MEN of EARLY OCONTO COUNTY

Transcribed from:
Soldiers and Citizens album of Biographical Record Volume I 1888
Grand Army Publishing Co.,Chicago,IL 1888
P. 433

John Utter, of Peshtigo, Wis.,formerly, a soldier in the civil war, was born Aug 4, 1844 in Canada, and he is the son of John and Eliza Ann (Bowen) Utter.  He went from the Dominion to Michigan and enlisted at Elkhart aug. 7, 1862, for three years in Company K, 22nd Michigan Infantry.  The regiment was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland and Mr. Utter was in several actions in which his regiment was engaged and in the battle of Chickamauga, sep 20, 1863, he was taken prisoner.  It is acknowledged that Chickamauga was the hardest fought and bloodiest battle of the Rebellion, all things considered.  He was conveyed without food or comfort of any knd to Virginia and confined consecutively in the Pemberton warehouse in the city of Richmond and went to Danville, to Andersonville, Charleston and Florence.

He endured the indinities, the cruelties, the hunger and all the privations and miseries inflicted by the outlaws of the rebellion on the Union soldiers and, when he had been a prisoner of war 15 months, he was paroled Dec. 13, 1864, and received final discharge from the service June 26, 1865, at Nashville, Tenn.  At the time of his capture, he weighed 150 pounds and when he left Florence and reached the Union lines, his weight was 92 pounds; while in prison he suffered from gangrene in the third toe, received treatment from a physician twice and, finally, so save his life, amputated his toe himself with a dull and rusty jackknife.

Mr. Utter married Ada Elmira Phillips, and they resided at Peshtigo at the time of the fire, in which Mrs. Utter and her two children were burned to death.  The children were named John and Eliza Ann, the former being a little less than two years old and the latter two months old at the time of their deaths.  Mr. Utter married for his second wife Syliva C. Phillips, aunt of his first wife, and she died April 30, 1883, leaving one child named Clifford Stanley.  In January, 1887, Mr. Utter was married to Lovinia D. Pettitt.  The father of the mother of Mr. Utter was a soldier in the war of 1812; his grandmother, Mrs. Bowen, was the niece of General Andrew Jackson.