Captain Henry Howland
Quartermaster, Fifty-First Illinois Infantry

Howland was born in Massachusetts in 1827. While in his twenties he moved to Chicago and became engaged in the lumber business. The 1860 census lists his occupation as "commission merchant" and his wife as Jane E., born in New York. They had a son Allin, age 2, and a newborn daughter, Grace. They were living in Chicago's Fifth Ward. In September 1861, Howland signed up with the Fifty-First Illinois and received a commission as regimental quartermaster.

Here John Fitch briefly reprises Howland's military career in his 1864 edition of Annals of the Army of the Cumberland:

Captain Henry Howland, Assistant Quartermaster [of Palmer's Brigade] is a native of Conway, Massachusetts, where his parents now reside. In October, 1852, he removed to Chicago, Illinois, and for several years was extensively engaged in the lumber-trade in that city. He was commissioned as quartermaster of the 51st Illinois Infantry, September 20, 1861, and left Chicago with his regiment on the 14th of February, 1862. On the 4th of March the regiment was ordered to join the Army of the Mississippi, then under the command of General Pope; and Quartermaster Howland was left at Cairo to attend to the transportation of the regiment. Rejoining it at New Madrid, Missouri, on the 13th of March, he was the same day detailed by General E. A. Paine, commanding the 1st Division, as quartermaster of the division. He acted as aide to General Paine in the Battle of Farmington, May 8 and 9, 1862. On the 9th of June, 1862 he was appointed by the President assistant quartermaster, with the rank of captain and remained with the old 1st Division of the Army of the Mississippi until December 10, 1862, when, by order of General Rosecrans, he was transferred to the old 4th Division of the Army of the Ohio, now the 2d Division of the 21st Army Corps.

In April 1862, as the Fifty-First Illinois steamed along the rivers to Pittsburg and Hamburg Landings, Howland wrote this letter to his family.

Luther Bradley, colonel of the regiment, told this story about Howland as regimental quartermaster in the Autumn of 1862 when the Fifty-First Illinois was charged with holding Decatur, Alabama. Bradley wrote,

In 1862, that country was full of cotton and everybody wanted some of it... We had no entrenching tools, so I had a few hundred bales of cotton hauled in from neighboring plantations and fortified with that. We repaired the railroad from Corinth to Decatur, so we had rail connection with the north... One day a St. Louis gentleman came down on the train from Corinth with a Treasury permit to buy cotton, and plenty of money to pay for it. He showed me his papers, and I told him he was all right, the country was full of cotton, and he could get all he wanted of it. But, he said, I can't handle cotton without teams, and from what I can learn you have the only teams in the country. This was true, so, after talking with my quartermaster, we decided to let his train haul in cotton for the St. Louis man, charging a good round price per bale, and good extra duty pay for the men. The sum charged for hauling went into the Hospital fund. the cotton buyer got all the stuff he wanted, paying for it fairly. It was shipped north on the cars, and he went off happy. My quartermaster was a shrewd Chicago lumberman, and I found out afterward that the St. Louis man told him that, if he got his cotton through safely, he should give him a certain per centage of his profits, and he did, afterward, deposit to the credit of Capt. Howland in a St. Louis bank, the sum of $10,500.

Howland served on with the Army of the Cumberland, until Major General John M. Palmer, in February 1864, wiped Sherman's dust from his feet and moved on to the Department of Kentucky as military governor. Howland went with Palmer as his quartermaster. Howland's military service continued until January 19, 1867. While in Kentucky, Howland and Jane Eliza had another son, George, born in 1866. After mustering out of the army, Howland returned to Chicago and again took up the lumber business.

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