The Remarkable Story of the McClure Brothers (Civil War/Gibson County History)

You can read part of the story in the news article, below, published on page 4 of the 1 Sep 1911 Evansville Journal newspaper. It tells of the annual reunion of the 17th Indiana Infantry Regiment, Company H, assembled in Gibson County, Indiana, during the Civil War.

Not mentioned was a fifth McClure brother, Alex, who died four years earlier. He also served in this company of Gibson County men. David, mentioned above, was their brother who served in a different Indiana company and regiment during the war.

Now, the McClure brothers were sons of Catherine Devin-McClure (1812-1888), who was Rev. Alexander Devin's daughter. The Devin family pioneered Gibson County and Princeton, Indiana. Catherine's brothers ran a mercantile business on the square in Princeton and the building on the Northwest Corner of the Public Square is the Devin Block, built by them in the 1800's. They were well known for selling loads of pork and produce at the Port of New Orleans, floating their merchandise by flatboat down the rivers. In fact, the name Joseph Devin was popular among the residents of that town, I have a second cousin named after him, Joseph Devin Hussey (1859-1951).

So FIVE of Catherine's sons went off to war in 1861 as part of the Union Army...and ALL OF THEM came home in one piece! That is quite remarkable! And their regiment (Indiana's 17th) was active in famous battles at Chickamauga and the Siege of Atlanta. You can easily fact check me on that.

Here are the brothers names and dates, in order, all but one of them died in Indiana:

ALEXANDER DEVIN MCCLURE, 22 Dec 1837 - 6 Mar 1907
JAMES M. MCCLURE, MD, 20 Jan 1841 - 14 Mar 1913 (He attended medical college in Chicago after the war, then set up his practice in St. Louis, practicing general medicine)
JOSEPH DAVID MCCLURE, 9 Jul 1844 - 6 Jan 1919
ROBERT MOFFIT MCCLURE, 16 Sep 1846 - 26 Dec 1926 (Died in Kansas)
WILLIAM GRADY MCCLURE, 29 Mar 1848 - 29 Feb 1920

Interesting to note, that the three youngest brothers were only teenagers when the war broke out, William, the youngest was but 13 years of age.

Dr. James M. McClure, got sick and took the train home from St. Louis, to his youngest brother's house South of Princeton. He died in 1913 at Prentice McClure's residence, a year and one half after the reunion described in the article, above. Here's an excerpt from the medical journal where news of his passing was relayed to his colleagues at the time (note, the date 16 Mar 1913 is the day his obituary ran in the Evansville newspaper).