Cpl. Benton Badgley;

BENTON BADGLEY was born About 1826 in Highland County, Ohio. It was here that he married ELIZA JANE BORDEN on October 19, 1848.
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Enlisted at Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio on the Sixteenth day of November, 1861. He was a Corporal in Captain S. G. W. Peterson's, Company K, 48th regiment of Volunteer Infantry. The 48th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry was recruited from Highland County and the surrounding areas of southwestern Ohio in the fall of 1861, and the regiment organized in October at Camp Dennison.

The next April, as part of General Sherman's division, they find themselves in the middle of the Confederate surprise attack at Shiloh, Tennessee. Benton was wounded in the battle of Shiloh and was discharged by reason of a surgeon's certificate of disability, September 9, 1862.

Benton Badgley enlisted and was mustered into service as a private at Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio, on September 25, 1864, for a period of one year. Captain Wolf's 178th Regiment of Ohio Infantry which subsequently became Company G of the 175th Regiment.

Benton was taken prisoner by Rebel General Nathan Bedford Forest's troops at Blockhouse # 14 on the Tennessee & Alabama Rail Road on or about November 25, 1864, and remained in a rebel prison until the end of the war.

He was exchanged in April, 1865, at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He and hundreds of other exchanged prisoners were put on the Union Steamer, Sultana, to be transported home. The Sultana had come from New Orleans to Vicksburg to pick up exchanged prisoners of war. At Vicksburg it received on board 1,965 federal soldiers and 35 officers just released from the rebel prisons at Cahaba, Alabama and also from Macon and Andersonville, Georgia.

Benton Badgley was killed on April 27, 1865, when the Sultana's boilers exploded at about 3:00 AM, on the Mississippi River.

Roll of Honor - 175th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Name : Badgly, Benton - Company : G - Rank : Pvt - Date: April 27, 1865 - Burial : On Steamer Sultana

Benton is believed to be the son of Isaac Badgley and Sarah Robinson Badgley.

Ohio lost 791 men on the Mississippi River that dreadful night, the most of any state. Tennessee was next with 514, while Indiana lost 459 men. Michigan lost 310 and Kentucky 194. Smaller numbers of men were also lost from Virginia, Illinois, Iowa and Pennsylvania.