Joseph C. Quiner

TitlePrivate

War & AffiliationCivil War / Union

Date of Birth - DeathMarch 15, 1834-April 28, 1862

Although born just two years after the end of the American Civil War, the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder would not be unscathed by the conflict’s death toll. Laura’s mother, Caroline, suffered the tragic loss of her 28-year-old brother, Joseph Quiner, at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. For the young Ingalls, she was stripped of the opportunity to ever meet her uncle Joseph. For the pioneer families of the post–Civil War era, many carried the burden of these losses into the new frontier.

"That civil war is where I lost my brother Joseph and my husband lost his brother and other friends. Terrible, it was terrible to raise boys to manhood then have them shot down in the war." -Martha Quiner Carpenter to Laura Ingalls Wilder, October 2, 1925.

Joseph Quiner was born on March 15, 1834, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Henry and Charlotte Quiner. Joseph and Caroline endured a difficult childhood from an early age. Their father, Henry Quiner, was tragically killed in a shipwreck on Lake Michigan on November 10, 1845. His schooner, Ocean, was swept up in an autumn gale and later found abandoned off the coast of Michigan. Tragically for the Quiner family, the remains of Henry were never recovered from Lake Michigan. Despite the early losses in Joseph Quiner's life, he was able to find happiness and start his own young family.

Joseph met Nancy Nina Frank, and the two married on Christmas Day 1856 in Concord, Wisconsin. He and Nancy welcomed the first of their two sons, Frank Quiner, on June 9, 1859. Two years later, their second boy, John Quiner, was born on July 28, 1861. Sadly for the family, Joseph would not live long enough to see John reach his first birthday.

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, calls for men to join the fight spread across Wisconsin and the rest of the North. Joseph Quiner answered the call on January 7, 1862, and enlisted as a private in Company B of the 16th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. The 16th Regiment was mustered out of Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin, on January 31, 1862, and arrived at Pittsburg Landing around March 20, 1862.

The 16th Wisconsin was attached to the 1st Brigade, 6th Division, Army of the Tennessee under the command of Major General Benjamin Prentiss at the onset of the Battle of Shiloh. Joseph’s unit, with no combat experience, was tasked with holding its section’s left flank during the early morning of the battle’s first day on April 6, 1862. The location of this engagement would infamously earn the name “Hornet’s Nest” due to the sheer number of bullets flying.

The engagement erupted around 5:00 a.m. on April 6, 1862, when three Confederate corps advanced on Union lines. Colonel Benjamin Allen, a citizen of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthplace of Pepin, Wisconsin, was the 16th’s commanding officer during the battle. Heavily outnumbered, Joseph Quiner and the men of the 16th Wisconsin desperately attempted to stave off four Confederate regiments closing in on their front and left flank. Company B remained engaged in combat, falling back multiple times and putting up staunch defenses before finally being relieved around 3:00 p.m. on the 6th.

It was here in the Hornet’s Nest that Joseph Quiner sustained a mortal wound to his arm. Although records of his actions during the first day of battle are scarce, it is known that Quiner was evacuated to a Union field hospital in Savannah, Tennessee, and treated for his wounds. Unfortunately, likely due to infection, Joseph died of his injuries on April 28, 1862. He is buried in an unmarked grave in the Shiloh National Cemetery near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.