Jason A. Barber wrote: "I knew three of my uncles on my Mother's side" (Lydia E. Maltby, sister of Brig. Gen. Jasper A. Maltby). "They were wonderful men, and I was very fond of them in my youth and my memory of them is intensely vivid to me. . .

. .I remember Uncle Jasper coming home during the Civil War to re- cover from a wound. I then being a lad of only seven or eight years. He absolutely captivated me."

Jasper A. Maltby was a Brigadier General in the Union Army, and brigade district commander at Vicksburg. General of the 45th Illinois of Galena, Ill. Was severely wounded. Died at Vicksburg, Miss., Dec. 12, 1867.

(War of Rebellion, Official Record of Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. VII. Capture of Fort Donelson, Tenn.)

 (p.178) Letter. Feb. 28, 1862.

"Lieut-Col. Jasper A. Maltby, of the Forty-fifth, a brave and efficient officer, was also wounded in this engagement."

                            Signed. Genl. John A. McClernand.

"Lieut-Col. J.A. Maltby, of the Forty-fifth Regt. while en- couraging and animating his men was shot through the thigh, and severely, though I trust not fatally, wounded."

                           Signed W.H.L. Wallace, Col."

Series I. Part II, Vol. XVII. p. 212.
   "   "    "   "       XXIV.
   "   "    "   "       XXIV.
(p.643) Rep. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan. (Battle of Port Gibson, Miss.)

"and the Forty-fifth and One hundred and Twenty fourth Illinois Infantry, Col. Maltby and (Col. Thomas J. Sloan?) commanding respec- tively, forming the second or reserve line, 200 yards in the rear." (p.700) Brig. Gen. John E. Smith.

"As a precautionary measure I ordered the Forty-fifth Illinois, Col. Maltby, on the left." (Engagement at Raymond, Miss.) (p.708) "Col. Maltby of the Forty-fifth Illinois, although so unwell that he was obliged to ride in an ambulance, as soon as the enemy was known to be in force to dispute advance, mounted his horse and assumed command of his regiment." (Series I. Vol. XXIV, Part II. p. 207)

"Siege of Vicksburg, Miss." Letter from S. R. Tresilian, Div. Eng.

"Having the pioneer corps in readiness, I immediately repaired to the crater and began to fill up the opening through which the enemy was firing volly after volly. I was supported while personally superintending this work by a company of the Forty-fifth Illinois Infantry under command of Colonel Maltby, his lieutenants, colonel, having been mortally wounded and his Major killed a few moments be- fore the first volley."

(Record - Herald?)
   "The Memory of Colonel Maltby"

With the passing of the old year there died at St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, a little snow-haired woman who had borne life's for just the time allotted by the Psalmist. If during the days that this woman lay ill at the hospital of the Beloved Physician her eyes wandered about the walls of her room they probably for the first time in forty years, when within any room chosen by their owner as an abiding place, failed to rest upon the folds of an American flag.

The flag and a husband's memory were the most cherished things in the life of Mrs. Malvina A. Maltby. Neither was ever long absent from her mind. In the parlour of every residence which she occupied and in her own particular room were a picture and a soft silken ban- ner of her country. In Mrs. Maltby's heart there dwelt a great pride in the memories which her mind treasured. How forgetful are people and how forgetful always are republics. Mrs. Malvina A. Maltby was the widow of Jasper A. Maltby of Galena, Ill., colonel of the Forty- fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, more familiarly known in the darker days of the country's history as the "Washburn Lead Mine Regiment."

How many men are there today, bar a few old soldiers, to whom the name Jasper A. Maltby would mean anything unless it were coupled, as it is above, with some specific information? Yet this man, Jasper A. Maltby was chosen by General Grant, on the advice of McPherson and Logan, to lead, with his single regiment, the most desperate enter- prise at the siege of Vicksburg, and, as the historians have it, one of the three most desperate enterprises of the entire war of secession.

There are today a few surviving members of the old Forty-fifth Illinois in whose veins the words "Fort Hill Mine" will make the blood tingle. It was only a week before the glorious Fourth on which Pem- berton surrendered the confederate city. In Logan's front lay Fort Hill. It was decided at a council by the generals that its sapping and mining and the subsequent seizing and holding of the embrasure made by the explosion would be of tremendous moral and strategical value to the Union cause. The place was commanded by confederate artillery and by sharpshooters in a hundred rifle pits. It was known that if the explosion of Fort Hill were a success that few of the men who rushed into the crevasse could hope to come out alive. It would be what the Saxons called a deed of derring-do.

Owing to the limited space to be occupied only a single regi- ment was to be named to jump the great yawning hole after the explos- ion and to hold it against the hell fire of the enemy until adequate protective works could be thrown up.

There were as many volunteers for the enterprise as there were colonels of regiments in Grant's army. The choice fell on Jasper A. Maltby and his following of Illinois boys. Maltby had been wounded twice and had shown desperate valor in several of the engagements leading up to the final investing of Vicksburg. He had been tried as by fire and there was no dross in him.

The time came for the explosion. The Forty-fifth lay grimly awaiting the charge into death's pit. The signal was given; there came a heavy roar and a mighty upheaval. Silence had barely fallen before there was one great reverberating yell, and the Lead Mine Regi- ment, led by its colonel, Jasper A. Maltby, with his lieutenant- colonel, Melancthon Smith, at his elbow, hurled itself as one man into the smoking crater. The lieutenant-colonel was shot through the head and mortally wounded before his feet had fairly touched the pit's bottom. The colonel was shot twice, but paid little heed to his wounds.

A battery of confederate artillery belched shrapnel into the ranks and the sharpshooters seemed fairly to be firing by volleys. The question became one of getting some sort of protection thrown up before the entire regiment could be annihilated. Certain men in the pit were told off to answer the sharpshooters fire and to make it hot for the commanders in the rebel battery. They did what they could, but it availed little to save their comrades, who were toiling to throw up the redoubt. Men fell on every side. The colonel, making himself always conspicuous, received a third wound.

Beams were passed into the pit, and these were put into position as a protection by the surviving soldiers. The joists were placed lengthwise and dirt was quickly piled about them. Colonel Maltby helped in the lodging of the beams. He went to one side of the crater where there was an elevation. There he stood fully exposed, a shining mark. He put his shoulder under a great piece of timber, and, weak with wounds though he was, he pushed it up and forward into place. The bullets chipped the woodwork and spat in the sand all about him. One confederate gunner of artillery trained his great piece directly at the devoted leader. A solid, shot struck the beam, from which Colonel Maltby had just removed his shoulder, and split it into kindling. Great sharp pieces of the wood were driven into the Colonel's side, and he was literally hurled to the bottom of the black pit.

The action was over shortly, for the gallant Forty-fifth succeeded in making that death's hole tenable. Then they picked up their colonel. He was still alive, though the surgeon shortly after said that it would be hard work to count his wounds. They took him to the field hospital and before he had been there an hour there was clicking over the wires to Washington a message carrying the recommendation that Colonel Jasper A. Maltby of the Lead Mine Regiment be made a briga- dier general of volunteers for conspicuous personal gallantry in the face of the enemy.

A week later Grant's victorious forces marched into Vicksburg. The thing was done. It had been Colonel Maltby's heart-born desire to march into Vicksburg at the head of his regiment. This desire was known. There was a request from General Logan that the surgeons hold a consultation. It was held. The result of it was that Colonel Maltby was placed on a cot in an ambulance which was drawn into the conquered city, while following came the surviving members of the Forth-fifth Illinois. Maltby had his wish.

Colonel Jasper A. Maltby, or General Jasper A. Maltby, as it soon became, lived until the end of the war, but no system could long withstand the shock and pain of those gaping wounds. He died in the very city he had helped to conquer.

Since then a flag and a precious memory were rarely absent from the life which finally flickered out when the white-haired little widow died at St. Luke's Hospital.

                                  Edward B. Clark."

Note. Col. Maltby's sister, Rachel Matilda, mar. Samuel G. Barber, and had a son, Jasper Maltby Barber of Willard, Ohio. In 1940 he wrote he owned three letters of Col. Jasper Maltby, written to his father, David (6) during the Mexican War and the Civil War. Also the gold band ring that was presented to Col. Maltby by General McPherson.

Sent me was the following:

"Maltby, a well known name in West Virginia and Maltby Bridge, the scene of a battle in the Civil War, was just a few miles from Clarkes- burgh, West Virginia." (This may have been named for a confederate).

(Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, ed. Hist. Encyclopedia of Illinois and Hist. of Sangamon Co. Vol. I. p.349)

"Maltby, Jasper A., soldier, was born in Ashtabula Co., Ohio, Nov. 3, 1826. Served as a private in the Mexican War and was severe- ly wounded at Chapultepec. After his discharge he established him- self in the mercantile business at Galena, Ill. In 1861 entered the volunteer service as Lieut-Col., of 45th Ill. Infantry; was wounded at Fort Donelson, promoted Colonel in Nov. 1862; wounded a second time at Vicksburg; commissioned Brigadier-General in Aug. 1863, served through the subsequent campaigns of the Army of Tennessee, and was mustered out, Jan. 1866. Later he was appointed by the Commander of the district, Mayor of Vicksburg, dying in the office, Dec. 12, 1867." (It is said he died of yellow fever).

CFE-DCA-A

Parents

Henry