Last updated: October 1, 2026
Person
Kleckner, Absalom E.
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Quick Facts
Significance:
Private- Company A, 21st Ohio Infantry
Place of Birth:
Biglick Township, Hancock County, Ohio
Date of Birth:
1839
Place of Death:
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Date of Death:
December 31, 1862
Place of Burial:
Biglick Township, Ohio
Cemetery Name:
Biglick Cemetery
Absalom E. Kleckner was born in Biglick Township, Hancock County, Ohio, about 1839. He was the fourth child of ten born to farmers Isaac and Barbara Kleckner.
On September 19, 1861, at age 21, Absalom enlisted as a private in the 21st Ohio Infantry. Alongside him was his younger brother, Tilden, aged 19, and John C. Leonard, Absalom’s future brother-in-law, aged 18. All three men were assigned to Company A. Absalom and Tilden’s brother, John Franklin, had enlisted ten days earlier and was assigned to Company K, 49th Ohio Infantry. Between the Kleckner and Leonard families, eleven men fought for the United States during the Civil War.
Absalom first saw combat in the Battle of Ivy Mountain, as US troops pushed Confederate forces out of Pikeville in eastern Kentucky on November 8, 1861. From Kentucky, the 21st Ohio moved into Tennessee, where the regiment served an instrumental role in capturing Nashville, in February 1862.
In Spring 1862, the 21st Ohio was deployed south, through Murfreesboro, to capture Huntsville, Alabama. Sometime in April 1862, Absalom was captured by Confederate forces. He returned to his regiment in May, likely through prisoner exchange, although the specifics are unknown.
On June 10, 1862, Absalom married Elizabeth F. Leonard.
Throughout the summer, the 21st Ohio was stationed in Athens, Alabama, and saw action along the Alabama-Tennessee border, fighting at Richland Creek near Pulaski, Tennessee. In late August, the regiment marched to Nashville.
The 21st Ohio spent much of December 1862 in Nashville before advancing on Murfreesboro on December 26 to prepare for the Battle of Stones River.
Eleven days before the battle, on December 20, 1862, Absalom wrote to his wife: “the boys are all very anxious for the fight. For my part I would rather not see a fight. I have no anxiety to be in one, but if I do get in one I will try and do the best I can.”
Absalom and his family would see combat in the morning of December 31, 1862.
In Colonel John F. Miller’s brigade of Gen. James S. Negley’s division, the 21st Ohio fought alongside five brigades of men who held against nine Confederate brigades in the Slaughter Pen. It is during this engagement that Absalom was shot through the head, above his left eye, and killed. His brother, Tilden, was standing close enough to see Absalom fall.
In the time it took for news to travel, Elizabeth Kleckner wrote a letter to her husband that he never received. Marked January 4, 1863, she wrote: “I now sit down to write but who is it I am writing to. Is it a live husband or is it a dead husband. God knows, but I dont know. I hope you are alive....”
John C. Leonard wrote to his sister multiple times in January 1863, relaying the details of Absalom’s death and of others. In one letter, he lamented, “I dont see as we have gained anything yet by all the fighting that was done yet. But I know that we have lost a great many good men already and probably will lose a good many more yet.”
Of the eleven men from the Kleckner-Leonard family, only two survived the war.
Killed at the Battle of Stones River, Absalom Kleckner was originally buried on the battlefield. Absalom was reinterred at Biglick Cemetery, in his hometown of Biglick Township, Ohio.