General P.S. Post - Sandburg's Hometown - by Barbara Schock

When Carl Sandburg was a boy there were many veterans of the Civil War living in Galesburg. One of the most prominent was Philip Sidney Post. His home was at the northwest corner of Grove and Prairie Streets (now the Club House of the Galesburg Woman's Club).

Post was born March 19, 1833, in Florida (Orange County) New York. His parents were Peter Schuyler and Mary Coe Post. He attended Union College in Schenectady and Poughkeepsie Law School in the state of New York. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1856. The family came to Galesburg in the early 1850s.

He went west and settled in Kansas where he established a newspaper and practiced law. When the southern states seceded from the Union Post enlisted in Company A, 59^th Illinois Infantry on July 17, 1861. He became Second Lieutenant of the company. There were 104 other men from Knox County in the company.

Post was seriously injured several times during the war. From May, 1862, he was constantly in the front lines of the fighting. He was promoted to Major in 1863, Colonel in 1864 and then Breveted Brigadier General. After the end of the war he was posted to the Western District of Texas at New Braunfels, in operations to protect the border with Mexico. He was mustered out of the army December 8, 1865.

The following year Post was appointed vice consul at Vienna, Austria. He was promoted to Consel General in 1874. In 1879 he resigned and the family returned to Galesburg. Philip and his wife, Cornelia Post, had three childred while living in Austria. He practiced law and invested in farm land while living at 516 North Prairie Street.

General Post was elected Commander of the Illinois Department of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1886. In May of the following year, Post 45 in Galesburg held a fundraising concert. The Mendelsson Quintette of Boston performed and General Post was among the attendees.

At the close of the concert, W.F. Bailey, a member of Post 45, called Post to the stage. Bailey then pinned a Past Department Commander badge on General Post's coat. The gift was of solid gold. The design showed theGrand Army of the Republic emblem as well as the number of the General's army corps. It also included three diamonds in the design. The Republican-Register pointed out the pin had cost $100.

In 1887 P.S. Post was elected to Congress from the 50^th Congressional District and served until his death January 6, 1895, in Washington. The remains were accompanied to Galesburg by a number of Congressmen and lay in state in the Knox County Courthouse before the funeral. Burial was in Hope Cemetery.

Many years later Carl Sandburg would write in his autobiograpny, Always the Young Strangers, about the day of the funeral and the happenings in the barbershop of the Union Hotel where he was working.