Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Captain Edgar Poe Trego ( Thego ).


While doing some research on Kansas Soldiers I ran across a story called “Here Lies Captain Trego.” I found the article very interesting. I thought he would make a good page. The article told how the county of Trego, Kansas was named after him and so on, but little was said about his military service, and this being my field I decided to see what I could find out about him. Going by the authors info, which states he enlisted in 1861, in a Illinois regiment, I went to my Illinois index which holds the largest enrolment records for the state of Illinois, and found he was not on it. I remember the author had said he had transferred from the Illinois regiment and was attached to the 8th Kansas Voluntary Infantry. Well haveing the index to all the Kansas regiments, I went and took a look, and found nothing.

Now I knew there was something wrong, So I went to the largest data base there is which is ( The National Park Service), and you can guess on what I found which was noting. By now I was questioning the authors source of information. Now I wasn’t sure which way to go. I new he was a Captain so I went to the biggest source of civil war information, ( THE WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.) There I found a short note which said he was in the 8th., Kansas, and nothing else.

Well Now I was right back where I started. I decided to put it all aside and work on something else. But as the afternoon wore on I kept thinking about him. I finely give up and went back to the Kansas regiments to give it one more try. I tried different spellings and wasn’t getting any where, and was about to give up. Then I decided to try his first name and there he was. I found him under the spelling of ( Thego ), there was very little information him, but all the info the author stated to was there.

Edgar P. Thego or Trego, Captain, of the 8th., Kansas infantry company H., Residence Pre-emption, Ill., enlistment date is unknown, Mustered in Jan. 30, 1862, Killed in action Sept. 19, '63, Chicamauga, Ga. I looked in the book of ( THE WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.) for a report on how he was killed but there was none. There may be a report in the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas, but I have no access to the reports, so I will have to rely on the authors information, which states; He was struck by a Confederate sharpshooter while stooping over a wounded soldier which he was removing from the battlefield. While gallantly trying to help some of the wounded boys he was hit & killed. He was buried at Chickamuga Park in Tennessee.

I learned from my research on Edgar Poe Trego that when one hit’s a brick wall one should not give up, but kept hitting it and at some point in time it will come down.

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