Wallick Soldiers of the American Civil War
Introduction
One Family’s Journey Through the War of the Rebellion
This website is dedicated to the Wallick men who served their country during the American Civil War. The information in this chronicle of soldiers was compiled using a variety of historical and contemporary sources. The National Park Service has an exhaustive index of over 6.3 million names in their Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. Fifty Wallicks are included in that database. The biographies presented here will concentrate on only twenty-three soldiers who are definitely descendants of Hans Michael Walck/Wallick, a German immigrant who came to America in 1732. All of these soldiers served in the Union Army. To date, there are no Wallicks from this family known to have served in the Confederate Army.
A search has been made for each soldier and his regiment using the Civil War collection of compiled service records from the National Archives and Dyer’s Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. State and local government histories have also been examined. Some of these histories were mandated by state legislatures to be written soon after the war to insure their accuracy. Unfortunately, that goal was not always achieved. The best and most authoritative accounts written about the military units of Wallick soldiers have been written by contemporary authors and scholars. By employing all of these resources a fairly accurate account can be told of the Wallick family’s participation in the Civil War.
A Note on Methodology
There are some battles and events where we know Wallick soldiers were engaged in the action and at other times we must assume they were present. There is always the possibility that a soldier was uninvolved for some unknown reason. The following service records are a combination of known incidents of involvement and assumed participation, taking for granted that the soldier was healthy enough to be an “effective” and take part in the activities of his regiment and company. Usually, no roll call was recorded just before a unit entered battle. Different companies in the regiment may have had different assignments, or an individual soldier may have been absent due to sickness, temporary assignment to other duties, or on furlough.
Primary Sources
Two Diaries That Survived the War
We are fortunate to have two diaries that survived the war. We have the original diary written by Captain William Wallick of Peru, Indiana, and a partial transcript of a diary written by his brother, Corporal Charles F. Wallick. These two men give us a glimpse into what life was like as a soldier in the Union Army and, in William’s case, as a prisoner of war. These eyewitnesses write first-hand accounts of their regimental actions and personal experiences.
William’s Diary
Written from the spring of 1863 through the winter of 1864. The original leather-bound diary is preserved at the Miami County Historical Society Museum in Peru, Indiana.
Charles’s Diary
A partial transcript covering April 1864 to April 1865, with a six-month gap in the middle. The original leather-bound diary became lost at some point in history and the transcription was left unfinished.
William and Charles have two very different writing styles, and excerpts from their diaries are included in the biographies when they help facilitate the telling of their stories. Both the original diary written by William and the transcript of Charles’ diary can be found in the Miami County Historical Society Museum in Peru, Indiana.
Reading These Biographies
Naming Conventions
There are numerous Michaels in the lineage of the Wallick family. To help identify them, the county or location where they are buried will preface the name. For instance, “Bedford County” Michael (1740–1823) is buried in Bedford County, Pennsylvania; “Bunker Hill” Michael (1775–1845) is buried in Bunker Hill Cemetery, Winfield, OH; and one of our soldiers, “Daviess County” Michael Wallick (1817–1905), is buried in Daviess County, Indiana. The same convention is applied to other family members with identical given names.
Understanding Civil War Army Unit Sizes
It will be helpful when reading these biographies to have an understanding of army unit sizes during the Civil War. Theoretically, a company at full strength was 100 men, a regiment 1,000, a brigade 4,000, a division 12,000, and a corps anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 men. However, those numbers rarely reflected the actual size of Civil War units. Most regiments operated between forty to sixty percent of optimum size once they were in the field. Disease, desertions, and battle casualties depleted the ranks quickly.
Company
100 men
~50 men
Regiment
1,000 men
300 or fewer
Brigade
4,000 men
~2,000 men
Division
12,000 men
4,000–6,000
Corps
20,000–30,000
12,000–15,000
It would not be unusual during the war for a company to consist of just 50 men or a regiment 300 or less. At the Battle of Gettysburg, some regiments barely numbered 200 men. Charles F. Wallick’s regiment, the 87th Indiana Infantry, left South Bend, Indiana, in August of 1862 with 945 men. Three years later, at the time they were discharged, only 313 of the original members answered the last roll call — Charles being one of them.
Now Available in Book Form
The Descendants of Hans Michael Wallick in the American Civil War
The material from this website is also available in book form. It can be ordered for $15.00 through amazon.com.
All the biographies from this website are included in the book, plus new material telling how to locate where the Wallick soldiers fought when one visits a Civil War battlefield.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Scott Alan Wallick, my brother and the administrator of the Wallick Family Website, for presenting me with the challenge of developing a website to honor those Wallicks who fought in the American Civil War. This has been a labor of love for me and it would have been impossible to create this without Scott’s knowledge and expertise in our family’s ancestry. I would also like to thank Scott’s wife Lorna, who provided invaluable text editing to my book and website. She is a wonderful editor, wordsmith and the best sister-in-law!
I am also deeply indebted to Jeff Wallick, from Los Angeles, California, whose research on the Hans Michael Walck/Wallick family was invaluable to me in writing these biographies. But most of all I want to thank my wife, Diane, who has helped me with some of the technical points in writing these biographies. She has travelled with me through this Civil War journey as much as anyone and for that I am thankful.
Thanks to all of you!
Michael David Wallick — June, 2026
Contact: [email protected]
Resource Materials
Primary & Official Sources
- The Compiled Service Records from the National Archives, Washington, D.C.
- Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion
- War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
- Official Roster of Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, Alexander H. Conner, State Printer, 1869
- Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana, vol. 1–7
- The Union Army, 1861–1865, Organization and Operations Vol. 1 & 2, by Frank J. Welcher
Regimental & Campaign Histories
- Ohio In The War: Her Statesmen, Generals and Soldiers Vol. II, by Whitelaw Reid, 1868
- Giants in the Cornfield, The 27th Indiana Infantry, by Wilbur D. Jones, Jr.
- History of the Fifty-First Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry, by William R. Hartpence, 1894
- History of the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, by George Schmutz, 1907
- A Stupendous Effort — The 87th Indiana in the War of the Rebellion, by Jake Overmyer
- The Civil War — A Narrative, by Shelby Foote, Vol. 1–3
- Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May–June 1864, by Noah Trudeau
- Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864, by Albert Castel
- Bentonville — The Final Battle of Sherman & Johnson, by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr.
- Shenandoah 1862, by Peter Cozzens
- Brigades of Gettysburg, by Bradley M. Gottfried
- Chancellorsville 1863: The Souls of the Brave, by Ernest B. Furgurson
- Cahaba Prison and the Sultana Disaster, by William O. Bryant
- The Sultana Tragedy: America's Greatest Maritime Disaster, by Jerry O. Potter
- Libby Prison Breakout, by Joseph Wheelan
- The Hans Michael Walch/Wallick Family Lineage — Researched by Jeff and Scott Wallick