TURCHIN HISTORY RECALLED

MOUNDS CITY, Ill. -- Nadine Turchin may have been the first woman to command a U.S. military regiment.

Turchin, who for the last third of her life lived in Southern Illinois, is buried in the National Cemetery near Mounds City.

The Turchin grave is one of those that will be decorated on Memorial Day Monday. Her contribution to the Union Army in the Civil War is indeed a remarkable one.

It happened in Tennessee during the early months of that conflict.

Mrs. Turchin, who accompanied her husband on his Civil War campaigns, serving as a nurse, assumed command of his regiment when Turchin became seriously ill.

She not only nursed her husband, but took his place at the head of the 19th Illinois Regiment, leading the troops into one of its fiercest battles during the spring of 1862. For 10 days, Mrs. Turchin, who was the daughter of a commander in the Russian army, led her husband's unit.

The Turchins are among the hundreds of service veterans who will be honored at the National Cemetery Monday with special memorial services at 11 a.m.

Brig. Gen. John Basil Turchin, who immigrated to the U.S. from Russia in 1856, joined the Union Army upon the outbreak of the Civil War and became the only Russian to become a Union general.

The name of Turchin is a familiar one to some Southern Illinois residents who have heard of the escapades of "The Russian Thunderbolt" or "Mad Russian."

The names appear on a large monument at the National Cemetery, located at the Route 51-37 intersection near Mound City.

"John B. Turchin, Brig. Gen., U.S.V., Born Dec. 24, 1822, died June 18, 1901, and Nadine A., his wife, born Nov. 26, 1828, died July 17, 1904."

The Turchins are buried, side by side.

The Turchins, who originally immigrated from Russia to the Chicago area, moved to Southern Illinois following the great Chicago fire of 1871. He had returned to his job with the Illinois Central Railroad following the Civil War, and after the Chicago fire, he entered into an agreement with the railroad to establish a new railroad town in Southern Illinois.

Gathering a group of Polish immigrants living in Chicago, he moved approximately 300 miles south where he established the town of Radom, named for a city in Poland. A dozen years later, the community had more than 500 families, a church, a school, saloon, two stores and two blacksmiths shops.

Turchin lived on an 80-acre farm about a mile from the village, which is now the location of DuQuoin.

Turchin, who was born Ivan Vasilovitch Turchinoff, in the province of Don, Russia, advanced to the rank of colonel in the Russian Army and served on the personal staff of the future Czar Alexander II. He had seen service in Hungary, Finland and the Crimea before settling in the U.S. as an engineer with the Illinois Central Railroad.

It was as John Basil Turchin that he gained some fame during the Civil War.

Anna author George Parks mentions Turchin in his three-volume, "Union County History."

"I didn't know that much about Turchin," said Parks. "But, legend carried many stories about him. Many thought he was one of President Lincoln's best generals. His life ended at the Anna State Hospital."

Turchin attended engineer's school at Philadelphia, and obtained employment with the railroad at Mattoon, Ill., in 1858. Mattoon was then one of the new towns springing to life along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad.

The Turchins eventually moved to Chicago, and when the war between the states began, he enlisted and was named a colonel with the 19th Illinois Unit on June 17, 1861.

When the regiment marched through the streets crowded with cheering Chicago citizens, to entrain for the field of action, one woman Nadine Turchin accompanied the regiment, which first went to Quincy, Ill., then eastward into Kentucky and Washington, D.C., then back to Tennessee.

Turchin received raves from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, a West Point graduate, but this was to be short-lived.

During one attack, on Athens, Ala., a complaint was made charging Turchin's men with ravaging the town, stealing property and abusing the womenfolk.

Buell, who also disliked the presence of Mrs. Turchin in the field, demanded Turchin's arrest and ordered him court martialed.

It was at this point that Mrs. Turchin, who had followed her husband on campaigns in Russia, journeyed to Washington and persuaded President Lincoln to set aside the verdict and restore her husband to duty.

Lincoln followed Mrs. Turchin's request, not only restoring Turchin to duty, but promoting him to brigadier general.

At age 78, Turchin suffered a mental breakdown and was taken to the Illinois State Hospital at Anna, where doctors attributed his conditions to the sunstroke he had suffered in 1864.

Turchin died on June 18, 1901. His widow was granted a pension of $50 per month for her "personal services during the war."

Not much is known of Mrs. Turchin, but Mary A. Livermore, in a book, "My Story of the War," wrote:

"I met Madame Turchin at Springfield, Ill., when her husband's unit was there waiting marching orders. She was fine looking, but unmistakably foreign in appearance and manner. She was intensely loyal and thoroughly American in her sympathies and interests."

Livermore also wrote about Mrs. Turchin's battle actions.

"In the spring of 1862, when her husband was seriously ill, Madame Turchin not only nursed her husband, but took his place at the head of the regiment. The men in the ranks, and the subordinate officers, accorded her implicit obedience. She was not one whit behind her husband in courage or military skill," wrote Livermore.

"Utterly devoid of fear, and manifesting perfect indifference to shot or shell or minnie balls, even though they fell thickly around her, she led the troops into action, facing the hottest fire, and fought bravely at their head."

Upon her death, on July 17, 1904, Nadine Turchin was buried alongside her husband in the National Cemetery.

A special act of Congress made this possible.

The one tombstone bears both names.