Webb, Lysander R.

Born: 1833-12-30 Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Died: 1864-04-08 Louisiana

Lysander R. Webb was a newspaper editor, printer, attorney, military officer, and Republican. Orphaned as a young child, he was raised by a guardian. He entered Yale College, but quit after his guardian died and became an assistant editor on a Springfield, Massachusetts newspaper called the Republican. In 1857, he moved to Illinois, where he began working with Nathan C. Geer on the Waukegan Gazette. In January 1858, he shifted to the editorial department of Geer's Peoria Transcript. In June of that year, he married Virginia Ballance. That same month, he served as one of Peoria County, Illinois' delegates to the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention. He resigned from the editorial staff of the Peoria Transcript in January 1859 and began studying law. He gained admittance to the bar in 1860, then began practicing law. During the summer of 1862, he responded to the call for volunteers by raising a company. He served in Company E of the Seventy-Seventh Illinois Infantry at the rank of captain. He later received a promotion to lieutenant colonel, and served in Company HQ of the Seventy-Seventh Illinois Infantry. He participated in numerous battles and sieges, then received detail in the winter of 1863-64 to commandant of the convalescent camp of the Thirteenth Army Corps in New Orleans, Louisiana. After making repeated requests to rejoin his regiment, he was permitted to rejoin the Seventh-Seventh Illinois Infantry in March 1864. He was killed in action soon after at the Red River Campaign at Mansfield, Louisiana.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Springfield, Hampden County, MA, 38; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 26 January 1858, 2:2; 17 June 1858, 2:4; 12 January 1859, 3:1; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Peoria County, 24 June 1858, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 2, Peoria, Peoria County, IL, 111; Portrait and Biographical Album of Peoria County, Illinois (Chicago: Biographical, 1890), 218; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2009); James Barnet, ed., The Martyrs and Heroes of Illinois in the Great Rebellion: Biographical Sketches (Chicago: J. Barnet, 1865), 142-43.