This unit was organized at Connersville, Fayette Co., Indiana on August 5, 1861 and was mustered in for a three-year enlistment on August 24 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The battery was sent to St. Louis in September and in the summer of 1862 sections of the battery were sent to different points within Missouri. At the time of the Battle of Lone Jack, one section was attached to Major Emory Foster’s command and was thus involved in the fight at Lone Jack.
It is not clear exactly how many men of the 3rd Indiana Artillery were in the battle. Harrison B. Talbert, another member of the 3rd Indiana, who was not serving with Major Foster’s command, but arrived the day after the battle with Brigadier General Fitz Henry Warren’s forces and another section of the battery, wrote a letter to his parents dated August 22, 1862. In that letter he reported hearing that five men were killed and sixteen wounded out of about thirty.
So far, I have found twenty seven men who were at Lone Jack: four or five killed outright, twenty or twenty one wounded and two possibly without wounds. The variance on killed and wounded is a result of whether George Wilcoxon was killed there or died in a Confederate prison camp later in the war. Harrison Talbert reported him killed, and the Lone Jack Battlefield Museum has a lock of his hair and a note indicating that he was killed at Lone Jack. The Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana shows that George Wilcoxon died in a rebel prison in Tyler, Texas in 1864.
Most of the men who participated in the battle were from Fayette, Shelby and Wayne counties in Indiana. Although statistically there is not a large sampling, the average age was almost 25 and most were born in Indiana. Most lived in Indiana at the outbreak of the war, but a couple lived in Ohio.
According to the records, the 3rd Indiana Battery lost only one officer killed during the war. That was Lieutenant James Develin (also spelled Devlin) who was severely wounded at Lone Jack and died November 24, 1862. His body was shipped back to Indiana and he is buried in the South Lawn Cemetery in Dublin, Wayne Co., Indiana. He has a private stone, and a government stone was ordered for him.
Of those who were wounded, four died as a result of the wound shortly after the battle, including Lt. Develin. George W. Quay, who survived his wounding at Lone Jack, was discharged on September 26, 1862. He turned around and enlisted in the 8th Indiana Infantry and was killed at the Battle of Winchester, Virginia in 1864. He is buried in the Winchester National Cemetery.
The rest of the men lived for many years, with the last veteran, Jesse Ash, dying on 4/24/1915 at the age of 73. The oldest veteran, Oscar B. Fisher, died October 16, 1913 at age 74. Not surprisingly, most of the men are buried in Indiana, even some of those who died of the wounds received at Lone Jack.