McAllister 101: Plainfield's Illustrious Civil War Captain Remembered

Today’s date, April 21, has a bittersweet legacy in Plainfield history.

It was on this date 150 years ago – just nine days after word of Fort Sumter falling to Rebel forces filtered back to Illinois – that Union soldiers kissed their families goodbye and boarded a southbound train headed to Cairo, Ill. They were following the man who would become Plainfield’s most illustrious Civil War leader.

McAllister’s 1st Illinois Light Artillery Company D of Plainfield was one of the first called to duty at the start of the Civil War. McAllister’s men saw action at the battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg and on Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea.

You can learn about all things McAllister Tuesday, when librarian and local history buff Tina Beaird holds a program commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the War Between the States. It will be held at 7 p.m. April 26 at the .

In case you can’t make it - or you just want a preview - here’s our “CliffsNotes” version:

Next time you drive south on Interstate 55, you’ll see the land that was the McAllister family farm. They settled near what is now Route 30 at the southbound I-55 exit ramp after they moved to Plainfield from New York, when their youngest son Edward was a young man. McAllister descendents lived on the farm until the homestead was torn down to make way for the highway in the late 1950s.

“Capt. Edward  McAllister is classed among the leading farmers of Plainfield, where he has a farm that in point of cultivation and general improvement is considered one of the most desirable in the township,” according to a “Will County Biographies” report about the McAllister farm.

McAllister’s unit signed on for just 100 days as the 10th Illinois Infantry Company K. They spent the three months building fortifications at Camp Defiance on the Mississippi River just outside of Cairo and conducting artillery training.

After the 100 days were up, most of the Plainfield boys came marching home, the history books tell us. When McAllister reorganized his new 1st Illinois Light Artillery Company D, only three Plainfield recruits remained: George J. Wood, Edgar H. Cooper and Emmett F. Hill, a cousin of McAllister’s wife Fannie, according to the biography.

McAllister's war career ended in 1862, when he became ill and had to return home from Tennessee. To his Plainfield neighbors, the captain was as an outspoken man known for his frequent letters to the editors of local newspapers.

After McAllister died in August 1900, his granddaughter Jean McAllister Herath emerged as a local historian and who published a number of annals on early Plainfield history.