Son of Enos E. H. H. Barton and Permelia Haskins

Married Mary A. Adamson on November 24, 1867 in Benton County, Iowa
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Orlo "Ben" Bennezette Barton Story – from the Historical Column of the Parker's Grove Baptist Church ♥2♥ Newsletter -- written by Rev. Milan Lambertson about 1964 after interviewing Ben's daughter, Lydia Barton Fisher and other family members.

Ben Barton enlisted in the Union Army at the age of 16. His older brother, Enos, enlisted, too. Enos died of the "bloody flux" at Milliken's Bend, Tennessee. Dysentery had also struck Ben; he lay critically ill at the crude army hospital quarters. Somehow, he reasoned that if he could just get back home to Iowa, to Parker's Grove, he'd get well.
With resolve but without permission, he crawled on hands and knees to the tent of General U. S. Grant. The general was kind and understanding. Yes, he could arrange for a medical discharge. No, Ben replied that a furlough would be enough. Then after he got well, he could come back to the Army. So, it was arranged for two men going north by train on special duty to accompany poor Ben Barton and care for him.
Lying on the train, not far from death, Ben had his eyes shut. His two escorts, thinking him asleep, discussed his case. Ben overheard what they said. "This poor critter won't last the train ride," one remarked. "Why don't we chuck him off the train, and not have to be bothered with him?"
His two escorts were plotting Ben Barton's death. They were going to throw him off the train and leave him to die! But the train stopped at a town and the conspirators got off to buy some food. It was Ben's chance! Ill as he was, he slipped off the railroad car and hid behind a depot door. He saw the two men get on again. The train pulled off, smoke billowing from its huge stack. He was safe! He took a later train for Cedar Rapids. There was no railroad to Shellsburg then, but he got there by stagecoach.
When the exhausted, emaciated man in blue Army uniform got off the coach at Shellsburg, nobody recognized him. He was so weak from illness he plumped down on the ground and propped his back against a storefront.
"Anybody here in town from Parker's Grove?" he inquired. Yes, there were. "Well, tell them I want to see them."
A curious group of men sauntered up. One of them was his father, the older Enos Barton. As he approached, they told him, "Say, this fellow claims he's Ben, your boy."
Enos Barton stared. That ghost of a man! His cheeks were so hollow his teeth could be seen and counted. Looking closer, Enos declared, "No, that's not Ben. But when they got the soldier up and helped him walk, there was something familiar in the way he took a step.
"Oh," the father gasped, "That's Ben!"
How were they to break the news to Mrs. Barton? She was sick and in bed, grieving for one solder-son dead, another unheard from. They decided to send young Alonzo ahead and tell her they had heard from Ben. But the boy told her too much. "Where is he?" she demanded. "Oh, he's a comin' up the road now."
With a whoop she jumped out of bed and ran out the door. What a sight Mother was, with bedclothes trailing as she ran! And what a shock to see Ben! But she soon got to feeling better. Ben recuperated, too, now that he was back home at Parker's Grove.

When he went back to the Army, he was transferred from front-line duty to being a cook. He also worked in an army hospital in Rhode Island where he treated smallpox cases. He too had caught the disease, and the second time he returned from war he was again hard to recognize. He would carry to his dying day little pits which the smallpox had left on his face.
After the end of the Civil War, he met Mary Adamson, a Quaker woman whose family had recently emigrated to Iowa in a covered wagon. They settled in Eden Township, several miles west of the Bartons.
At first Mary may have pitied the young, sickly veteran with the pock-marked face. But she saw him thrive under the tiring farm work. She knew he was a Christian. She heard how he had saved his pay during the war, so that when his father bought 40 acres in the southwest corner of Section 21 of Canton Township, Ben had bought 40 acres, too. They had the deed for it, written up the last of October 1865, by the Dubuque land office.
Their wedding was on Thanksgiving Day – November 24, 1867. Ben was 22; Mary was 20.