The Ninth Illinois Infantry Volunteers was mustered into the service at Springfield on April 26, 1861 for a term of three months. It was one of the six regiments organized under the first call of the President, at the commencement of the war of the rebellion, and was stationed at Cairo until July 26, 1861 when it mustered out. However, at the expiration of their term of service, "there being no force to take their place, placing Cairo and the vast government stores almost at the mercy of the enemy, this difficulty was happily overcome by volunteer response from the officers and men of the disbanded regiments to do garrison duty until their places could be filled by soldiers who had enlisted in the three years' service, which was from four to six days. Some two hundred and fifty of this volunteer garrison was composed of the Ninth Infantry, who proposed to re-enlist. In this way the enlistment for the three years' service began with the Ninth. On this mere skeleton of a regiment of officers and men recruiting began in earnest, and in less than thirty days it was again a full regiment. It was organized at Cairo with companies B, C, D and F from St. Clair county; A and I from Madison; H from Montgomery; G from Pulaski; K from Alexander, and E from St. Clair and Mercer."¹

1. Information obtained from a transcription of the Adjutant General's report of the 9th Illinois Infantry Regiment, transcribed in 1997 by Susan Potts for Illinois GenWeb's "Illinois in the Civil War" project.