An Uncounted Casualty of the War: Henry Blanch, US Navy

Most Civil War veterans who had Campbell County ties served with the Federal army, but several chose a different path and joined the navy instead.

One such man was German native Henry Blanch.1

Like numerous other Campbell County Union supporters, Henry was born in Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to a new home in the United States. 

He had been born in the Old World in 1837, and, once in his new homeland, he married Rebecca Enteminger on November 20, 1854, at a friend’s home in Ashland, Kentucky.

After the Civil War started, Henry bided his time before enlisting as an acting third-assistant engineer in the navy on July 22, 1864. He served on the USS Milwaukee.

USS Milwaukee From https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/milwaukee-i.html

The Milwaukee was the debut ship and chosen name of a new type of vessel called the Milwaukee-class river monitor. It had been constructed in Carondelet, Missouri (now part of St. Louis) to patrol the nation’s western rivers and was officially commissioned in August of 1864.

It was soon reassigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron around New Orleans and later moved to Mobile Bay for action against that Confederate city, where it worked “bombarding Confederate positions, clearing mines and supporting operations to isolate and capture the city of Mobile.”2

It struck a mine (then called a torpedo) and sank on March 28, 1865, but, remarkably, Henry Blanch and the entire crew lived through this scary episode.

About three weeks after this, on April 21, Henry wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. He wasted no time in  stating his purpose as the first line declared: "I very respectfully ask for leave of absence to go north and visit my family."

His reasoning was clumsily stated: "My wife is at present dangerously sick, and my having a large family of helpless children who require my immediate protection."

"I have just lost my all by the sinking of the U.S.S. Milwaukee, hoping this may be granted."

With the major fighting in the war finished, authorities granted him a 30-day leave to go home, which . was likely in or near Cincinnati as his pension file noted that he had lived in that area since his discharge.

As for his former ship, the remains of the Milwaukee were recovered in 1868 and eventually became scrap that was used in the building of St. Louis’ Eads Bridge.3

Unlike his ship, Henry had survived the war, receiving an honorable discharge on July 7, 1865, but his time in the navy continued to affect him.

A physical examination  on August  20, 1884, for his pension application reported him as 5 feet 11.5 inches tall. He had a light complexion, brown hair, and hazel eyes.    

Another physical a month later noted that he weighed 118 pounds.

This second exam found that he was physically unable to earn a living because of his time in the navy. In the spring of 1865, he had contracted a bad cold, an illness that affected his throat and stomach, including indigestion and constipation. “While in (the) battle of Spanish Fort, his vessel was blown up and he with the rest of the crew took to the boats.” This exposure to the elements brought on those ailments as well as a case of piles (now called hemorrhoids).

One document even mentioned phetusia (or phthisis)  pulmonalis, a period term for tuberculosis. 

Henry had received “no treatment on the vessel but the steward on his vessel afterwards gave him medicine.” He then was onboard the Kickapoo for two days and the Nyanza (41) in July, then moved to the Nashville for a week.

He staked his claim for a pension based on “all effects of the above.”

The government considered the evidence and soon awarded him a monthly pension of $10, which ended up lasting from August 22, 1884, until his death just more than eight months later.

Henry passed away on May 2, 1885, in Newport at just 48 years of age, due to “disease of stomach and liver.” He had worked as an engineer and lived in Newport for six years, finding a home on Columbia Street. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Author’s photo

In the months after her husband’s passing, Rebecca Blanch sought a widow’s pension. As part of the application process, Henry’s brother William testified that Henry had been “a sound and healthy man previous to his enlistment in the U.S. Navy,” but upon his returning home to civilian life, he suffered from disease of the throat and stomach, with his illness “gradually growing worse each year” until his death.

She did receive that pension and lived a long life without Henry, not passing away for almost another half-century, passing away on June 20, 1933. A death record with her pension paperwork shows Evergreen Cemetery as her final resting place, but no headstone exists for her and an online cemetery record does not list her name among the burials.

Henry Blanch had physically survived the war, but in a larger sense, health problems caused directly by his participation in the conflict led to his demise. His death - and an impossible number of similar ones - may not count in discussions of the war’s total deaths, but, in the end, it was an unseen consequence of war that left Henry with a life years or decades shorter than he may have hoped or expected. He was, in actuality, one more of the hundreds of thousands of casualties of the Civil War.

Notes: Information about Henry and Rebecca’s pension applications came from the same file at fold3.com: US, Navy Widows' Certificates, 1861-1910: at https://www.fold3.com/file/27648779/blanch-henry-us-navy-widows-certificates-1861-1910?terms=blanch+henry, originally accessed June 25, 2022

1Some records spell his name Blanche, but he signed it “Blanch” on a letter he wrote.

2https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/milwauke.htm, Accessed June 22, 2022
3https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/milwaukee-i.html