When the Civil War began in 1861, James Sanborn was a farmer near Marseilles. He enlisted in Company K of the 39th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. In 1863, while waiting for a steamer to go home on furlough from South Carolina, he learned that his company commander, Captain Joseph Woodruff of Marseilles, had been killed by enemy shell fire near Charleston, and he took charge of the captain's remains and brought them home to Marseilles. On August 16, 1864, at the Battle of Deep Run in Virginia, Sanborn was among 97 men and 7 officers of the 39th who lost their lives. His comrades were unable to recover his body, and he rests on that field among the unknown. Sanborn was one of over 250,000 Illinois men who served in the Union Army during the Civil War.