Born in Holmes County, Mississippi, John Charles Black moved to Illinois at an early age, and 1861 found him a student at Wabash College in Indiana. He enlisted in an Indiana 90-day regiment and fought in one of the War’s first battles, at Romney, Va. on June 13, 1861. Upon disbandment of this unit, Black returned to his home in Danville, IL, and organized the 37th Illinois Infantry.

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Hermann, Missouri, was the new world home of George Husmann, who is acknowledged as the father of the Missouri wine industry. His fame extends well beyond the State of Missouri.

Husmann was born in 1827 in Meyenburg, Hanover, Germany, and emigrated to the United States with his family at age 9. As a young man, he was one of the first to cultivate grapes in Hermann. Then, with the coming of the Civil War, Husmann served for a time as Qua…... Read more >

George Caleb Bingham was born in 1811, in Virginia, and moved with his family to the Missouri frontier, near Boonville, in 1819. On his way to becoming Missouri’s greatest artist, Bingham’s life became entwined in Missouri’s Civil War.