Ezra Button and the Civil War

I remember Grandpa Van Dyke telling the story of his great-uncle Ezra being a soldier in the Civil War. The story went like this:

The Civil War was raging and the Union was losing soldiers quickly. There was a request of the government that states in the Union should volunteer men to help with the war. In Wisconsin, an abolitionist state, the call went out far and wide and every county was asked to provide draftees. The recommendation was that the eldest son in each family should be the volunteer. In the Button family, the eldest son was Alexander Henry, but he was married and had two small children so Ezra, Alexander's youngest brother, answered the call. Ezra left to fight in the Civil War and returned at the end to marry Alexander's wife's sister Martha Barker.

A simple story to be sure but was there more. Did Ezra really go and fight in the Civil War? If he did, where did he fight? Was he injured? What else is there about Ezra besides this simple story?

I started looking for evidence that Ezra actually existed. I found him in the Federal Census from 1860 through 1900 living in Bloomfield. I learned that Bloomfield could be either Bloomfield Township or Genoa City. I found that he did indeed marry Martha Barker and lived with her parents through the end of their lives and then took over running the Barker farm after their deaths.

I read the diaries of Alexander Henry Button and learned that these brothers wrote a lot of letters to each other during the beginning months of Ezra's tour of duty. Unfortunately, the letters are gone but wouldn't it be interesting to know what sort of things these brothers said to each other during this dangerous period? I did notice that the letter writing dropped to nothing during the early months of 1863 with no mention as to why and then suddenly Ezra is home visiting his family for 2 weeks. This was a perplexing dilemma. Why would two brothers write letters almost daily, then completely stop for more than 2 months and then surprise, the one brother shows up at home?

Where were the answers? What was the reason for this strange occurrence? What did I learn that makes this story all the more interesting?

It seems that Ezra fought in a number of battles and one resulted in his capture by the Confederate army. He was sent to Libby Prison, a Confederate prisoner of war camp in Richmond, Virginia. See the roster listing of Ezra Button. I also found a website that tells the story of Wisconsin Regiment Infantry Histories, just scroll down to the 22nd Regiment Infantry and read about Ezra's experience during the Civil War. And to answer the question as to why Ezra showed up back home in 1863, there was an exchange of prisoners on May 5 and he was allowed to go home for a couple of weeks before the regiment was reorganized.