Monday, September 22, 2014

Jennie E. "Gauslin " Maish, Civil War Nurse.

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Jennie Gauslin Maish.

Birth: 1840.
Death: March 5, 1926.

Husband: Lewis Maish, July 2, 1840  _-- December 29, 1917.

Children: Nettie L. Maish.

Burial: Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota.

CIVIL WAR NURSE.

Miss Jennie E. Gauslin now Mrs  Maish, was living in her father's house at Winchester, Virginia, during the civil war which from 1861 to 1865 was turned into a hospital and kept up by her father and her own means, and where she nursed the sick and wounded Union prisoners left at Winchester.

After General Milroy's defeat she was sent as a prisoner by Confederate authority and confined in Confederate prison at Richmond known as Castle Thunder with other loyal ladies.

She married Mr. Lewis Maish a Union soldier during the war.  She is 64 years ( 1910 ) of age and resides at Stillwater, Minnesota.  She received no pension.

Author: Many nurses received a pension of $12, she had no pension, but after her husband died she got a pension of #10, dollars a month.  If I read the pension records right her pension was sent to the soldier home on Minneapolis.

Eighty - Seventh Pennsylvania Infantry Co. B.

Captain Lewis Maish, of Company B, was born July 2, 1840, within a few miles of York, a lineal descendant of John George Maish, who in 1751, came from Germany, and settled first in Chester county, Pa., and then migrated west of the Susquehanna to Fairview township, York county, where he located in a Quaker settlement. After leaving school Lewis Maish became an apprentice in the Variety Iron Works, of York. He assisted in recruiting Company B, and was made Second Lieutenant when it was organized. He was promoted to First Lieutenant, May 26, 1863, and to Captain Oct. 25, 1863. He was in command of his company in the engagements around Winchester, in the Mine Run campaign, and in the campaign under Grant from the Rapidan to the approaches of Petersburg.

In the afternoon of June 23, 1864, while the Union lines were being: established for action along the Weldon railroad in front of Petersburg, Captain Maish and thirteen of his men were taken prisoners. He now had before him several long and weary months of experience in Southern prisons, after having gallantly led his men in a dozen battles.

He was first taken to Libby prison in Richmond, and soon thereafter, with 3,000 other captives sent to the State of Georgia.  About 250 of the number were officers. These were left for onemonth at Macon, then the leading prison for commissioned. officers in the South. As Sherman's army was moving in that direction. Captain Maish and his fellow prisoners were transferred to Savannah for two months, and then taken to Charleston S. C. They were in that doomed city while it was besieged by the Union forces under Gilmore, from the neighboring islands.

As Sherman's triumphant army was moving from Atlanta to the Sea," Captain Maish and his associates were sent to Columbia, S. C, where they were kept four months, and then moved to Charlotte, N. C. While stopping for a short time at that city together with Captain H. C. Smyser, of the 5th Maryland Regiment, and Lieutenant Anderson, of the 2nd Pennsylvania Artillery, he made his escape into the Union lines. Captain Maish was mustered out of the service March 24, 1865, having served his country three and one-half years.

He resided one year at York, and the following year in Tennessee and Arkansas. In 1867 he removed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he continued to be engaged in the manufacture of machinery until 1900, when he removed to Stillwater, Minnesota. Mrs. Maish was the daughter of a loyal citizen of Winchester. She and the Captain were married in 1863 during the time the regiment was in winter camp at Winchester.

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