Regards... ken meyer

U.S. Pension Records

On this 28th day of February AD one thousand eight hundred and eighty personally appeared before me, clerk of the circuit court, the same being a court of record within and for the county and State aforesaid, Daniel Harkins, aged 39 years, a resident of the town of Holland, county of Sheboygan, in the State of Wisconsin, who being duly sworn according to law, declares that he is the identical Daniel Harkins who was enrolled on the 27th day May AD 1861 in Company "C" of the 4th Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers, commanded by Captain (? ... Brooks) and was honorably discharged at Morganzia Louisania on the 14th day of July 1864 that his personal description is as follows Age 39 years, height 5 feet 6 inches, complexion dark, hair black, eyes gray….

In the case of the invalid Pension claim of Daniel Harkins of Co. "C" 4th Regt. Wis. Cavalry, Vols.

On this 25th day of March, AD 1881 personally appeared before me a justice of the Peace for said County, L.C. Bartlett, who being by me duly sworn according to law says that he resides in the town of Lyndon, Sheboygan, Co. State of Wisconsin, P.O. address, Cascade in same County & State that he was late 1st Lieutenant of said Company, that he knows Daniel Harkins the claimant and he makes the following statement from personal knowledge. Said claimant from the time of his enlistment until September 1862 was noted as being one of our most active, sprightly, hardy young men in our Company, but that in the campaign against Vicksburg, Miss. in the summer of 1862 our Regiment encamped on Young's Point opposite Vicksburg, immediately after the receding high water while the ground was yet wet, and that the whole Regiment suffered severely, over half were sick, many died, among the sick was said Daniel Harkins and myself, and we were placed in the same ward at the Post Hospital at Carrollton, Lou. Upon the return to the Regiment. Harkins recovered so as to perform duty, while the Company was doing light duty as Provost Guard, but in January 1863 immediately after returning to the harder duties & exposures of camp life he was attacked with rheumatism so severely that he was sent back to hospital when the Regiment joined in the feint against Port Hudson in March 1863. Harkins joined his Company, but was unable to stand the march, he got wet, and was lame again, but when we started on the "Techi" Campaign, Harkins was left behind at Algiers April 4th 1863, being unable to march, he was also suffering from ague & fever. After which time he never did much hard duty. He was with the Company a part of the time, but was unable to join in the hard marches, raids and scouting parties, that the rest of the regiment was constantly performing. That after his discharge he never fully regained his health. Rheumatism again appearing in 1865 and finally settled in his right knee, making him a cripple for life. That he has seen the claimant often since his discharge, and he believes that the rheumatism with which claimant is now afflicted is the direct result and the continuation of the sickness above mentioned, and caused by the exposures & hardships he incurred in the line of duty as a soldier. He further says that he has no interest, direct or indirect in the prosecution of this claim. Background As a child and young boy, Daniel Harkins was raised near the spectacular Irish beaches north of Londonderry, along the northern most coast of County Donegal. His father, Dennis, was born in Culdaff and his mother, Margaret McDavit was from the sailing and resort town of Moville. Daniel was born in December 1840 and, when he was eight years old, the family emigrated to the United States. From the port at Long Island, New York they made their way up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie and then eastward to the township of Union Vale. In Union Vale two Harkins families (Dennis and his brother, Patrick) worked in the local iron ore mines and took in boarders, usually other Irish miners who were also working in the iron ore mines. By 1855 the Harkins brothers had purchased farms across the road from each other in the Town of Holland, north of Milwaukee in Sheboygan county. In all, there were nine brothers and sisters in Daniel’s family. Most of Daniel’s siblings were involved in farming in the town of Holland but, while Daniel was enrolled in the Union army, two of his brothers were prospecting for gold near Bozeman, Montana. On one of these prospecting trips his brothers walked from Sheboygan, Wisconsin to Council Bluffs, Iowa (a distance of over 500 miles) where they purchased covered wagons and joined a wagon train on the Oregon Trail.

Daniel never married and, crippled by disease during the Civil War, he returned to work as a farm hand in the town of Holland until retiring to the North West Branch of the National Home for Disabled Veterans and Servicemen in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin where he died on 19 December 1900. He is buried not far from his parent’s farm at St. Patrick’s cemetery in Adell, Wisconsin.