Victor Hicken Author, Macoupin County IL

"Bushrod R Johnson was a Confederate general, first captured at Fort Donelson, but walked out of prison--escaped. Later, during the Battle of Chickamauga, he was instrumental in breaking the Union line.
After the war, he had hard times. Years later, a couple of ex-Union generals were traveling through Macoupin County and asked a farmer for directions. The farmer was old Bushrod, trying to eke a living.

He stayed in Macoupin County and was buried in the Brighton Cemetery in Brighton IL. Through the efforts of Mr Noble Wyatt, Bushrod's body was exhumed from the Brighton Cemetery and moved down beside his wife in Nashville City Cemetery, Nashville TN. A marker was laid at his resting place in Miles Cemetery."

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"The 7th Illinois Volunteer Infantry was instrumental in holding the Union defensive position at Allatoona. Armed with new repeating rifles and commanded by a sturdy little English born farmer from Carlinville, Illinois, the 7th along with a few other regiments kept General Sherman's army, now in Georgia, from being cut off by elements of Gen. Hood's Confederate army. When the battle grew close, General John Corse signaled from mountaintop posts to Gen. Sherman that he needed help. Gen. Sherman replied with a message that journalists corrupted into "Hold the fort, I am coming!" These lines soon became part of a popular hymn of the Civil War period."
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"John M. Palmer began his political career in Carlinville, Illinois. As the Civil War approached, he switched his political allegiance to the Republican Party and, at the commencement of the war, was awarded a officer's commission. He rose to Major-General but, piqued at failing to get a prized command, he resigned his commission. After the war he was both a governor of Illinois and a senator from that state. His correspondence is in Springfield and is almost impossible to read since he wrote both laterally and vertically on each page. One of his pet stories concerned a soldier coming home to Carlinville on leave, only to find his wife in dalliance with another man. The soldier chased the interloper out the back door and into the outhouse, whereupon the veteran pushed the outhouse over onto its doorside. It was the talk of Carlinville, Palmer wrote."
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Other Little Items

"I caught your piece about the bookstore in Carlinville and the chap there being interested in the Virden-Pana mine riot. I wrote an article on that back in the fifties for the Illinois Historical Journal. It was the first done on that incident and has been cited many times. Perhaps the fellow can find that in his local library. Also it occurs to me that you may not know that the famous "Mother" Jones (a nationally known labor union figure) is buried in Mt. Olive. The liberal-radical magazine now published derives its name from her."
Found articles:
The Virden and Pana Mine Wars of 1898 article by Victor Hicken

Mine Union Radicalism in Macoupin and Montgomery Counties (IL) by Victor Hicken

"You mention a Jack Burns. I got a tel. call from a fellow in Gillespie by that name. Using my book on the CW, he and others had dedicated a plaque or something to a gentleman from Gillespie who had won the Medal of Honor in the Civil War."

Growing Up In Coal Town: Main Street - article by Victor Hicken about Gillespie Macoupin County IL during the 1920s and 1930s.

"I grew up in Gillespie next door to Jack Burns' grandparents. Want to know if you knew John Russell who came from Gillespie and who became a judge in Carlinville. Or Leo Brianza who once ran a little store in Carlinville. John went to high school with me, and Leo attended SIU for a little bit while I was there.

Grew up in Gillespie in the Middle Ages. People drove Model T Fords. Still had a livery stable in town. No gangs. The livin' was easy. Fished at the reservoir. Swam in Mine No.1 pond, which is how I became immune to most diseases.

Did you know that Howard Keel who was in the movies (Showboat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Annie Get Your Gun) came from Gillespie. I knew him as Harold Kiel. He is still around in Hollywood and was in that horror "Dallas" for a long time. I actually remember him fairly well. His mother had been widowed and she tried to make a go of it in Gillespie by peddling Watkins products. Tough during the depression.

I should keep notes on what I send out. I'm beginning to repeat myself. Is that the beginning of "Oldtimer's Disease." Let'see. What's the name of this town I'm in?"

DOG GREEN SECTOR - OMAHA BEACH - WORLD WAR II

US LCT(A) 2227 - website

"I would like to point out that the landing craft which I commanded was the first to land on Dog Green Sector, Omaha Beach. We managed to get off but were so shot up that we had to rebeach. The unit following our boat was Co.A, 116th Inf., 29th Div.. It was a National Guard unit from Bedford, Va. and thereabouts, and consisted of brothers, cousins, at least one father and son. Within fifteen minutes all but six of Co. A were dead or wounded; only six men untouched. After that slaughter, that sector of Omaha beach was closed. In the movie, Finding Private Ryan, the landing takes place on Dog Green and the gist of the story is the search for the last brother of a family."

I have the American flag which was taken down just before the boat was sunk in the English Channel. It is full of bullet holes.

CHRISTMAS AT SEA - WWII

"Old LST 1084 was lumbering along at 4 knots an hour, when her engines were functioning. Date Dec. 25, 1946, time 0400. Place midway between Guam and Hawaii. Morale of crew low, wanting to get home, and trip taking forever. Four of us had the morning watch. Over the horizon appears a topmast, then rising from the sea almost was a huge Essex class carrier. Then signals from the carrier spelling out M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S. Warming feelings among the four of us. I have always treasured that moment."

"I really respect the Marines. Our ship took a battalion off Okinawa after they had been fighting for a month. It was really sad. We asked the officers if they wanted to sleep in the officers" quarters. They said "No", we will sleep with the men." That I have always remembered."

Victor's Birthday - Sept 28, 2001 - 80 years old

Mary Hicken's Birthday - 80 years old

Mary and Victor Hicken on Mary's 80th Birthday

Mary and Victor Hicken at a university function 20 Jun 2005

(Permission to copy the following given by Major Greg Watson to Gloria Frazier)

"Dr. Hicken,
Greetings from one of the grateful who have read your books. I came across your name on the Macoupin county genealogy home page. Your book was central to my start in genealogy. Fascinated by the Civil War and raised on stories of how my Dad used to play with his g-grandafather's musket, I began looking for his service record in 1976. That same year I found your book, Illinois In The Civil War, in my school library. With it in hand and the address for the Archives in Springfield, I found not just service records, but real history on the 10th and 61st Illinois Infantry Regiments. One of my g-g-grandfathers has his picture in Stillwell's "Story of A Common Soldier". I bought the update when it came out in 1991.
Currently I am travelling around the deep south, at the pleasure of the Air Force, living about thirty miles east of the Bentonville, NC battlefield. I am rounding out the available information on the 10th, 61st, 97th, 99th, and 144th Illinois Infantry Regiments. Was there ever anyone who did similar books for Indiana or Missouri? I am currently trying to develop information on the the 10th and 49th Missouri Infantry (union). Apparently my wife's Pike County relation jumped the river to enlist.
Anyway, thank you for a wonderful book which has played such a large part in my personal history quest.
vr,
Major Greg Watson

About Dr. Hicken: I have great respect and admiration for him and his work. If the Air Force had an ROTC detachment at Western Illinois in 1981, I'd have gone there instead of SIUE. I have two copies of the Illinois in the Civil War book, a pamphlet from the Centennial Commission that he wrote, and another book called the American Fighting Man which he published in 1973. When I first learned about him I had no idea he was from so near home. I was thrilled when I learned they had published an update in 1991. My personal interest lay with Leander Stillwell of the 61st Illinois, oft quoted in Dr Hicken's book. He grew up in the same township as Enoch W. Wallace, my ggg grandfather.
I am currently serving as an F-15E Weapon Systems Officer at Seymour-Johnson AFB, NC. I am a Major with 13 years on active duty. I graduated from Jerseyvile HS, Lewis & Clark Comm College, SIUE, and have a Master's from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Please use anything of value I might have written - I too would like to honor Dr Hicken. He sent a reply to my email, but it was garbled in transmission.
Thanks,
Greg Watson"

Memories of Professor Victor Hicken
From The Western Alumni News, Winter 1998 By Gordon Taylor, Associate Vice President, Western Illinois University
"Then it was noon and I had one class to go: American History 225 with Victor Hicken. It would be one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. Victor Hicken WAS American history. It oozed from every pore of his body. We lived the American Civil War through the reflective eyes of this splendid educator. From Bull Run to Vicksburg to the burning of Atlanta, he took us with him. You could cut the emotion in the classroom with a knife when he spoke of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomatox. You were there. Victor Hicken knew about war: knew about it first hand, as only a veteran could. You see, a mere 22 years earlier, he had been part of the original assault force on Dog Green sector, Omaha Beach, D-Day, June 6, 1944. Vic Hicken knew how to teach history."
In an email to me, Victor wrote:
"I hesitate to tell you this but a new book called Omaha has a number of references to me and my boat on D-Day, including a little map showing exactly where I landed. I will not tell you more because you would probably try to put the whole book on the website."
Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944
Joseph Balkoski
ISBN: 0811700798
Format: Hardcover, 416pp
Pub. Date: March 2004 Publisher: Stackpole Books
From the Publisher noted at the Barnes and Noble site:
"In Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944, Joseph Balkoski picks up where other historians left off and weaves personal recollections and historical analysis into a gripping, unforgettable narrative of one of the U.S. Army's most costly days of World War II. After placing the D-Day preparations firmly within their diplomatic and strategic context -- from Gen. George Marshall's early enthusiasm for a Normandy landing to the Tehran conference, where Stalin's support moved the plan into its final stages -- Balkoski describes the minute-by-minute combat on Omaha Beach. Using a series of detailed maps to illustrate the progress of the invasion, as well as a broad selection of first-person accounts -- many given mere weeks after the fighting -- Balkoski crafts a seamless story of the action as it unfolded. He allows both officers and enlisted men to speak for themselves, as they vividly recount their attempts to maneuver bombers through heavy cloud cover, the claustrophobic terror of manning a tank aboard a landing vessel, and the relentless fire that greeted them as they inched their way across the beach.
A concluding section recognizes Omaha's Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross recipients and lists the minute details of the landings, such as the order of battle, unit-by-unit casualties, and the equipment the men carried. Equal parts oral history and meticulous reconstruction, Omaha Beach is the closest the modern reader can get to experiencing the Normandy landings firsthand. It is a fitting tribute to the veterans and an indispensable history of one of America's -- and, indeed, the world's -- most important days."
Oct 2006
I remember Frank Fries and when a small boy, saw Mother Jones. I worked at mines No.1 and 2. During the early thirties, the town of Benld was called by the Post Dispatch "the wickedest sin city in the U.S." The people there ignored prohibition and booze flowed freely. There was a constant war between the Newman gang and the Shelton gang. Benld had a beautiful ballroom called the Tarro Showplace. But by 1935 the leading Tarro was in the pen. At one time Benld had something like 40 saloons and houses of prostitution. We in Gillespie always thought of our town as being "clean". Perhaps its was just because everybody was going to Benld. Gloria, I am so old that I remember people writing with chisels. Thanks, vh

The Spirit of Christmas -2006

Two stories from the Hicken family, Mary and Vic. Each is a special memory of the warmth and glow that Christmas can bring.

Mary's mother passed away when she and her two sisters were very young. Her father, now a widower, did the best to hold the family together with cohesive love and affection. Though Christmas time was hard, it was made much easier because three or four men from Captain O'Connell's World War I regiment would bring a tree and toys as well, decorating the apartment while three little girls watched, wide-eyed and expectant . Mary has never forgotten those wonderful moments.

In the Christmas time of 1944, Vic was coming home from the Pacific theater of war. The ship could only make four or five knots an hour, and the time passed ever so slowly. On Christmas morning, Vic was officer of the deck and, as the sky cleared of night, he could see the top of a mast of an obviously large vessel. It was an aircraft carrier. When its conning tower hove into sight, its signal light began to blink ,'Merry Christmas,' was the message. So unexpected, but it gave one a wonderful feeling of the spirit of Christmas.

Each of us has similar stories to tell. And that is why we cherish this special time.

IOWA CITY, Ia. - Victor Hicken passed away on Thursday, April 8, 2010 in Iowa City. He was 88 years old.

He was born September 28, 1921, in Witt, Illinois, the son of Thomas Hicken of Staffordshire, England and Ann Atherton Hicken of Lancashire, England.

He attended public schools in Gillespie, Illinois and earned a Bachelor of Education degree from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, Illinois). After military service, he attended University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, Illinois), from which he received a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in American History.

He met Mary O'Connell while attending United States Naval Officers Candidate School at Columbia University in New York City. They were married on December 28, 1943.

During WWII, Hicken was officer in charge of one of the very first landing craft to hit the beach at Dog Green, the naval landing site located at the heavily fortified Vierville, France sector of Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. His LCT(A) craft was specially designed to carry explosive elements to destroy beach obstacles before the arrival of the first United States and British infantry units. The German fortification and defense of the beach was so intense that of the first 250 Allied soldiers to land on that sector, only thirty survived the first five minutes of the fighting without injury or death. The Allied landing at this spot was portrayed in the movie, "Saving Private Ryan." Hicken's craft was so damaged that it was beached at its landfall and he was forced to stay with the vessel for the ensuing six weeks. The ship's clock, which was stopped at 0630, and the bullet-ridden American flag which flew at the mast were saved by Hicken and are kept by the family as reminders of that deadly and historic encounter. He later was assigned to the Pacific, where his ship endured two typhoons and he witnessed the last Kamikaze attack at Okinawa. Hicken's experiences in WWII were chronicled in the book, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944, by Joseph Balkoski.

In his 34-year tenure as professor of history at Western Illinois University (Macomb, Illinois), Hicken served on every major academic and administrative committee. During his several terms on the Salary Committee, WIU increased faculty salaries to match those of peer institutions.

During his terms on the Faculty Senate, faculty powers were enhanced. Hicken was instrumental in establishing the university archives and went on to document the history of the school in "The Purple and the Gold: The Story of Western Illinois University."

As an instructor, he was named Most Popular Teacher by students, as well as the first Annual Faculty Lecturer, a tradition which began with his address. He also taught courses at Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois) and at Black Hawk College (Moline, Illinois). He served as chair of the History Department from 1967-1969; and in 1976 he was voted Illinois Author of the Year by Illinois Association of Teachers of English. During his last five years at WIU, he held the position of Distinguished University Professor, the first and only WIU professor to be awarded this honor by a faculty committee.

He served on several state committees, including those which helped to define the role of junior colleges in the state, and developed and promoted the teaching of African-American history. He also served on the State Historic Sites Committee and, in 1976, was elected the president of the Illinois State Historical Society. He was appointed guest lecturer at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Hicken also conducted research for the National Education Association and for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, through a Carnegie grant.

Hicken is often listed among Illinois' most noted academic authors. His first major work, "Illinois in the Civil War," is considered a classic in the field, presenting one of the first and best descriptions of the Civil War in the West. Published by the University of Illinois Press and the winner of the Award of Merit by the American Association for State and Local History, the book has been in print for over forty years. He was among the first to write about the critical role of the African-American soldier in the Civil War. Besides contributing pieces to the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, Hicken also wrote for numerous scholarly journals on such subjects as African-American history, political trends, and organized labor issues.

Hicken's personal interests included art, painting, poetry and music. He was a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan and enjoyed playing baseball in the university faculty and staff leagues. He was an avid runner and kept a regular routine of running ten miles a day. He and his wife were members of St. George's Episcopal Church (Macomb, Illinois) congregation for over fifty years. After retiring, he and his wife spent most of their time at their cabin in northern Minnesota where he enjoyed fishing and birding.

He is survived by Mary, his wife of 66 years, now living in Iowa City, Iowa; son Jeffrey Price Hicken and daughter-in-law Mary Sarah Hicken of Minneapolis, Minnesota; granddaughter Elizabeth Ann Hicken, son-in-law Daniel Bellrichard and great-granddaughter Lulu Jeanette Bellrichard of Decorah, Iowa; granddaughter Molly Catherine Hicken of Grand Marais, Minnesota; grandson Andrew Victor Hicken and daughter-in-law Elizabeth Anne Mackey of Madison, Wisconsin; son Brian Thomas O'Connell, daughter-in-law Lesley O'Connell, grandson Evan O'Connell and granddaughter Rachel O'Connell; daughter Elizabeth Ann Christiansen and son-in-law Dana Eric Christiansen of Iowa City, Iowa; and son Daniel Joseph Hicken and daughter-in-law Kimberly Kay Hicken of Riverside, California.

As a husband, father, friend, scholar, teacher and citizen, he will be missed. Carry on, Lieutenant Hicken!

A service of remembrance will be held Saturday, May 1 at 3 p.m. at St. George's Episcopal Church, located at 231 East Carroll Street, Macomb, Illinois. The family requests that memorials be directed to the Hicken Scholarship Fund at Western Illinois University, c/o Foundation Office, 1 University Circle, Macomb, Illinois 61455.

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