Andrew Ward
The Jarvis-Ward-Atwood octagon house, 121 West Wilson Street, built for Mr. Jarvis from red brick made at a kiln, owned by W.A.P. Morris, at the turn of Langdon Street. The brick for Governor Farwell's octagonal house also came from this kiln. The Jarvis house was so expensive to build, however, that it had to be mortgaged. Only three of the fourteen rooms in the house are four-sided. The house later had a spiral staircase from the first to the fourth floor, and had eighteen steps per flight. It was later remodeled and used as a headquarters for the Salvation Army. (WHS Image ID 37817)
Andrew Ward (March 1, 1824 to July 10, 1893) was surgeon for the Iron Brigade during the Civil War. An ancestor, Andrew, was governor of Connecticut in 1634; his grandfather Ichabod served in the Revolution. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania medical school in 1846, then joined the army upon the outbreak of the War with Mexico, traveling to California around Cape Horn. He came to Madison in 1850, remaining until he went to Pike’s Peak seeking gold in 1860. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the 2nd Wisconsin, serving as the unit’s surgeon for the next three years. At Gettysburg he amputated Lucius Fairchild’s left arm (their graves are located within sight of each other at Forest Hill Cemetery). At the Wilderness he dealt with 900 wounded in a couple of days. As the Petersburg siege began in 1864 he was transferred to the 43rd Wisconsin in Nashville, acting as inspector of hospitals. Ward returned to Madison after the war with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
His wife Eleanor (1825 – February 11, 1910) married Andrew just before the War with Mexico. She accompanied him during the Civil War, and “by her gentle courage and indomitable faith won the love of all who met her.” She showed “courage and cheerfulness under hardships at the front,” particularly in the hospital after the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. According to Lucius Fairchild, “she needed only a newspaper and a packing box to turn her husband’s tent into a home of luxury and refinement.” The Wards lived on Carroll Street and at 121 West Wilson Street in an octagonal house of red brick modeled after Leonard Farwell’s.
Mark Gajewski