The Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, also known as Camp Sumter, was designed to hold a maximum of 10,000 Union prisoners. At its peak, it held more than three times that number under horrific conditions. During its 14 months of existence, Andersonville Prison held more than 45,000 Union soldiers, of whom 12,920 died, […]
Capt. Solomon T. Lyon of the 5th Michigan Infantry has been described as a recipient of the Kearny Medal and there is a photo that seems to prove it. The trouble is that, not only was Capt. Lyon not on the official list of recipients, but he apparently didn’t qualify to receive the medal. So […]
Annie Etheridge is one of at least four women who are known to have received the Kearny Cross. And, although she never actually enlisted in the army (serving as a volunteer field nurse or “vivandiere”), she is frequently described as one of the very few female private citizens who received a pension for her service to the […]
In “The Battle of Gettysburg Discussion Group” on Facebook, Jessie Weedleton pointed to an article in the The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which said that a memorial to Civil War soldiers in the city cemetery in Lisbon, Iowa included a large boulder that had been moved from the battlefield at Gettysburg. According to the article, “The […]
As some of you know, I’m writing a book about the Kearny Cross: a medal which was awarded by Union General David B. Birney (and named in memory of his predecessor) to members of the First Division, Third Corps, Army of the Potomac. There were two versions of the medal: the “Kearny Medal of Honor” […]
The list of veterans who attended the 1938 reunion at Gettysburg is well-documented … in theory. The official report of the Pennsylvania Commission1 includes a list of those veterans who attended but there are several problems with that list. First, the book is hard to find and therefore not readily accessible to most researchers. Second, […]
For those who may be interested, these are the attendance figures for the 1913 (50th) and 1938 (75th) veterans reunions at Gettysburg as published in the official reports of the Pennsylvania Commission: Attendance at Gettysburg Reunions 1913 1938 (50th Anniversary) (75th Anniversary) Residence # Union+Conf. # Union+Conf. Alabama 200 (0+200) 26 (6+20) Arizona 10 (7+3) […]
The 1913 Gettysburg reunion was the largest meeting of Civil War veterans after the war. Yet genealogists and other researchers have never had access to a list of those who attended. I am very pleased to report that I have discovered what I believe are the original, unpublished registers that were signed by the veterans […]
As mentioned earlier, I’ve transcribed the 1860 U.S. Federal Census of Gettysburg and will include all of those people in a future version of Pocket Gettysburg. In addition to the previous analysis of the census, here is some interesting financial data about the residents of the Borough in 1860… Value of Real Estate Males Females […]
I’ve transcribed the entire 1860 Federal Census of Gettysburg in the ongoing effort to learn more about the residents of the Borough at the time of the battle. (I might even add all of the residents in a future version of our smartphone app, Pocket Gettysburg.) The transcription process was time-consuming because I frequently found myself […]