The presentation was made by Colonel Charles H. Weygant, who
commanded the regiment after the commander, Colonel F. M. Cummins,
fell wounded. It was accepted for the people by Mr. John J. E.
Harrison, chairman of the board of supervisors, a veteran of Co. B,
56th Regiment, U. S. V., who was wounded at Devon's Neck, S. C.,
December 7, 1864, and who rendered before and after that time valiant
service in the Union's cause. It was accepted also by Captain Robert
B. Hock, who was the village president, and was then serving his
eighteenth consecutive term in that office. He also had been a
soldier with a long and honorable record. He enlisted in the regular
army as a bugler, some years before the war, and was assigned to the
Tenth U. S. Infantry, and sent to Fort Snelling, Minn. He took part
in many expeditions against the Mormons, under General Albert Sidney
Johnson, afterwards the confederate general killed at Shiloh. Mr.
Hock was later sent to the scene of the Mount Meadow massacre and
fought in the battle of Ash Hollow under General Hardy. In 1860 he
was a pony express rider when Denver was only a tented village. After
Fort Sumter was fired on, his old commander General Tracy, asked him
to drill recruits at Staten Island. He did this and later performed
the same service at Washington. In 1861 he was commissioned
lieutenant of Co. E, 12th New York Cavalry, and in 1863 was made
captain of Co. F. He was on the Burnside expedition, at Ball's Bluff
and in the second battle of Bull Run. On April 17, 1864, he was taken
prisoner at Plymouth, N. C., and confined for three weeks in
Andersonville, four months at Macon, one month at Savannah, and one
month at Charleston. With six brother officers he escaped from prison
at Columbia, S. C, and was tracked by bloodhounds. All the others
were recaptured, but he, after suffering terribly by privation and
exposure, reached the Union lines and was cared for by the Third
Tennessee, until able to report to General Dix in New York. In 1865
in a skirmish with General Bragg's troops his horse was shot from
under him, and he was caught by Bragg's men and sent to Danville, Va.
He made a break for liberty and escaped to the brush, rejoining the
Union forces just before Lee's surrender. At Bentonville, in a
cavalry charge, his horse was killed and he was thrown among the
rebel infantry and captured. The same night he escaped, covering
himself with dead leaves, and reporting at his company headquarters
in the morning. His comrade in rebel prisons, Lieutenant A. Cooper,
dedicated a book of his experiences to Captain Hock.
[Illustration: Charles E. Stickney.]
CHAPTER XVII.
TOWN OF GREENVILLE.
By Charles E. Stickney.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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