WILLIAM McCANN: ANOTHER FRICKS CAVE UNION SOLDIER VISITOR
Marion O. Smith

Besides "H. R. Abbott 2d Ohio," Fricks Cave has several other definite or suspected
Union soldier names on its walls. One appears to be "W™. McCann OVI 1863." Until recently
this man’s identity was problematic. But the publication of an alphabetical list of Ohio Civil
War soldiers has made the task of identification easier. There were a number of William
McCanns in various Ohio units, and at least two of them were in General Rosecrans’s Army of
the Cumberland. But the regiment of only one was positioned to make a visit to Fricks Cave
likely.

On September 10, 1863, Major General James S. Negley’s division met strong
Confederate resistance near Davis Cross Roads in McLemore Cove. Brigadier General Absalom
Baird’s division was urgently called as reinforcements, which included Colonel Benjamin F.
Scribner’s brigade. To avoid harm’s way, the two Union divisions retreated westward to near
the foot of Lookout Mountain. On September 13 Colonel Scribner’s brigade, consisting of the
38th Indiana, 10th Wisconsin, and 2d, 33d, and 94th Ohio infantry regiments, was camped near
Cassandra, not far from Fricks Cave. William McCann of Scribner’s brigade is almost certainly
the soldier of that name who visited the cave. His biography is short since he did not survive
the war.

William McCann (January 11, 1841-August 3, 1864) was the eldest of seven children
born to Manasseh (c1817-1891) and Mary H. McCann (c1823-1876). Although he was a native
of Pike County, Ohio, immediately before the war he resided with his parents and siblings in
nearby Ross County where he was a farmer. On August 27, 1861, at Portsmouth next to the Ohio
River, he was mustered in as a private in Company C, 33d Ohio Infantry. He was described as
five feet, eight inches tall, with a fair complexion, grey eyes, and light hair. He was sick at
Louisville during the last two months of 1861, and from the last day of that year through April
1863, he was detached as a nurse at U.S. General Hospital No. 4 in the same city. He returned
to his regiment by May 1863, and was present until he was captured at the battle of Chickamauga.
He was imprisoned successively at Richmond (September 29, 1863) and Danville, Virginia
(December 12, 1863), and finally at Andersonville, Georgia. At the latter prison he was admitted
to the hospital June 6, 1864, where nearly two months later he died of dysentery.

SOURCES

Diary of Marion O. Smith; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies (128 books in 70 vols., Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 30, Pt. 1: 284-85; Pt. 3: 267;
Compiled Service Records, Record Group 94, National Archives, William McCann File; Pension Records, Record Group 15,
National Archives, Manasseh McCann File.