Excerpt from Colonel Charles A. Zollinger: Seven-Time Mayor of Fort Wayne<br><br>At the age of seventeen, he left home and traveled to Minne sota where he remained about four years. His occupation in the North Star state is unknown; but when he returned to Fort Wayne in 1859, hehad decided to learn the trade of a blacksmith. Apprenticed to Colonel J. W. Whitaker in New Haven, Indiana, he worked hard at learning his chosen trade until the outbreak of the Civil War.<br><br>On April 12, 1861, the Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and precipitated the four-year con flict between the North and South. President Lincoln immediately called for volunteers to serve three months; a month later, the President called for volunteers to serve three years or more. Drafting men for military service was not practiced in the United States until March 3, 1863.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.