 Jesse B. Monticue
The life story of Jesse B. Monticue,
brother to my great great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Monticue. He
wrote this shortly before he died.
"I was born in the state of North Carolina, July 8, 1843. My father
emigrated to this country about 1820. At that time he was only a
boy, less than twenty-one years of age, and he came from France to avoid
services in the French army.
 My father (William Lewis) was a full-blooded
Frenchman. He settled in the neighborhood where my mother lived,
then a young American girl, less than twenty years of age. They were
married soon after, and reared a family of six children, all of who were
boys.
My mother was a Quaker and realized that in
that rural section there could be no advantages for her boys. With
others, mother prepared to leave the slave state. Four years after
father's death, with three other Quaker families, we started for Indiana.
Mother sent to this state for a team to convey us, and paid about fifty
dollars for the transfer. We arrived at
Knightstown in October, 1850.
We settled down, little dreaming what the
future held in store for us. None of us had attended a school and
our illiteracy can scarcely be imagined. Some of us started school,
others went to work to earn a living. I started to wrestle with the
multiplication table at the age of seven. I had scarcely completed
the third reader when my educational career was ended.
Mother moved to Charleston, Illinois in
1864, arriving from
Knightstown by wagon. On the day before her arrival, she became
ill. I was called from the city to my mother's bedside, but in a day
or two I had to report for duty, as my Company was leaving for the
battle-fields around Chattanooga. We were soon in the battle of
Lookout Mountain. In two or three days I received word that my
mother had died of grief and a broken heart. It was all over with
poor mother, and her remains were laid to rest in the cemetery at
Charleston, Illinois. We have always believed that mother's spirit
went to our Heavenly Father. I have been trying to live such a life
that when I go I can see my mother standing with outstretched arms to
receive her boy.
I was in the war till it closed. I
was with my comrades in Sherman's March to the Sea and several notable
engagements. It is noteworthy that all six boys of our family served
through the war; we were in the thick of several battles, and all reached
home. MY five brothers died a natural death, but it was some time
after the war had closed before there was a death in the family of soldier
boys. I alone remain. At his request, the above history of Brother
Monticue, was re-written by Mrs. G. C. Bonnell, November 26, 1923.
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