Dr. James G. Stewart Company F, 16th Illinois Infantry

Dr. James G. Stewart, son of James S. and Jane (Gibson) Stewart, was born in Belmont County, Ohio, May 3, 1831. Though his educational advantages were not what might be wished for, yet they were sufficient and well improved. In the fall of 1850, having decided to take a medical course, he began reading with Dr. Josephus Walker, of St. Clairville, Ohio, attending lectures at the Ohio Medical College, of Cincinnati, during the winters of 1852-3 and 1854, graduating from his profession at Bridgeport, Ohio. The next year he went to Texas and after a year's practice on the frontier went to Keokuk, where he, in company with his eldest brother, opened and run a drug store about sixteen months. About this time Kansas was rife with red-handed crime, strife, treason and rebellion, known as "he Kansas war" and thither young Stewart went in the hope of being in some way able to do some good for the cause of humanity and civil liberty; while there he formed one of the party of twelve men who rescued the noble Dr. John Doy from prison, where he had been incarcerated, convicted and condemned, and finally sentenced to state's prison, for the crime of lending aid to slaves in their efforts to escape. On the day that Kansas was admitted as a state to the Union, Stewart came to Henderson county (where his nearest friends then lived and where he had been in 1850 with a view to settling), and soon after went to Burlington, Iowa, where he offered his services to his country, but not being accepted, went to Oquawka and enlisted in Co. F, 16th Ill. Vol. Inf., and was mustered into the United States service May 24, 1861, as second lieutenant. He followed the fortunes of war till after the battle of Mission Ridge, when disability from camp life and hardships prostrated him and he resigned with a first lieutenant's commission. November 9, 1865, he was united in marriage with Miss Maria L. Pogue, the daughter of John Pogue, Esq., of this county; she was born February 20, 1842, in Walnut Grove township. In 1866 the doctor quit the practice of medicine and turned his attention to farming, which was more in taste with his feelings than the practice of his profession. In 1870 he bred and raised thoroughbred short-horns, principally of the Young Mary family. He is now residing on his comfortable farm on Sec. 22, T. 10, R. 4. He has five children, as follows: Harry W., Jane E., John P., Samuel F. and an infant. Submitted by James W. Stewart

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