Pages 4541
Whole Number 171
In Vol. 33 of Annals of Iowa appears the text of a diary kept by William Salter who had been sent by an organization called the Christian Commission to observe "battle hospitals" of the Union Army in the summer of 1864. One entry (p. 143) reads: "Wed., July 27th [1864] Before Atlanta. Isaac Wickham died this eventing. Ellery Sparks also died. Wrote letters for both."
88.1 Ellery E. Sparks, son of 88. John and Sarah (Anderson) Sparks, was born May 24, 1845, in Muscatine County, Iowa. He had enlisted at Davenport, Iowa, on November 14, 1862, in Company A, 11th Regiment Iowa Infantry. He died July 27, 1864, from wounds suffered in the Battle of Atlanta five days earlier. See the Quarterly of June 1975, No. 90, pp. 1734-35 for an abstract of the "Dependent Father" pension application made by Ellery's father, 88. John Sparks. [Webmaster: In that article, the birthdate of Elery Sparks was given as March 13, 1846.]