Green Berry Raum: Harrisburg's forgotten hero

On a hot steamy summer day in 2011, my son Gabriel and I exited the visitors center at Arlington National Cemetery looking for a grave located in Section 2, Lot 1230. We expected it to be hard to locate but found it very quickly, it was located just a few markers down from John F. Kennedy's grave and at the bottom of the hill that Arlington House is located on. The grave was that of what authors Josephine and Serial Thompson call one of the Idols of Egypt, General Green Berry Raum, Harrisburg's forgotten hero.

As a history teacher at Carrier Mills-Stonefort I feel it is important to include our local history and hero's when teaching on any subject, especially military conflict. Realizing that local people not that different from their friends and neighbors served in these conflicts, helps to make the stories real. One of the people I have always taught about was Harrisburg's General, Green Berry Raum. I have always ended the lesson by telling them that they can still see his house today located at 203 E. Walnut Street in Harrisburg.

I guess that's why I took the news that the house had been demolished with much disappointment. It was one of the true historical spots in Harrisburg. The house was demolished on Feb. 25 to make room for an expanded parking area. The house itself was considered to be the oldest house in Harrisburg. It was built by Raum in 1856 and was his official residence until 1885, raising seven children in the four-room house. Authors Josephine and Serial Thompson described the house as, "a four room, one story, frame dwelling, with a wide center hall as was the usual and customary in building construction in the middle part of the nineteenth century." Virginia Mitchell last lived in the house. She died at age 88 Nov. 18, 2008. Her husband, Edward, died Dec. 31, 1991. They loved to tell the history of their home, according to The Daily Register published September of 2003.

So just who was Gen. Green Berry Raum? He was many things: Antislavery advocate, warrior, politician, author, businessman and father of the Republican Party in Southern Illinois. Raum was born on Dec. 3, 1829, in Golconda. He was the son of John Raum and Juliette C. Field Raum. Green Berry's father John was a lieutenant in the War of 1812 and served as brigade major in the Black Hawk War. He also served as a state senator for his district and circuit clerk of Pope County. The Pope County community of Raum is named after John Raum.

Green Berry married Maria Field in 1851 and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Though a member of the Democrat Party at the time, Green Berry was staunchly antislavery and moved his family to Kansas as a member of the Free State Party. Kansas at the time was embroiled in a bitter debate that would become known as, "Bleeding Kansas."

In 1856 Green Berry decided that the condition's surrounding the slavery debate in Kansas was not safe for his family so he moved back to Harrisburg, where he purchased the house on Walnut Street and opened a law practice. In 1857 Green Berry was selected as one of three people to choose a site for the new courthouse. Raum also played an important part in moving the county seat from Raleigh to Harrisburg.

It is ironic that the father of the Republican Party in Southern Illinois in the years before the Civil War was a Stephen Douglas Democrat. Raum even had the honor of being the person chosen to nominate Stephen Douglas at the Democratic Convention during the 1860 presidential election. But like many of his contemporaries such as General John A. Logan the war changed his politics and he will emerge as a supporter of Lincoln and a Grant Republican. When the war breaks out in 1861, Raum will help form the 56th Illinois Infantry and will be one of its majors. In 1862 he will be promoted to the rank of Colonial, by wars end he will attain the rank of Brigadier General.

Raum along with the 56th Illinois participates in the Mississippi campaign and is credited with saving the Union artillery with a daring bayonet charge at the Battle of Corinth. He will serve under General Grant during the Battle of Vicksburg, were he has been immortalized at the national battlefield park with a monument depicting his likeness. General Raum will also serve under the command of General Grant during the Battle of Chattanooga.

At the Battle of Missionary Ridge, Raum personally commands the 56th Illinois and the 10th Missouri were he is wounded in the thigh during the battle. Raum will participate in the Atlanta Campaign, Sherman's March to the Sea and the Carolina Campaign. During the Atlanta campaign Raum's brigade held the line of communications from Dalton to Aeworth and from Kingston to Rome, Ga. During the Carolina Campaign he led the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, XV Corps. His last assignment during the war will be the command of the 2nd Division of the Army of the Shenandoah. Raum will resign his commission at wars end and return home to Harrisburg and his house on Walnut Street.

Raum will return from the war a Grant Republican and in 1866 is elected to a seat in the House of Representatives, in a heavily democratic district. During his time in the Congress he will vote for the purchase of Alaska and for the 15th Amendment. In 1868 he will be a delegate to the Republican National Convention. In 1876 President Grant appointed him as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, a position he held for seven years. In 1889 Raum is appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as commissioner of pensions, a post he holds until 1893.

In 1867 Raum obtained a charter for the building of the Vincennes to Cairo Railroad and will act as its first president. He will oversee the planning and engineering of the line. After Raum resigns his position with the C&V he appoints another former general its president, Ambrose Burnside, whose name is today given to the village of New Burnside. Much of the original route of the C&V remains in usage today for freight hauling. Part in Illinois, has been rededicated as the Tunnel Hill State Trail, or as, most people in Harrisburg call it, "The Bike Path."

Green Berry was also the author of a number of books, some of which are, "The Existing Conflict Between Republican Government and Southern Oligarchy," "History of Illinois Republicanism," "A History of the War for the Union" and "Twenty Years of Republican Rule." His final book was written in 1906 and is entitled, "History of Illinois."

General Raum died in Chicago on Dec. 18, 1909, and as before mentioned was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Many people claim prohibition era gangster Charlie Birger as Harrisburg's most famous resident. Birger may be more famous but he was no hero. General Raum fits the hero category. His accomplishments both on and off the battlefield deserves to be remembered and as the Trace Adkins song goes, "He Was One of the Chosen Ones, He Made It to Arlington."

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<li>Some information came from "Idols of Egypt" (Egypt Book House, 1947) Josephine and Serial Thompson, Chapter XII, 181-201, Fighter, Military, Political, Green Berry Raum and "The New York Times," Dec. 19, 1909: Obituary Section, "Gen. Green Berry Raum Dead."</li>

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