(One of the last Union soldiers treated at Pope's Tavern when it served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War)
Hamblin was a private in the Michigan 2nd Cavalry. On October 30, 1864, while on picket duty near what is now Indian Springs subdivision he was wounded in the left arm. Hamblin was forced to march to Florence where his left arm was amputated, "just to give the rebel doctor practice" as Hamblin stated later on. A near-fatal case of gangrene developed that required a lengthy stay at Florence before being moved to the Confederate hospital at Columbus, Mississippi.
Later Hamblin was transferred to the notorious Cahaba Confederate prison near Selma, Alabama. On March 15, 1865, Hamblin was involved in a prisoner exchange and moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi. It appeared Hamblin's ordeal was over as he and over 2,300 fellow soldiers boarded the steamer Sultana on the 24th of April, but during the night of April 27th the steamer exploded!
More than 1800 perished in the cold waters of the Mississippi River that night, but Hamblin survived even though he had only one arm!
Returning to his home county in Michigan after the war Hamblin married and became a successful farmer and educator. The rigors of war had evidently taken its toll for Hamblin died in an "insane asylum" in [12 May 1906 of brain tumor] May, 1906.
Ogelvie E Hamblin1890 United States Census of Union Veterans and Widows of the Civil War Event Place: Pulaski, Jackson, Michigan
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