Saturday, December 18, 2010

He Served Through Out The War

Union Brigadier General Green Berry Raum a politician, author and lawyer died December 18th 1909.

Green Berry Raum was born December 3rd 1829 in Golconda, Illinois. He attended local schools, studied law and admitted to the bar in Illinois in 1853.

Raum enlisted in the Union Army when the Civil War started. He was a Major in the 56th Illinois Infantry, and was their Colonel by 1862. Serving under Major General William S Rosecrans during the Siege of Corinth, Raum ordered the charge on the Confederate left, capturing an artillery battery. They were part of the army at the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi in July 1863, and he led the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Division of the XVII Corps at Chattanooga. Raum was wounded at the Battle of Missionary Ridge November 1863. In 1864 Raum’s brigade held the line of communication during the Atlanta Campaign. He received a brevet to Brigadier General in September 1864. He and his men were called in to reinforce Resaca, Georgia in October and held the town against Confederate General John Bell Hood. He served through to the end of the war.

Following the war Raum returned to his home in Illinois. In 1866 he secured the charter for the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad and became its first president. He ran for and served as a Congressmen for two terms. Raum was the United States Commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service from 1876 through 1883. He oversaw the Commission of Pension, rejecting or accepting Union Civil War pension application from 1889 to 1893. Raum spent the rest of his life practicing law in Chicago, Illinois. He died December 18th 1909, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

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