BROWNTOWN — James M. Divan, the last Civil War veteran buried in Green County will be honored in a ceremony Saturday, Aug. 31 at Michael Cemetery in Browntown.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War is conducting the ceremony with help from Monroe Civil War researcher Jon Rupp, the Green County Historical Society and local veterans groups.

James Monroe Divan, the last Union veteran buried in Green County, died on April 7, 1936 at age 93 and is buried in Michael Cemetery in Browntown. Divan was born on July 5, 1842 in Coshocton, Ohio. 

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Divan was one of the Green County boys who enlisted in Monroe in the 5th Wisconsin Light Artillery under Captain Oscar Pinney. After his enlistment in September 1861, Divan and the 5th Wisconsin Artillery took part in a number of the major battles of the war: the siege of Corinth, Mississippi, the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, and the battles of Stones River and Chattanooga in Tennessee and the bloody fight at Chickamauga in Georgia.

At the battle of Stones River, Divan’s commanding officer, Captain Pinney, was wounded in the leg and died two months later. Divan survived the war relatively unscathed and mustered out of the 5th Wisconsin Artillery in September 1864. Divan came back to Green County, married Phoebe Hastings, and the couple lived on a farm south of Browntown and then resided in Monroe for about 10 years. In his later years, Divan lived with a daughter in Princeton, Minnesota, where he died in 1936.

The Last Soldier honor ceremony begins at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31. Any of Divan’s descendants living in Green County are invited.

Camp #15 of the Sons of Union Veterans, based in Wind Lake, will be firing a three-volley salute over Divan’s grave with Civil War muskets and reading the funeral ritual of the Grand Army of the Republic. The ceremony includes the placing of a Last Soldier Marker on the veteran’s grave.

Robert F. Koenecke, past Commander of Camp #15, designed the marker used to honor Divan and is helping lead the drive to place a Last Soldier Marker on the graves of the last Union veteran buried in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War is a national veterans organization made up of the descendants of the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War. The Sons of Union Veterans has more than 6,000 members across the country and is the successor to the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans organization formed after the Civil War by soldiers who served in the Union Army. The last member of the G.A.R. died in 1956.

For more information contact Dave Daley, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, at 414-418-5112.