Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the regiment suffered 700 desertions. The regiment was disbanded on April 1, 1863, by order the War Department. Citing "an utter want of discipline" in the regiment, Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas dismissed the regiment's commanding officer Colonel Robert M. Hundley, 29 other officers, and the regimental chaplain, from Union service on April 4.[3]
The few remaining men of the 128th Illinois were consolidated into a detachment under command of First Lieutenants W. A. Lemma, William M. Cooper, and Assistant Surgeon George W. French and reassigned to 9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment (3 Years).[4]
“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
(Letter to Horace Greeley 1862)
“I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians - however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant's lash, and the cries of his tortured victims.”
Thaddeus Stevens
I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.
Thaddeus Stevens
As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.
Ulysses S. Grant
The fact that you refuse to admit is the southern rebels fired upon and declared war on the United States to protect slavery. It was one of the worst causes that any group has started a war for in the history of mankind. Nothing you say or do will change that fact.
The Union Army had well over 2,000 regiments of which the vast majority served & fought honorably.
Of those 2,000+ Union regiments about 200 were colored troops, which more than made up for any whites who disgraced themselves.
One of my ancestors served in a sister regiment to the 128th, the 119th Illinois from neighboring Quincy.
They were hardly a crack unit, my ancestor didn't even speak much English, but over three years the 119th marched thousands of miles, fought dozens of battles, suffered hundreds killed, wounded or captured and earned one medal of honor.
The 119th's regimental history mentions Union Generals Sherman, Halleck, Rosecrans & Thomas, Confederate Generals Forrest, Price and Hood, but says nothing about slavery or emancipation, indeed, nothing remotely political.