Caleb Canup
Caleb Canup was born in North Carolina on 1 February 1822. The family name is old in Rowan County, in the North Carolina Piedmont, and his son Lawrence Lawful was born there in 1846. His wife was Margaret Porter, also born in North Carolina, three years older than he was.
By 1860 Caleb had brought the family west to Johnson County, in the hill country at the southern tip of Illinois, and was farming there. A younger son, John Wesley, had been born in 1857.
On 16 December 1863, in the third winter of the Civil War, Caleb enlisted in the Union army at Grays Mill, in Johnson County. He signed on for three years as a private in Company D of the 56th Illinois Infantry, enlisted by Captain J. F. McCartney. The descriptive roll records him as forty-two years old, five feet eight and a half inches tall, with black hair, dark eyes and a dark complexion, a farmer, born in North Carolina. He had a wife and children at home, and his son Lawrence was seventeen.
He was mustered into service on 15 February 1864 at Camp Butler, the army's training camp outside Springfield, Illinois, with a body of new recruits for the regiment. The company roll in the state's printed report lists six of Company D's recruits as dying at Camp Butler in March 1864 alone, and more through the summer.
Caleb Canup never reached the regiment. The same roll records his end in four words: "Died at home, April 4, 1864." He was forty-two, and had been a soldier for less than four months.
He was buried in West Eden Cemetery in Johnson County. A bronze government marker over the grave reads "Caleb Canup, Illinois, Pvt Co D 56 Regt Ill Inf, Civil War, April 4 1864." Margaret lived as his widow for another twenty-six years and was buried in the same cemetery in 1890, and their son Lawrence was buried there in 1901.
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Cite: Heirology, "Caleb Canup (1822-1864)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/caleb-canup-1822-1864-4fd100.