Campbell, Alfred C.

Born: 1819-07-22 Sangamon County, Illinois

Died: 1893-09-10 Shelby County, Illinois

Flourished: Shelby County, Illinois

Campbell was the first white child born on Lick Creek in Sangamon County, Illinois, and the third white child born in the county. In 1835, he purchased forty acres of public land in what would become the Chatham Township. In 1838, he married Polly Foster, a union that produced seven children. In June 1846, Campbell responded to the commencement of the Mexican War by enlisting in Company D, 4th Regiment of Illinois Volunteers under command of Colonel Edward D. Baker. Commissioned a 2nd lieutenant, Campbell assumed command of the company after the death of Captain Achilles Morris at the Battle of Tampico, leading it during the siege and capture of Vera Cruz and the Battle of Cerro Gordo. In 1851, Campbell and his family moved to Shelby County, Illinois, settling near Moweaqua. Polly Campbell died in 1858, and in June 1859, he wed Jane Hurt. Campbell became one of the leading farmers in Shelby County, owning a 400-acre farm near Moweaqua. He was also a business owner. In 1860, he listed his occupation as hotel keeper and owned real estate valued at $10,000 and had a personal estate of $1,500. When the Civil War broke out, Campbell became captain of Company E, 32nd Illinois Infantry, under Colonel John A. Logan. He fought at Fort Donelson, Fort Henry, Shiloh, and other engagements through the capture of Savannah, serving three years and four months before receiving his honorable discharge.

Gravestone, Westside Cemetery, Moweaqua, IL; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Sangamon County, 3 May 1838; Shelby County, 18 June 1859, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Sangamon County, 68:267, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 291; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 171-72; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Shelby County, IL, 95; Portrait and Biographical Record of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Biographical, 1891), 692-94.