20 Riley Bio Williams

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.COM

"Where we celebrate the child in us all"

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

BECOMING A COMFORTING "PEOPLE'S POET" OF AN
ESTRANGED PEOPLE AS AN ACT OF A SOUL-SELF

Riley wanted to be Krung the most of any soul-self he play-acted in his life. Riley had so needed comfort himself that he wished to trade in this commodity with his own estranged American people. Krung is the Riley "reputable man" worthy of public fame and honor. He was a man entrusted with singing music to the souls of others. With the help of his "soul partners" encouraging him in the sight of God - Nellie and his mother, Elizabeth - Riley wished upon himself the soul-self role of becoming the American "People's Poet." My gut feeling is that Riley wished this because he saw the American people as so adrift after the American Civil War. His work was "humanizing."

This goal was reached in his own lifetime. It was necessary for him to be a poet to carry this role off. In his epoch, unlike ours, poets were given roles in the common lives of the bourgeois. A poet was allowed to comfort others just as priests had once done in society or ministering angels had been thought to do for the wayward human spirit. In Riley's day, for example, it was customary for a poet to eulogize the dead with a poem. A great bulk of Riley's poetry is funerary. Krung filled his poetry of this genre with comforting messages of comfort and kenotic hope.

He felt himself a "vessel" in these writings. He wrote in the world of the reality of the Incarnation which broke through into his expression. Once his friend Lee 0. Harris's daughter Anna Randall died and Riley was up all night composing a poem for her services. There was one word he was not satisfied with but he finally had to turn the poem in to the minister. A little later he thought of the word he wanted but the funeral had begun. Riley concentrated on the desired word and had it in mind when the Presbyterian minister read his poem. Low and behold the minister did not read the written word but the one supplied in its place by the poet's mind. Riley was convinced that the spirit world helped him in his mission to comfort the needful

Riley became Krung because his kenotic folk-songs struck the souls of so many others. Riley's poetry was literally on the lips of the nation. His poetry carried the message of Incarnation Theology "Hope," a commodity vitally needed in an America assuming more and more responsibility for world order as well as struggling with the need for a ground of peace within its borders. In the year before Riley's death, the President of the United

States, Woodrow Wilson, took time out from worries over World War I threatening to draw America in and the German submarine fleet in the Atlantic which had sunk the American ship LUSITANIA in the May before to send a birthday greeting for a dinner for Riley. "I wish that I might be present to render my tribute of affectionate appreciation to him for the many pleasures he has given me, along with the rest of the great body of readers of English. I think he has every reason to feel on his birthday that he has won the hearts of his countrymen. Woodrow Wilson." The nation's Vice President, Charles Fairbanks, had organized this particular birthday dinner in Indianapolis for Riley October 7, 1915 and was its toastmaster. In his last years, Riley was treated with greater honor than any poet in history.

Where did Riley's strange yearning to become Krung and comfort a people reeling from a civil war come from?

I think it was an odd legacy from his father. His father was such a glorious "wounded" figure. Reuben Riley was a true Civil War hero. He had an unstained reputation for high moral standing. At every choice of paths, Reuben took the turn on the "high road."

...and yet, Reuben Riley was a complicated man too. To the son, Reuben might be a shining knight, but he was a penniless one who simply was too weak to re-enter the lists after the American Civil War. Reuben could not support his family.

It seems impossible to understand James Whitcomb Riley without trying to understand that he was a child of the American Civil War and more specifically of his father. Reuben Riley, who participated and was "broken"

James Whitcomb Riley as "Krung". Taken at Washington D.C., Jan. II. 1910, when Riley read the poem, "General Lew Wallace." at the unveiling of Wallace's statue in Statuaary Hall, the capital. The speakers were Indiana's Governor Marshall, Senator Albert J. Beveridge, Riley, and Rev. Lloyd C. Douglas. author of The Magnificent Obsession. Later that year. on July 10th Riley suffered a stroke which rendered his left side paralyzed for the rest of his life. Riley with his poetry and Wallace with his portrayal of the "humble Christ" of his novel Ben Hur were the two primary kenotic authors of the Nineteenth Century.

James Whitcomb Riley, as Krung, was born in West Virginia at the minor Civil War Battle of Rich Mountain, Virginia. It was at this minor battle that Reuben Riley, the poet's father, saw combat so shocking to his sensibilities

that he suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome the rest of his life. This impoverished his family. A loving

fortable middle-class home that Reuben the Poet's father. Reuben Riley, near the time of his had built before the war. The family death in December, 1893.

And yet this sad invalid combat veteran of a father of Riley's was nevertheless a great warrior, national savior and symbol of his country to James Whitcomb Riley's eyes. Reuben Riley in fact had a public presence that in many ways overcame his personal disabilities. He was strangely and enigmatically both a much admired and woefully pitied person after the American Civil War. How could Riley measure up to such an enigmatic father figure? If one once participates in battle to serve not just his nation but also a perceived will of God that slavery be ended by war since it could not be ended by peace, how can he be approached to be a father?

And yet the son wanted to achieve or surpass the small glory that Reuben Riley achieved in his life. The boy wanted to whip his father. Perhaps all male children do.

We cannot judge Krung on the same ruler with the other Riley acted soul-selves because Krung is so very unique.

Krung would become the "wealthy" Riley and his father's child. None of the other members of Riley's "self' cast dreamed of having a cent. Spraivoll preferred to live in a humble estate. Krung would be the fastidious dresser where the other selves in Riley's cast of characters had to wear what could be borrowed. Jucklet's wardrobe was sometimes depleted when his overcoat was required as security for payment of food or lodging when Riley's pock‑

The genius who can write to become famous and not be subject to alcoholism of Riley was in "Krung." Krung organized the realm of Riley for the public. Krung represents the Riley of "Fame." He is not a figure of power but rather of notice by the public. He is an "officially reputable person." Someone not only his father, but someone who Riley's admired Abraham Lincoln, as well as the American people, would be proud of. Krung always held to the right above the wrong as in "John Walsh." Krung knew that there is a recoil from the dregs of alcoholism as in "Dead Selves." Krung had a sense about fame and its possibility which had to do with redemption.

Unto a form his fancy wrought And robed with coloring so grand It seemed the reflex of some child Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -A face of purity and love -To woo him into worlds above: And as I gazed with dazzled eyes, A gleaming smile lit up his lips As his bright soul from its eclipse Went flashing into Paradise.

... And this is Fame! A thing, indeed, That only comes when least the need: The wisest minds of every age

Will promise it the page beyond -Until the last, when dusk of night Falls over it, and reason's light

2. Fame came to the painter after his death. Riley's first biographer. Marcus Dickey, said of this poem: "the poetic deity comes tardily through the door to crown a homeless, lifeless artist and sculptor."

Reuben Riley brought together the first military company to be recruited in Indiana after the fall of Fort Sumter.

Reuben Riley was a "mover" and "chomped at the bit" to enter the Civil War on the side of the Union.

At the very outbreak of violence at Fort Sumter, the newspaper in Riley's hometown of Greenfield, The Hancock DEMOCRAT, roared with this announcement:

"Attention Fellow Citizens! Reuben A. Riley, Esq., is making an effort, with the assurance of success, to recruit a company to represent old Hancock in the struggle for the maintenance of law. We hope that he will be as successful in the field as in the forum." Thereafter, Riley went around the county with a fife-and-drum

corps to recruit and got a Captain's Commission from his friend Governor Oliver P. Morton.

Military records show Reuben Riley mustered in at age 42 as Captain, Co. I, 8th Regiment, Indiana Infantry (3 months service in 1861). Riley was enrolled in Greenfield, Indiana on April 18, 1861 and mustered onto the

Reuben Riley as he appeared at the time of the Civil War in Captain's uniform. (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)

company roll on April 22, 1861. Upon leaving Greenfield, the women of the town presented Reuben Riley with a battle flag they sewed for his company to carry to remember the home folks.

From the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion we find that Reuben Riley's Eighth Indiana Volunteer Regiment joined an Ohio regiment and two other Hoosier Regiments on a frontal attack of Rich Mountain under the command of the Union General Rosecrans. The Report of George B. McClellan, the overall commander of the "Army of Occupation of Western Virginia" of July 14th to his Headquarters details a 4 o'clock in the morning movement by Reuben's attacking force. "The men were ordered to break through the heavy brush and thickets at the foot of the lofty summit to reach Hart's farm at the top about five miles away and once there to sweep down the other side to attack rebel entrenchments from the rear."

The report states, "(Rosecrans) had taken the enemy's position at Hart's farm, from which it appeared that he, with great difficulty and almost superhuman efforts on the part of his men, had forced his way up the precipitous side of the mountain, and at about 1 p.m. reached the summit, where he encountered a portion of the enemy's force, with two guns in position behind earth and log works - affording protection to their men. The attack was commenced by the enemy with heroic spirit and determination. They opened fire upon the advance of our column with volleys of musketry and rapid discharges of canister, killing several of our men, and at first throwing them into some confusion. They, however, soon rallied, and returned a brisk and accurate fire, which told with terrible effect in the enemy's ranks -killing and wounding nearly every man at their guns. The troops then advanced, continuing their well-directed fire, until they drove the enemy from their position, and caused them to take flight down the turnpike towards their entrenchments at the base of the mountain. The troops then encamped on the battle-field at about 2 o'clock p.m. and remained there until the following morning..."

If there was a Civil War battle which the North vitally needed to win it was the battle of Rich Mountain in the mountainous western portion of Virginia. Western Virginia, as the Virginia region west of the Alleghenies was called, was a region in foment. Historically a part of the Confederate State of Virginia, it wanted out. Twenty-five of its county governments wished to secede from Confederate Virginia. Nevertheless, it was occupied by troops loyal to the Confederate state government at Richmond. These troops had to be booted from the region if the local people could choose up

sides for the North. The reason the early battles in West Virginia were important was strategic and geographic. If the North was to maintain commerce between East and West, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad must be protected. This goal required driving the Confederates as far south of its route as possible. If Western Virginia remained Confederate, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would not be secure. To win West Virginia, Rich Mountain must be taken. It was the Southernmost strongpoint of the Confederates in western Virginia. The troops of the Confederate General Robert Garnett occupied this mountain as a camp and another twelve miles to the north at Laurel Mountain. From these two sites, the Southern General Garnett commanded all the major east- west, north-south roads in western Virginia.

General George McClellan took personal command of the "three months" federal troops, mainly Ohio and Indiana militia, on June 22d. Dividing them. McClellan orchestrated a feint at Laurel Hill and with his main body attacked Rich Mountain on the night of July I I th. After a brief engagement, the Confederates retreated down the mountain. A Dispatch from Beverly, Virginia of July 13th reports the rebels moving rapidly to Cheat Mountain Pass after burning the bridges at Huntsville and the Cheat Mountain Bridge. At Rich Mountain, one hundred and thirty-one dead were found, some from Georgia and South Carolinians but chiefly Eastern Virginians. On the morning of July 13th, the Southern Commander, Col. Pegram, sent a letter to Gen. McClellan offering to surrender himself and command of six hundred men still left on the site. Most of them were captured as they tried to join their comrades at the other Confederate camp at Laurel Mountain. The Laurel Mountain camp of the Confederates was soon abandoned and the Southern troops groped out of Virginia-leaderless since their general died from a mortal wound in his back - with the three month's federal troops at their heels for the short time left in their enlistments.

Years later, on June 23rd, 1880, in a disability pension application, Reuben Riley described what happened to him at the battle of Rich Mountain of July 11, 1861. "During the progress of the battle, this deponent (Reuben describes himself) received a severe concussion from an exploding shell which was fired by the enemy and exploded very near and to a little above and to the left of his head, staggering and nearly knocking him down. That Lieut. Col Bryant of the 10th Indiana Vol. Fifty was directly under the explosion, fell, was carried off the field insensible and now entirely recovered. That the immediate effect of said concussion was a feeling of numb‑

ness followed by coldings and after reaction a roaring as the right ear and severe pain in the right side of the head. That the roaring in the right ear has continued ever since and the pain in the right side of the head and the coldings and numbings of the right side of the body at intervals ever since, that his hearing in the right ear is almost entirely destroyed and the sight of his right eye was clouded and greatly impaired thereby and his nervous system so impaired as to render him unable to perform severe physical or mental labor."

One of the soldiers under Reuben Riley's command has left an account of Reuben's activities at Rich Mountain stating he was with Reuben Riley's company, but on picket duty, all the night before the battle, "in the march in the rear of Camp Garnett of Rich Mountain and in the battle and lay on the battlefield the night after the battle. During the night after the battle Capt. Riley was very ill, weak, cold and scarcely able to walk, that at about midnight this deponent and a cousin (Aaron Hutton, who was afterward killed in battle) placed Capt. Riley on a guttapindia (?) blanket, using another as a covering and lying down one of us on either side of him, on our arms at the head of his Company, And by the natural warmth of our bodies, restoring warmth to him and aiding to that extent in restoring warmth to him and bringing up reaction to and in him. And that he was for a long time after in bad health, just able to walk about....and ever since his last discharge has been in comparative poor health and most of the time an invalid."

Reuben Riley was mustered out at Indianapolis, Indiana on August 6, 1861 and paid forty two cents to get

On August 5, 1861, Hancock County, Indiana, gave a glorious reception to Cpt. Riley's three month men who had just returned from say-

address made by Judge Gooding. Riley gave accounts of how his men had passed the time after leaving Camp McClellan. He also described the battle of Rich Mountain. The reception was given in Pierson's Grove on the outskirts of the little village of Greenfield. One can imagine how proud James Whitcomb Riley must have been of his father and how closely he listened when his heroic and wounded father spoke about saving the Union and

Over a year later, about August 16, 1862, we find Reuben Riley raising another company from Hancock County young men and entering the regular army again. This time, 80 Hancock Co. men enlisted with Reuben as Captain for three years. Riley was off to war despite his disability from three months duty the year before. One of 2nd Lieutenants was Lee 0 Harris. Also the Greenfield Saxhorn Band which included William Hart enlisted as a body and the night before they left for Civil War they serenaded the town with a concert playing "Sweet Alice" and "Hazel Dell."

This time Reuben Riley had enlisted for three years. Events would intervene. Army records show Reuben Riley mustering in to the roll of Co. G., 5th Ind. Ca^y. October 30, 1962. Initially he was appointed as a 2 Lieutenant but was soon promoted because he had been a Captain in three months service. His service with his Cavalry unit operating in Kentucky was however only short days. The month later, November, he was assigned to be a member of court martials in Indianapolis, Indiana and served on these boards until June 16, 1863, the next year.1

Now, in the next summer, that of 1863, Reuben Riley was finally with the troops. His Fifth Indiana Cavalry, with its thousand horsemen, was centered around Glasgow, Kentucky screening the movements of Confederate forces which might wish to thrust North when Reuben arrived. Reuben joined it about the time it was given the mission to interdict the cavalry of General John

Hunt Morgan. A great chase was begun Confederate cavalry on a raid across the Ohio River when Morgan slipped through Kentucky and into Indiana at the time of the battles of

and crossed the Ohio into Indiana. hope of diverting federal forces into defensive posiReuben Riley was simply not able to tions in the north. Reuben Riley was among the fed‑

function as a cavalryman in this chase. north. The strain of this chase ended Reuben Riley's

Living in the saddle was not like riding Louisville before his eventual disability discharge. his horse to the courthouse. Three young townsmen of close to Riley's age,

Reuben Riley at the Battle of Vicksburg where he captured his own brother, a Confederate surgeon named Dr. John Riley, serving with the Texas forces and arranged to have his brother sent to Alton, Illinois to help care for the wounded soldier's there. This apocryphal story was often told by Dr. John Riley's son, Dr. Joseph Shelby Riley. Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863. While it was possible therefore that Reuben participated in the Vicksburg campaign, his own war record and particularly his recount of his activities in applying for "leave" militate otherwise. It was not the battle of Vicksburg that did Reuben in but rather the chase of Morgan by the 5th Indiana Cavalry through Kentucky, over the Ohio River into Indiana and then on into Ohio.

It must have been about this time as well that James Whitcomb Riley discovered an "enemy" Confederate being harbored by his beloved grandmother, Margaret Riley, in Greenfield. Riley describes his horror at finding his own uncle in a letter to a cousin, Joe S. Riley, of December 30, 1895 preserved by the Randolph County Historical Society Museum:

"(I) visited...Grandmother living alone in her own little - Dame Crump -cottage across the town from my father - then away from home, a Captain, in his country's service - Judge, I ask, of this boy's state of mind, when he discovered this Southern brother of his own father, smoking a very sequestrated but peaceful pipe with the good old mother who adamantly answered my juvenile curiosity regarding her peculiar guest, that it was "John Slick" - an old relative of their Pennsylvania people. - Though, at once, I guessed it was my own father's brother - an escaped prisoner here in the heart of the North - in fair safety, again meeting his old mother from whom he had been separated for years and years. Tacitly therefore I bore about a brave secret for one of my tender years and patriotic training vividly twas I recall his constrained interest in this "son James of Reuben's" - as the very dear, gentle, and utterly lovable old mother and grandmother put it." The man's name was really Dr. John Schleek Riley, the poet's uncle. (Slick, Schleek, etc. Like all Hoosier Deutsch names there simply is no consistent English form.)

The chase of Morgan must have also made a deep impression upon Riley because several of his friends were called up instantly to provide defense for the hometown and three were killed.

One thinks of Greenfield as being so peaceful and lazy in June. The rigors of trying to make it through the winter are over. In Civil War times, the

crops were mostly planted. Maybe there was a little cultivating to do. The Agricultural Fair was the big event in the county. It was held in June during that era. Probably three young men by the names of William Hart, Ferdinand Hafner and John Porter were going about their own business. Certainly, they were not imagining the terror that would soon strike town. These three men were not in the Union Army most of which was massed around Gettysburg or in Tennessee. They had absolutely nothing to do with the Civil War. Yet, the next month would find all three dead during service against a Confederate Army which invaded Indiana and was rumored to be on its way up to nearby Indianapolis to arrest the governor and free the Confederate soldiers in prison at Camp Morton there. One of those who witnessed this historic time in Hancock County was James Whitcomb Riley. Riley was 13 when Greenfield received the news that Indiana was invaded by a Confederate army believed heading his way.

What did Riley experience? How did the three civilian young men just slightly older than he was die in service against Morgan's raiders? How did others become wounded and suffer as well? Another unlikely victim of Morgan's Raid was also a man who would become Circuit Court Judge in afteryears, a man whose name was David Gooding. He was wounded in action against the Southern terrorist guerilla army even though he held no military office. Gooding, who became an "emergency" Private (in Army rank terms) in the Hancock County Home Guard had recently been a former State Senator from the county before getting thrown into the mix of trying to defend our state and county.

Morgan's Raid struck into Indiana in the summertime of the year 1863 with two brigades of cavalry, variously estimated at between 3000 and 11,000 troops, and a battery of cannon. No one knows exactly why. Some say Morgan was trying to create a diversion. Some say he was trying to get away from Union cavalry troops of which Reuben Riley was one who followed him north through Kentucky. One of these troops was Reuben Riley. the father of the poet. The reason no one knows why is that General John Hunt Morgan never filed an official report of his invasion of Indiana with the Confederate War Department. Probably that was because he was captured and thrown in prison for awhile in Ohio before escaping and returning to Confederate lines to fight again.

I suppose one of the factors that was in Morgan's mind was the fact that the Civil War wasn't particularly popular right about then in Indiana. I have heard it said that Morgan hoped to "stir up the copperheads," and maybe

even hoped to enlist some new recruits. Support of the war was at a very lob ebb in Indiana when Morgan's Raid hit in the summer of 1863. Abe Lincoln had been forced to institute a draft to keep the Union Army up. The draft enrollers were not popular. One of them got himself killed going to a farmer's house across the Rush County line from Hancock County to talk about signing up a farmer's sons there.

What was Greenfield like? Greenfield only had about 700 people in it and Indianapolis, the state capital, was not much larger and had only one telegraph office. Most of Indiana citizens were rural dwellers and small farmers.

If General Morgan thought he might be received sympathetically in Indiana, however, he was very mistaken.

The Home Guard of the Hoosier county where he landed, that is Harrison County, put up a little fight quickly and suffered four dead.

When General Morgan took his troops across the Ohio River on July 9th, 1863, it is an understatement to say that all hell broke loose in Riley's Hancock County. One company of militia was raised in Greenfield on the single day of July 10th and another on the next. These two units are about the strangest bunch of people one would ever expect might have been. Our

current downtown Greenfield building, was a corporal in another. The three young men who would lose their lives to the futile quest for glory by the daredevil Confederate General Morgan were also in this mix.

The response to the news of the Confederate invasion of Indiana was explosive. The Governor didn't hear about it until about 3 on that Thursday afternoon after Corydon was captured. Then he issued urgent orders for all businesses to close and for the white male citizens to take up arms.

Hancock County had several informal companies of Home Guards during Civil War times. The Greenfield unit, called the Hancock Guards, drilled where Greenfield's Central Park is now located behind the Post Office

But it was the New Palestine Home Guards, called the Anderson Guards, who were the first to be called to emergency duty. They got the call on the next day that they were henceforth to be Company D of the 106th Indiana Regiment, mustered into federal service on July 10th, the day after Corydon fell to the rebels. The unit was commanded by Captain Thomas Tuttle and was eventually sent to Cincinnati.

At first General Morgan headed due north in a straight line toward Indianapolis burning bridges as he went. After capturing Corydon, the Confederates struck next at Salem on July 10th, the same day the New Palestine guard was federalized, but the line of attack was not in simple columns. They stole horses systematically. The rebels would dispatch the men from the head of each regiment on each side of the road to five miles into the country seizing every fresh horse they could find and then fall in the rear of the column with fresh horses, In that way they would sweep Indiana of its horses for ten milers at a time and could literally ride an average of 21 hours a day as they raced through Indiana.

On Friday, at Salem, the Confederates destroyed the railroad depot and robbed the stores but then turned and drove toward Madison instead of Indianapolis. But before reaching Madison, the Confederate army turned north again toward Vernon.

This was on the Ilth, the day that Riley's older friends in the Greenfield Home Guards were federalized to become Company E of the 105th Indiana Regiment. The Greenfield unit was moved to Indianapolis by rail and then ordered to the southern part of the state to shore up the defenses at Vernon.

General Morgan approached Vernon but fiddled around there awhile before considering whether to attack that town. Eventually he decided not to and took off for Cincinnati, crossing the Indiana and Ohio state line al Harrison.

So how did the three Hancock County boys die during Morgan's Raid': After Morgan was in Ohio, a report was received that he had turned soutt and was going to strike back into Indiana to capture Lawrenceburg and fronthere cross into Kentucky. Two regiments of the new militia, including the Hancock Guard, were ordered to positions two or three miles northeast col Lawrenceburg at a place where there is a little town now callec Lawrenceburg Junction. It was a narrow place in the valley west of th( Miami River with a steep hill along one side of the highway. In marching out there, our boy's regiment came to where the road doubled sharply 0I

itself and climbed up the hillside. Some of the men in the rear not knowing of this turn in the road, and nervous in the darkness and fearing attack, saw the men at the head of the regiment outlined against the sky on the hill above them apparently marching toward them and mistook them for Morgan's men. A gun accidently went off and fire was returned.

Dead were the three Greenfield boys that Riley had known. Two of them died in this crazy firefight. These were farmboys, John Porter and Ferdinand Hafner. The third died later from lingering injury. This was William Hart. He had been made lieutenant of the Hancock Guards after just getting off active duty but his duty was not with an infantry unit but rather a band. At the start of the Civil War, the Greenfield Band had been inducted wholesale and had been made the regimental band of the Indiana 18th Regiment. William Hart had been in this band before being discharged and he had been working in his father's grocery store in Greenfield only a couple of days before his death as a result of Morgan's Raid.

Soon Riley's own father would return home from the chase of Morgan. Riley's father was a

casualty too of this great daredevil fool who so foolishly invaded the north. If there was any chance of recovery of heath for Reuben after his initial three month's duty, this second

"short" stint of less \ magazine sketch of Morgan's Raiders in Salem, Indiana, July 10, 1963. The than a year ended it. poet's father, Reuben Riley, was part of the federal cavalry trying to catch up to the raiders and lost what was left of his health as a result.

Riley was unable to practice law or do any other gainful work due to post-traumatic stress syndrome.

One of the most puzzling aspects of the boyhood of James Whitcomb Riley was the poverty of his adolescent home. Wasn't the poet's father a wealthy Greenfield lawyer? Maybe he abandoned his law practice to enter the federal army during the Civil War but when he was in the Army. Didn't he achieve the rank of Captain and at least draw officer's pay? How could Riley's family be so impoverished as the accounts reveal?

Reuben Riley's was the 180th action that was considered by a Board of Officers convened under Special Order No. 285 of the War Department. Their meeting in the session which considered Reuben Riley's case was held in Cincinnati, Ohio on December 28th, 1863 to decide if Reuben Riley should be excused from further service in the Civil War. The board was under orders from the War Department to take up cases of "convalescents" who were absent from their units. Their job was to retire them, send them back to the ranks, or order them to "light duty" assignments.

The record states, "The Board then examined" which means they asked Reuben Riley why he had not been with his unit very much. (His military record shows many absences - some noted as being "without leave" after Reuben joined his cavalry unit in June, 1863,)

"Captain R.A. Riley, 5th Indiana Cavalry, Company "G." Entered three month's service April 18th, 1861. Re-entered service October 30th, 1862. Age 44 years. Served while in three month's service in Western Virginia. Since reappointment, in Dept. of the Ohio. Was at battle of Rich Mountain. After being mustered in August, 1861, was ill for about a year with excessive discharge of urine, pain in loins, and numbness of lower extremities. About July 25th, 1863, having been previously well, had hemorrhage from stomach and bowels followed by jaundice and suppuration of axillary glands. Entered officer's hospital at Louisville, July 30th, 1863.

Has twenty days leave of absence from August 12th, 1863. States that he has forwarded surgeon's certificates at intervals of about twenty days as required.

Now, has inordinate diuresis, frequent nausea and vomiting and fixed pain in loins of right hip.

Appetite variable. Bowels regular. Is feeble. Can walk a mile at a moderate gait. Average weight in health, 155 lbs. Now weighs 125 lbs. Tendered his resignation September 25th, 1863.

The Board respectfully recommends that this officer be honorably discharged. /s/ J.F. Head, Secy. U.S.A. (and other board members.)

The surgeon's certificate of disability for this board indicated Riley suffered from "scrufulous diathesis producing superation of the axillary glands hence general disability and nervous prostration and that he is not able to endure the hardships of a military campaign. His last payment was in October 31, 1863.

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To recapitulate the record, Reuben Riley was apparently with his Civil War unit he enlisted with initially only about a month. He served the rest of his time on Court Martial duties from roughly Nov. 12 through May in Indianapolis and probably lived at his home in Greenfield. Eventually, he returned to his unit for at most three or four weeks. Sick, lie entered a hospital in Louisville and obtain a Surgeon's Certificate that he was not constitutionally able to serve in the field and got leave to return to Greenfield. He resigned his commission in Sept., 1863 and he was given an honorable discharge in Dec. 1863.

I think this record helps us to understand the phenomenon of the poverty in which James Whitcomb Riley lived during his teenaged years. His father was simply a very sick man who had been rendered so by entering military service at a far greater age than most of the other officers. During the Civil War most of the major officers were in their thirties with obvious notable exceptions. The men of the lesser ranks were usually even younger. Apparently, Reuben Riley was taken away into a great wave of desire to serve the "North" and entered into regular Army service which his age and

Reuben Riley's career as an Army Officer after his initial three month service is certainly not notable. He served viably only a fraction of the three years he was committed to serve. Even that short initial time of service resulted in illness and hospitalization. He was back home in Greenfield after about ten months of being a soldier.

We do know that he had been a wealthy lawyer before the Civil War. Records at the Recorder's Office of Hancock County, Indiana show extensive land holdings, etc.

Now however came a period when Reuben Riley even lost his family home. The boyhood home of James Whitcomb Riley was foreclosed on during this period. The Rileys had to live wherever they could. Not until the 1890's did the poet himself recover his boyhood home by re-purchase.

I think there is enough evidence from this Board record to conclude that the reason for the family impoverishment was that Reuben Riley simply returned from the Civil War with shattered health and was not able to resume the life in legal practice and in court as before. The "why" he would do such a thing is more revealing. Reuben Riley, even beyond the age he should have, volunteered to serve his President, Abraham Lincoln. The great sacrifice of a comfortable life with his family and for his family followed.

After Reuben's return to Greenfield this time, the young James Whitcomb Riley might not have seen war as so glorious an adventure. Seeing his father rendered an invalid did not spell glory. In the meantime, the adolescent Riley ran errands for Soldier's Aid Society. When troops went through town on the railroad, Riley's boys group posted letters and filled canteens with milk. The boys prepared themselves with marching and drilling. Riley was still too young to serve in the army by the time the war ended.

After the Civil War, Riley's father could do little except hope that his son, James Whitcomb Riley, would receive an education to make something of himself. Instead, Riley quit school. Riley's father beat him when he quit, further alienating the father and son.

Why was Reuben this way? He explains how he felt after the Civil War in a speech of September 14, 1878 delivered in Franklin, Indiana, as reported in the Hancock DEMOCRAT. The speech was for campaign purposes when Reuben Riley undertook an abortive campaign for Congress from Indiana's then 6th District on the National Greenback Party ticket.

"Fellow citizens - Having no National Greenback paper in this Congressional District through which to reach you and having politely challenged each of my competitors, Capt. William R. Myers, the Democratic nominee and Gen. Wm. Grose, the Republican nominee, to meet me in joint discussion through the district, which they both, for reasons best known to themselves, declined. I am therefore, compelled to come before you alone and to write and publish my speech, circulate and ask you to read, reflect and conscientiously vote as you believe to be right.

My friends and fellow citizens, previous to the last war I had been very active in my profession; and immediately before and during the dissensions that led to the war, I was also active as a politician. In 1854, rather than sanction what I regarded as a conspiracy to make human slavery universal and freedom sectional, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, I voluntarily sundered my position and life long connection with the Democratic party, and went out into political chaos to organize the defeat of that conspiracy. Not because I believed a true Democratic party could do such iniquity, but because the conspirators had obtained possession of the organization and machinery of the party. They had surprised and captured the garrison and controlled the citadel. It was necessary to dislodge them in order to preserve the life of the nation. The Whig party had antagonized the Democratic on everything but slavery, and that was now the only issue and its leaders had gone over to the conspirators and the party to its grave. The tremendous exigencies of the hour caused fearless, patriotic and determined men to unite for the preservation of the nation's life, and of that union the Republican party sprang into life like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, fully matured and armed to contest successfully the bloody field with Mars. Of their number I was one. I helped to organize the Republican party. That conspiracy after four years of war, agony and blood was defeated and the life of the nation saved and for this salvation the nation is indebted, not to the professional politicians, but to the intelligent, patriotic soldier boys from all parties, who enlisted and fought freedom's battles to their crowning victories, not as politicians, but as patriots and in the sinews of war furnished not as loans or bonds but by the direct exercise of its sovereign that power of the government in the shape of the greenbacks. May heaven's choicest blessings descend upon those patriots and statesmen.

health, an invalid, without reasonable hope of long surviving, expecting to retire from active life and to spend the remnant of my days in retirement, seeking amusement and entertainment by indulging my taste for mechanism, history and Belle-letters; but the mar-administration of the government, the consequent bankruptcy and suffering all around, my sympathy with the sufferings and distress, my detestation of fraud and injustice, the threatening perversion of the government, and the unanimous call of national friends to lead in this Congressional District, what many regard as a forlorn hope, against official conspiracy, betrayal and political heresy, has called me forth again to battle for purity, justice and the right..."

Strangely, James Whitcomb Riley succeeded at the pursuit of Belle-letters that his father said he wanted to master after the Civil War but apparently couldn't. The young Riley really carried to fruition his father's intentions for his own life. Krung achieved goals of Reuben Riley.

Edmund Eitel stated his grandfather, Reuben Riley, suffered "shell shock" and was partially deafened and paralyzed in the Civil War in an article for Harper's Magazine,

"He returned home with the best of his vitality spent as a sacrifice to his country.

homestead and moved his family from one rented house to another. At this time his wife

Riley's boyhood home in Greenfield as re-purchased by the poet in deed dated Feb. 23, 1893. Note the natural gas streetlight in front of the home. (Courtesy of The Riley Old Home Society, Greenfield. Indiana.)

An Indenture of 1870 gives more authoritative history of the Riley Home loss than any other record. The document details how Reuben Riley purchased the Riley boyhood home at public auction at the Court House door in Indianapolis December 12, 1846. Reuben Riley's marriage to Elizabeth Marine had occurred the preceding year at the home of her parents in Randolph County, and he and his bride had come to Greenfield to settle. He paid $274.75 for his property, the remainder to be paid on a five year credit with seven per cent annual interest.

Reuben owned the property which he had himself so vastly improved until March 25, 1864 when he sold his interest to Jeremiah S. Boyer who in turn sold the property July 11, 1865 to Gabriella A. Hart. It seems that Reuben Riley also owned a farm at this time, a place of 198 acres west of Greenfield.

The farm netted him $5,955. It was possibly this money that Reuben lost in speculation on Western lands. His poor health might have been the reason that he could not oversee any such transactions, and thus invested unwisely. At any rate we know that there was a period in the life of the Riley family when they were, in the later words of the poet, "very poor." It will be noted that James Whitcomb Riley was fifteen years old at the time the "old homestead" was sold, a very sensitive age. Gone was Riley's home with its yard where apple trees ripened, quince and locusts had furnished shade, where the garden had yielded food for the family table and where his mother had grown flowers especially the red roses Riley always loved.

At first the family lived with Reuben's mother Margaret on Greenfield's South Street.

Now Riley spent most of his time at Nellie Millikan's and drew and painted with her mother. He tried portraiture. We know of one of these as being of John Davis, Riley's friend from youth and a member of the Greenfield Cornet Band with Riley. Riley called him "Durbin," and the name stuck. Riley made a pencil sketch "once when he was playing a horn in the band, and afterwards painted his portrait. The portrait remained in the home of John Davis on the south wall of his home throughout "Durbin's" life according to a recollection of his brother William B. Davis.

Perhaps the most shocking incident to Riley's hopes to be the reputable and famous man his father wanted was the marriage of Nellie Millikan to another man. Nellie Millikan and George Cooley were married on February 22, 1865. George Cooley was a wounded Civil War veteran as was Reuben. Soon two children were born to the couple. The only problem was that Riley loved Nellie very much. Without her, Riley had no choice for a marriage

The family were living with Margaret Riley when Greenfield learned that Richmond was taken by General Grant's victorious Army of the Potomac. The war seemed close to ending. Riley remembered this event as one marked by bonfires in the streets and a "monster confligration" on the Courthouse commons. The ladies organized a Grand Hop for the whole town. Then General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Greenfield did not find out the war had ended until the next morning, April 10th. Greenfield went wild again with celebration. Bells rang from all the churches. Bonfires were re-lit. Gunpowder was freely used. Businesses closed down for the day. The citizens thronged the streets greeting each other with the great joy that the Civil War was over. People felt safe at last. The Hancock DEMOCRAT expressed the general sentiment that "The country, in spite of rebel sympathizers at home and abroad, and difficulties that can not be told, was redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled, and stood up among the nations of the earth, more powerful than when the great struggle began." That evening, homes in Greenfield were beautifully illuminated all along the National Road. A band was constituted to play martial music. A stand was erected at Walker's Corner near the Hancock County courthouse where speakers, including Reuben Riley, marked the occasion. Riley listened to his father

speak on the platform. Krung watched for clues as to how Riley should one day become Mr. Bryce and speak from a platform.

Then, on Sunday, April 30, 1865, the body of the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln as depicted in the April 29, 1865 Edition of

of Greenfield by train on the way to burial in Illinois. The funeral train chug chugged along the Indiana Central Railway line through town preceded by another locomotive running security in case the tracks were booby trapped. Many Greenfield folk gathered at the Greenfield depot hoping to see the grand coffin of the slain President but the train did not stop. One can imagine the young poet-to-be at age 15 standing with his friends as the martyred President's body was transported through town on the black-draped train.

Reuben Riley gave a eulogy to the crowd which had gathered at the Greenfield train station. Not all of Riley's Greenfield eulogy of Lincoln, following his assassination, survives, but this does: "Never in the history of recorded time has the transition from free exultant forgiving universal joy been so quick, so sudden, the universal gloom, sorrow. We rejoice with joy unspeakable at the realized salvation of our government. We are stricken with horror dumb with dark forebodings, almost despair, at this blackest crime against the nation - against humanity - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln." With this Reuben sat down and openly wept.

James Whitcomb Riley's response was much different. Krung had listened to his father once again triumph in a platform oration. But also Jucklet was listening and wondering what it meant to be Reuben Riley's child. How could James Whitcomb Riley survive? This was always Jucklet's question. There were mountains of questions in the boys mind.

What do you do when your father is functional and goes off to war and returns home an invalid?

The pent up emotions of the war needed resolution. Krung could not be born for many years in Riley's life.

When Riley imagined how his father sacrificed so much to restore the Union, the fact was that Indiana did not seem so different after the war than before. Where Riley lived, Lincoln had lost his 1860 election. A Lincoln advocate was politically a "loser" in Hancock County. Riley's recollections of violent politicking were vivid and always negative. When a friend insisted to Riley he was going to run for an office in Riley's later years, Riley

commented, "They'll burn your barn," and "They'll kidnap your children." He truly meant these comments as a warning and painful reminder of the political struggles in his hometown where his own father had suffered loss of legal courtroom battles because of Hoosier politics. It is reported that on one occasion Reuben Riley was fined the amount of his attorney fee for representing a client for alleged "courtroom comments" by a judge of the opposition party. The story goes that the Riley family had no food on the table from that experience. Standing up loyally for Lincoln, as he felt he must, was a trial to the soul for Reuben Riley.

After the war Reuben Riley was different. His black hair was gray, His arm paralyzed. His hearing was hard. His law practice never recovered. In 1865 Reuben wanted to go to Kansas where he invested in land but Elizabeth wouldn't. He lost his home to meet debts. Elizabeth was forced to move her family here and there in abject poverty.

Riley changed from portrait artist to house painter under the financial pressure. On the Census taken June 27th, 1870 Riley was listed as a "painter." He did occasional painting of fence, barn, house. He claims to have found himself "with a five-ought paintbrush in his hand one day under the eaves of an old frame house that drank paint by the bucketful, learning to be a painter." In apprenticeship to a house painter, he acquired the art of "marbling" and "graining" - long abandoned embellishments of domestic architecture.

In a letter of January 29, 1879, Riley told his correspondent Elizabeth Kahle, "I was once stark, staring mad to be an artist, but unlike yourself, I never realized the sweet fruition of my dreams.

Betrayed my talents to design and - scrape" nothing more. So I leant my easel in the corner like a pair of tongues and gave my pictures to the poor -determined that henceforward, like little Tom Tucker, I would sing for my "supper" - though at times I sadly fear that in running away from the thunder, I have run into the lighting, for with good Chispa, I am left to exclaim, - "Alas and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking!"

1. I had always heard that Reuben Riley's court martial duties were against civilian "Copperheads" (also called "Sons of Liberty") prosecuted because they were trying to undermine the Northern cause in Indiana through sabotage and sedition. The National Archives was contacted hut could not confirm on what court martials Riley served. Such cases are kept

As long as Riley was subjugated by his alcoholism, he had no chance of reaching fame. Krung was the "famous Riley," but alas! only a potential when Riley originally wrote "The Flying Islands of the Night" in 1878. Having an alcohol problem stood in Riley's way to fame.

In Act I of his autobiographical poem, Riley has Jucklet finding Krung drunk and totally dominated by Crestillomeem, Riley's alcoholism. This was Riley still subjugated by Crestillomeem and stymied in his quest for fame.