volunteer Infantry were present and accounted for at the forefront of Civil War history.

More than 300 Northwest Indiana volunteers of the regiment's companies B, E and I stood on the front lines of nearly every major battle of the Civil War's eastern theater. Men of those three companies hailed from Lake, La Porte and Porter Counties, defining the word bravery while sustaining heavy casualties at the Civil War Battles of Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania, the Wilderness, Second Bull Run and Appomattox Court House, among other engagements. These men volunteered to fight to save the Union and ultimately end slavery.

The regiment lost nearly a third of its original 1,000 volunteers to disease or enemy bullets during the war. Hundreds lost arms and legs in the fighting, scars they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Crown Point's Col. John Wheeler fell to a Confederate sharpshooter's bullet while Wheeler commanded the 20th Indiana at the Battle of Gettysburg, still ranked as the bloodiest battle of America's bloodiest war.

Region men of the fighting 20th Indiana continued to leave their mark on Northwest Indiana after the war. Crown Point Lt. John Luther, who tearfully removed the body of his friend Col. Wheeler from the Gettysburg Wheatfield in 1863, returned from the war and became a self-made man of wealth. Before his death, he served as vice president of the First National Bank of Crown Point.

Region men of the 20th Indiana once walked on our streets in Crown Point, Lowell, Merrillville, Valparaiso and La Porte. Today, they're well represented in the pioneer cemeteries of Northwest Indiana, gone by not forgotten.

The 20th Indiana Volunteer Infantry was nominated by Marc Chase, The Times Media Company