I don't know about the 144th Illinois Infantry, but the 145th Illinois was one of the several 100-days' regiments from Illinois that served as guards for the Alton prison during the autumn of 1864. The army inspector was appalled at the "disgracefully filthy conditions" of the 145th's barracks. When he brought this to the attention of the 145th commander, the man shrugged the whole thing off and seemed disinterested in the matters of the enlisted men. The inspector was Union Department of the Missouri Inspector-General Edward M. Hudson, and he strongly recommended the commander be relieved. Major General Rosecrans, on Hudson's recommendation, advocated the colonel be fired, but the "Official Records" ("O.R." series 2, vol. 7, pp. 1111, 1115, 1118-9) do not say what Illinois did about this. The 145th was nearing the end of its 100 days, and that may explain the colonel's attitude about his men, and perhaps their own neglect of their living conditions.

Just to back up what the inspector said, I looked up the 145th in Dyer's (Frederick Dyer, "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," vol. 1, p. 1102) which says that 40 men of this regiment died during it's 100 days service. Even for that day, that seems like a lot for men already acclimitized to the region. I know about what viruses and germs do with men from different places who suddenly live together. At Fort Leonard Wood we called it "the crud," (I spent four days in the hospital there with "the crud.") but we had penicillin and other good medicines that were not around during the Civil War. Remember, doctors believed in "bad vapors" and "good vapors" back then ( I mean during the Civil War, not at Fort Leonard Wood.).

Bruce Nichols