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Copy negative of a carte de visite portrait of an unidentified Union soldier during the American Civil War by Washington, D.C., photographer C.M. Bell in the late 1800's. Source: Library of Congress.

TIME colorized some of the most iconic images of the Civil War

Here's a young Civil War era couple - don't they look very formal. This is a CDV (Cartes de Visit) photograph. They were photog...

Three images of the revolver of 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew, whose name is inscribed on the weapon (top). (Photos courtesy of current owner) Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew was mortally wounded at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road. (Image courtesy Tad Sattler) Abandoned by his comrades deep in enemy territory, the body of 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew was left for the Rebels to bury by the side of a road. A bullet had ripped through his haversack and exited the front of his body during the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, near Petersburg, Va., mortally wounding the officer fondly called "Perk" by those who knew him well. Although he wasn't present during the battle on Oct. 27, 1864, regiment adjutant William Hincks wrote a detailed account of Bartholomew's death to his mother, apparently with information gleaned from soldiers in the regiment. The officer from Bridgeport, Conn., had plenty of experience with the grim duty of informing relatives of the deaths of their loved ones. "I know that it ... is very hard that he was not brought in and that we had to leave his burial to the enemy," he wrote on Nov. 13, 1864, "but remember that we were in the enemy's country miles away from our own lines, the enemy upon almost every side of us in greatly superior numbers." Trying to soften the blow of her son’s death, Hincks took pains to explain to Caroline Bartholomew that her son did not suffer, the regiment did all it could for Perkins and that one soldier indeed remained with him when he died. Efforts to recover Perkins Bartholomew's body were fruitless, according to this report in the Hartford Daily Courant on Nov. 28, 1864. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.) "He vomited occasionally," he wrote. "He had his senses perfectly and remained conscious of his condition. We had but two or three officers but one of them detailed a number of men to carry him away. The ambulances had all gone back with wounded men before. The lieutenant of the ambulance train agreed to send back an ambulance for him and did so. But it was an uncommonly dark night and rainy and the ambulance got lost in the woods and never found him." Hincks noted that a comrade heard Bartholomew's dying words -- “Tell my mother I die like a man fighting for my country" -- and retrieved the dead officer's shoulder straps and memo book. Both items may have been forwarded to Mrs. Bartholomew. Perhaps another memento made its way back to the 23-year-old officer's family: Bartholomew's Manhattan Navy revolver. The weapon, inscribed with Perkins' name, rank and regiment, was purchased in the 1980s at a Civil War show by a longtime collector, who recently shared with me images of the prized collectible. The revolver shows considerable wear, according to the self-proclaimed "octogenerian" collector, an indication it was used during the war and may have been with Bartholomew the morning he died. Despite efforts by Perkins' friend, a doctor named Frank Dudley, and others, the lieutenant's body was never found. He “died in a cause that has called thousands before him," Dudley wrote to Bartholomew's sister on Feb. 2, 1865, "and thousands still must be sacrificed before this wicked war will end.” Perkins Bartholomew's shoulder boards. (Tad Sattler collection) Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here. SOURCES: --14th Connecticut adjutant William B. Hincks to Caroline Bartholomew, Nov. 13, 1864, MS Civil War Box II, Folder 3, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn. -- Dr. Frank A. Dudley letter to Carrie O’Neal, Feb.2, 1865, MS Civil War Box II, Folder 3, Connecticut Historical Society.

Armless vet George Warner (on rock) at 20th Connecticut monument dedication at Gettysburg. (HOVER ON IMAGE FOR PRESENT-DAY VIEW OF THIS SCENE ON CULP'S HILL) Adapted from my book, Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. E-mail me here for information on how to purchase an autographed copy. In the months and years after George Washington Warner had both his arms nearly completely blown off by friendly fire at Gettysburg , a stark picture was presented of the former 20th Connecticut private. “This case calls for unusual sympathy,” a Hartford surgeon wrote after a medical visit by Warner in the winter of 1864. "He is entirely helpless -- so far as that he cannot dress himself nor eat his food without the aid of others,” Homer Buchanon and John Richardson, Warner’s neighbors in New Haven, Connecticut, noted ten years later. “… it is unsafe for him to walk out from his home alone and consequently [he] is always attended by a young man … he [is] entirely incapacitated from performing any act without the aid and assistance of one or more persons.” And yet despite his handicaps, Warner led a remarkable, eventful life after the Civil War. “… the former soldier radiates cheerfulness and optimism as he sits on the veranda of his cosy [sic] little home and nods to passers-by or chats with his neighbors,” Warner’s hometown newspaper reported five decades after he was grievously wounded. “Life has been no sweet dream for Mr. [Warner], but he has made the best of it, and intends to enjoy things to the utmost for a good many years to come.” Married with five children before the war, Warner fathered three more children with wife Catherine after he was discharged from the army on October 17, 1863. A frequent attendee at Grand Army of the Republic veterans’ events, Warner was a familiar figure for years in New Haven at Memorial Day parades and monument dedications. "Life has been no sweet dream" for George Warner, his hometown newspaper wrote five decades after he was severely wounded at Gettysburg. (Bob O'Brien collection) At the dedication of the 20th Connecticut monument in Gettysburg on July 3, 1885, Warner was given the honor of raising a huge American flag from atop the monument near the crest of Culp’s Hill, about 300 yards from where he was terribly wounded 22 years earlier. A special pulley was constructed that allowed him to do the honors by simply moving backward with a rope tied around his waist. Afterward, Warner, wearing a regimental ribbon and a bowler hat and sitting atop a boulder near the monument, posed with his comrades for an image shot by renowned Gettysburg battlefield photographer William Tipton. Nearly two years later, on June 17, 1887, Warner was called upon to unveil one of the four statues at the base of the 110-foot Soldiers and Sailors monument at the summit of East Rock Park in New Haven. In one of the grandest events in the city’s history, thousands marched on a hot, hazy day from the center of town to East Rock, 400 feet above New Haven and Long Island Sound. “The crowd surged where it pleased,” the New Haven Morning News reported. “Its very magnitude made it omnipotent.” A huge procession that included hundreds of veterans crossed a bridge and wound its way to the park, where merchants were “busy as bees” selling ice cream and beer. “The river of moving blue coats, brass buttons and the various uniforms of the civic societies presented a magnificent appearance …,” another local newspaper reported. While cannons of three warships offshore boomed in celebration, many in the crowd at East Rock, estimated by some at 100,000, sought shade in the woods. At about 2 p.m., former Union generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan were in attendance as Warner, again using a special pulley and a rope, remarkably removed the drapery on the statue with his teeth. On June 16, 1905, at the dedication of a Civil War monument on New Haven's Broadway, near Yale University, Warner used another special contraption that also allowed him to use his teeth to remove a flag to unveil the 33-foot granite monument. Afterward, he presented in his clenched teeth a small American flag to Gen. Edwin Greeley, a former 10th Connecticut colonel. In the decades after the war, Warner’s son, William, frequently accompanied him, helping him scratch out a living selling books and paying the trolley fare for his armless father. Warner also peddled carte de visites of himself -- in one he looks forlorn, empty sleeves of a coat dangling by his side, while in another George sits with his five children and his wife, who holds a cannon ball. A device attached to doors in Warner’s three-story house on Edgewood Street, near the Yale Bowl in New Haven, allowed the veteran to open them with his feet. In his later years, Warner sometimes rode the trolley alone (with the fare in his coat pocket for the conductor), played records on his phonograph and loved to play pinochle. Son Charles, a cabinet maker, built his father a box on which he could place his cards so he could easily point out which one he wanted to play with his stump. JULY 3, 1885:: 20th Connecticut veterans at dedication of their monument at Gettysburg. Randy Bieler collection. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.) Born May 9, 1832 in Glastonbury, Connecticut, George was one of 10 children of Andrew and Phoebe Warner, who squeaked out a living as farmers. When he was 12, Warner was employed as a laborer on a local man’s huge farm along the Connecticut River, earning $12 a month – enough to purchase a cow as a present for his mother. (The family apparently sold the animal for a profit two years later.) After Warner’s father died, George, several of his siblings and his mother found employment in a cotton mill. On August 5, 1862, Warner enlisted in the 20th Connecticut in Derby, leaving behind his wife and children in nearby Beacon Falls, where George was employed as a mill worker. “It was a sacrifice,” the New Haven Register reported in 1922, “but it showed the stuff of which the men of those hectic days were made.” At Chancellorsville, Virginia, on May 2, 1863 -- the 20th Connecticut’s first battle of the war -- Warner and his comrades held a small trench at the foot of a hill. Union artillery was positioned to the rear of the regiment, near a patch of woods. When Rebels appeared at the top of a hill, the regiment was caught in a crossfire fire between the two armies, sending Warner and his comrades running for the lives into the woods “to keep from being cut to pieces.” “I escaped unhurt,” Warner recalled years later, “but one piece of lead struck my knapsack and took it clear off my back. I lost all my little keepsakes, including a picture of my wife, but I couldn’t stop then.” Lt. Col.William Wooster, the 20th Connecticut’s commander, was among those who were captured. Two months later at Gettysburg, Warner was terribly mangled when a fragment of an artillery shell fired from Federal batteries on Baltimore Pike or Powers Hill struck his right arm as the 20th Connecticut made its way up the south side of Culp’s Hill early on the morning of July 3, 1863. The regiment was attempting to re-capture earthworks it had constructed the previous day. The fragment severed the arm a few inches below Warner’s shoulder, shockingly carrying the limb several feet from him; another fragment, perhaps from the same round, struck the thirty-one-year-old private’s left arm and forearm, lacerating the soft parts badly and breaking bones. Warner also suffered severe flesh wounds on his scalp and left knee. Post-war image of George and Catherine Warner and six of their children. Mrs. Warner holds a cannonball. (Bob O'Brien collection) Incensed by the toll his army’s own artillery took on his men, Wooster, released by the Rebels after Chancellorsville, threatened to turn his regiment on the Union battery responsible. “He [Wooster] was not only required to keep the enemy in check, but encountered great difficulty, while resisting the enemy, in protecting himself against the fire of our own artillery, aimed partly over his command at the enemy in and near our intrenchments,” 1st Brigade commander Archibald L. McDougall of the 123rd New York recalled. “His greatest embarrassment was the farther he pushed the enemy the more directly he was placed under the fire of our own guns. Some of his men became severely wounded by our artillery fire.” Another officer threatened to personally shoot members of the battery responsible. Circa-1910 image of Warner and his wife, Catherine. (Courtesy Bob O'Brien) An hour after he was wounded, Warner’s left arm was amputated by regimental surgeon J. Wadsworth Terry. Initially unaware that he had lost both arms, Warner soon came to a sober realization: "Why, surgeon, I've lost my right arm too," he told Terry. "I thought I had only lost my left!" Nearly a month after his wounding, a Soldiers’ Aid Association volunteer observed Warner in a XII Corps hospital near Gettysburg, noting the private had “both arms off” and was also wounded in the legs, but was “apparently doing well.” On July 29, 1863, a doctor wrote that Warner’s condition was good and that he slept well and took long walks about the grounds of the hospital. His wounds, the doctor noted, were “quite open and discharging freely.” Three months later, at an army hospital in Philadelphia, a surgeon wrote the obvious: “He is unfit for Invalid Corps.” Catherine traveled from Connecticut to escort her crippled husband home. Not surprisingly, shortly after Warner applied for a pension in 1863, it was quickly granted. He received $8 a month in October 1863, with an increase to $25 a month in 1864, $50 a month in 1878 and later another increase to $100 a month in 1889. In 1918, Warner sought another increase, noting in a letter to the Bureau of Pensions that he had “been told that all Civil War veterans are getting an increase in pension and [I] would like to know if I benefit by it.” Already receiving the maximum allowed by Congress, he was denied more government aid. “In the hospital, they treated me fine, too. I couldn’t have asked for anything better." -- George Warner, recalling his treatment during the Civil War Despite what the war did to him, Warner said he didn’t regret his service. “I was treated good and had plenty to eat all the time… although there wasn’t much strawberry shortcake,” he said shortly after his 90th birthday. “In the hospital, they treated me fine, too. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.” Outliving his wife and five of his eight children, Warner died October 12, 1923. The 91-year-old veteran was laid to rest next to his wife in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, where he lived for fifty-eight years. SOURCES: -- George Warner pension file, National Archives and Records Administratoion, Washhington D.C. -- Hartford Daily Courant, July 30, 1863 -- Hartford Courant, June 17, 1905 -- New Haven Morning News, June 18, 1887 -- New Haven Journal-Courier, May 26, 1981 -- New Haven Register, May 21, 1922 -- “Program For The Dedication of a Soldiers Monument, First Light Battery and the Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Connecticut Volunteers Monument Association”, 1905 -- The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1901 -- Storrs, John W., The Twentieth Connecticut, A Regimental History, Ansonia, Conn., The Press of the Naugatuck Valley Sentinel, 1886 Like this blog on Facebook.

Here's a tintype I found offered in an online auction. I have never seen that kind of shield appliqued to clothing before. A fireman? Another fascinating outfit. The Union case and red, white and blue painted cockade indicate a Union sympathizer, but this is not a soldier's clothing. He seems to be wearing a cotton print, what might be called a conversation print, with rather large images scattered about. The compass on the left might have to do with the Masons. The imagery may be from fraternal organizations rather than political. There's an arm and hammer, perhaps a labor organization logo. This one is less mysterious. I flipped the picture over so the word would be correct. Daguerreotypes and ambrotypes are always reversed. Perhaps she's dressed for a pageant or parade.

One weekend only, during the year of 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, Conner Prairie transforms into a Civil War battleground. Watch eyes grow wide when horses charge and cannons roar as reenactors from across the country bring an 1860s battle to life again. Young and old can learn firsthand what the Civil War was about from Union and Confederate soldiers.

Shown in a post-war photo, John Steven Thompson served in the 3rd Vermont. (Photo courtesy Richard Clem) Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter In the fall of 1985, longtime relic hunter Richard Clem of Hagerstown, Md, uncovered a small identification disc that belonged to a Civil War soldier named John Steven Thompson. The rare find was the start of Clem's nine-year journey to discover more about Thompson, who served in the 3rd Vermont until the end of the war. Clem and his brother, Don, have hunted for Civil War relics in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland for four decades. Here's his story on Thompson: By Richard Clem Early on the morning of July 22, 1899, a body was discovered floating face down in Plum Creek, Rice County, Kan. A small crowd slowly gathered from nearby Bushton as the bloated, unrecognizable corpse was pulled from the muddy water. A local newspaper reported that “the body was a horrible sight, having been in the water for a week. Upon examination, a pension voucher was found in one of the pockets which showed it to be the body of an old soldier, once a member of the 3rd Vermont Infantry -- John Thompson.” A coroner rendered a report: “Cause of death -- unknown.” The Civil War veteran was buried in the Bushton Cemetery beneath soil he had farmed for so many years. Richard Clem told tales of his relic hunting exploits at Connecticut Day at Antietam in April 2012. To trace Thompson’s journey from Vermont to Kansas, let’s turn the clock to Oct. 11, 1985. On that beautiful fall afternoon, my brother Don and I were searching for Civil War relics with metal detectors just west of Antietam Creek in Washington County, near Funkstown, Md. The land we were searching was camped on by the Army of the Potomac following the Battle of Gettysburg. On this line in July 1863, General George G. Meade’s blue-clad soldiers carefully watched General Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia at Williamsport. Lee nervously waited for the flooded Potomac River to recede for a safe crossing to Southern soil. Around 6 inches deep, beside a flat limestone ledge, I dug up a brass disc about the size of a quarter. Although traces of gold lettering appeared, it was determined the strange object was not a U.S. coin. While cleaning the small medallion that evening with a standard household cleaner applied with a toothbrush, I could read “J. S. Thompson, Co. B, 3rd Reg., VT. VoL., Glover.” The front of the Civil War ID tag displayed an American eagle with raised words, “War of 1861 -- United States.” The medal contains approximately 50 percent original gold-plate. These keepsakes were sold by enterprising sutlers who competed for a soldier’s $13-a-month pay. Once purchased, the sutler would stamp the soldier’s name and regiment on the back, driving the letters into the brass, thus preserving the gold inscription as the surface or face wore away. Who was J. S. Thompson? Did he survive the war? Where was he buried? Extensive research provided answers to these questions far more interesting than ever anticipated. John Steven Thompson was born on Feb. 29, 1835, to John Thompson Sr. and Sarah Ann Wells near the Canadian border at Wheelock, Vt. At age 15, he had taken up residence in Glover, Vt., where he worked on a farm. The small, peaceful village remains about the same today as in the 1800s. Vermont is known for producing good fighting men, dating to the “Green Mountain Boys” of the Revolutionary War. When clouds of civil war began to appear, that same patriotic fire was rekindled in the souls of those famed warriors from the Green Mountains; John Thompson would uphold that tradition. Reverse and front of John Thompson's Civil War ID disc. (Photos courtesy Richard Clem) On May 10 1861, the 26-year-old Thompson enlisted for three years at Coventry, Vt., to serve and preserve the Union. He was described as 5 feet, 9 1/2 inches tall with blue eyes and auburn hair. Receiving the rank of corporal, he became a member of Company B, 3rd Regiment Vermont Volunteers. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Vermont regiments comprised the Vermont Brigade, attached to the 6th Corps, Army of the Potomac. Early in the war, Corporal Thompson fought in every major engagement of the Army of the Potomac without serious injury; however, in the fall of 1862, near the town of Sharpsburg, Md., he received his first “red badge of courage.” Fought Sept. 17 1862, the Battle of Antietam (called Sharpsburg in the South) became known as the bloodiest day of the Civil War. A casualty list of more than 23,000 killed or wounded included Corporal John S. Thompson. According to official records, while under heavy fire from sharpshooters and artillery near a sunken farm lane (Bloody Lane), Thompson was struck by a musket ball just below the right shoulder blade. Luckily, the slug had lost most of its force -- otherwise death would have been the result. The wound was serious enough to have the Vermonter admitted to a field hospital near Hagerstown, 10 miles north of Sharpsburg. It was there following Antietam that the Vermont Brigade served as provost guard as recorded in one Federal soldier’s diary: “The duty on picket by no means severe, and the boys found little difficulty in procuring abundant supplies of luxuries, such as soft bread, hoecakes and other articles, from the farmers; and as the enemy was at Winchester, they were not in great alarm from Rebel raids. There was little duty, and the invalids had time for recovering their exhausted strength.” Federal archives records state three months after Antietam, John Thompson fought in the First Battle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862), indicating a full recovery from his wound. On July 4 1863, General Robert E. Lee’s battle-weary Army of Northern Virginia retreated from the bloodstained fields of Gettysburg. During the “exodus of grief,” on July 10, the Vermont Brigade distinguished itself in a costly encounter with enemy troops near the hamlet of Funkstown, Md. In a stretch of woods southeast of Funkstown, the Union battle line was quickly formed. After three consecutive attacks from a larger Confederate force, the Green Mountain Volunteers, including Thompson, stubbornly held their ground. Two days later, while camped in view of Funkstown, Thompson lost the ID disc that was recovered 122 years later by the author of this article. In the spring 1864, flowering dogwood and redbud lined the path of the 6th Corps marching into the Wilderness in Virginia. Knowing the reputation of the veteran Vermont Brigade, General John Sedgwick cried aloud, “Keep the columns closed, and put the Vermonters ahead!” Fought in May 1864, the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House proved to be the bloodiest contests of the war for the boys from Vermont. “Uncle John” Sedgwick was among those killed, struck by a sharpshooter's bullet at Spotsylvania Courthouse. General John Sedgwick, a Connecticut native, admired the fighting skills of his Vermont troops. (Library of Congress collection) During the Union slaughter at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864,Thompson, who had been promoted to sergeant, had the middle finger of his left hand broken by a rifle ball. Thompson's injury wasn’t nearly as painful as the sorrow carried in his heart after he received news that his older brother, Sam, had recently been killed at Spotsylvania Court House. The Federal 6th Corps was ordered to report for duty in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the autumn of 1864. The ever-growing list of casualties forced the 3rd Vermont to reorganize. On Aug. 28, Thompson was transferred to Company E and justifiably earned the rank of lieutenant. A battle-scarred Thompson was promoted to captain on March 23, 1865, in command of Company E, 3rd Regiment Vermont Infantry. After Gettysburg, it was an uphill struggle for the Confederacy. Fighting out of desperation against superior numbers, Southern forces made several gallant stands in the Shenandoah Valley, but the end was near. No one knew this better than General Lee, who surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. When the war ended, Captain Thompson was mustered out at Bailey’s Crossroads, near Alexandria, Va. A few days later, the veteran campaigner started the long trip north to Vermont. At this point, my research on Captain Thompson was difficult. No obituary or grave registration for a John S. Thompson could be found in Vermont. A pension file from the National Archives, however, listed a Captain John Thompson from Vermont homesteading near Bushton, Rice County, Kan. Immediately, letters requesting any information on Thompson were mailed to a newspaper in the Bushton area. In a matter of days, I received numerous replies filled with material on the Thompson family along with my first photo of Thompson, taken from a mural hanging in a Rice County museum. Some of the greatest people on Planet Earth living in central Kansas made it possible to continue the Vermont veteran’s story. His military career over, John lived in Cabot, Vt., where he was employed as a merchant, but it seemed his soul was still bent on planting the soil and raising a family. Being serious on “family matters,” John married a local Cabot girl, Alma Dell Stone, on Nov. 23, 1869. Two years later, on Feb. 14, 1871, Alma gave birth to a son, Johnnie Jr. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided a man 21 years old could acquire 160 acres of land in some Midwestern states for a modest fee; he was then to occupy and cultivate the land for a period of five years. The generous offer attracted countless settlers to the open plains. Among these early pioneers making the westward journey were John Thompson and traveling companion Frank Shonyo, also from Vermont. Shonyo was a close friend of John’s and a comrade in the army. The plan once the men claimed ownership on their new property and “toughed it out” the first winter was for their wives to make the journey in the spring. When John and Frank eventually reached Rice County, Kan., they selected adjoining homesteads just south of Bushton. John’s first winter was spent in a hole in the ground appropriately called a dugout, the entrance of which is still visible today. Land records of the Receiver’s Office in Larned, Kan., reveal John S. Thompson paid $8 and received a deed to his homestead. Not a bad price for 160 acres of fertile farm land. According to old Rice County documents, “Alma Thompson taught school in her sod home until a frame school house was erected in 1880.” During the early days as the first teacher in the “Eldorado District,” Alma also had her hands full raising three children -- Johnnie; Olivia, born 1873, and Pearl in 1877. On Oct. 7, 1994, nine years after discovering the Thompson ID tag, I received a letter from a Marie Theilken of Black Diamond, Wash. Marie’s great-grandfather was Captain John Steven Thompson; her grandmother was Thompson’s youngest daughter, Pearl Thompson Barner. Theilken's genealogy research revealed her great-grandfather had homesteaded in Kansas. She had sent a letter to Bushton requesting information on the Thompson family. One of the good citizens of the little prairie town mailed her a copy of an article published in the Bushton Centennial based on Thompson’s ID tag that I had found in 1985. After several phone calls and letters, Marie came to Maryland and shared stories handed down through the family with this ever-grateful writer. This new material, including the second post-war photo of Thompson, made it possible for the Vermont veteran’s legacy to be completed. Like many patriotic Civil War veterans, John refused to accept charity or a government pension. He would bitterly explain to Alma, “I didn’t fight the war for money; I fought it to keep the country together.” When John finally applied for his pension after Alma’s persistence in 1884, he would take his monthly check, slam it on the kitchen table in front of his wife and say, “Woman, there is your damn blood money!” Relic hunter Richard Clem found Vermont soldier John Thompson's Civil War ID disc at this site near Funkstown, Md., in 1985. The U.S. flag, next to a photo of Thompson, marks the spot of his discovery. (Photo courtesy Richard Clem) In a correspondence to his wife’s brother living in Vermont, Thompson wrote about a harsh winter on the plains when the family had absolutely nothing to eat at Christmas. As he returned from the well with a bucket of water early in the morning before the holiday, he spotted a large Canadian goose beside the sod house. There wasn’t a mark on the apparently lost, exhausted bird. It doesn’t take long to guess what the Thompsons gratefully prepared for Christmas that year. Suffering from wounds received during the war, Thompson turned bitter. The once-proud army captain and his wife slowly drifted apart. John would spend hours wandering aimlessly across the vast Kansas plains. “Was it suicide?” This question appeared in the Bushton newspaper after Thompson’s body was found in Plum Creek. Edwin Habiger of Bushton wrote me, “It was my father who helped recover the body of Mr. Thompson. There was no determination on what caused the drowning.” The 90-year-old Habiger explained how this story was told to him by his father, who came to Rice County in 1880. This would have put Edwin’s father around 19 years old when Thompson’s body was discovered. In earlier days on the western plains, farmers would help their neighbors at harvest time; long before the age of modern agricultural machinery, crops had to be harvested by hand. Marie related how her great-grandfather Thompson and several neighbors had finished harvesting one of the farms, and while walking to the next property, John said he would “cut across the fields” and meet them at the next job site. Unfortunately, he never showed. Because of the July heat, some believe the aging farmer may have tried to get a drink from Plum Creek but suffered a stroke or heart attack. Cause of the mysterious death was never determined. One thing was certain: The war was finally over for Captain Thompson. Richard Clem has a jar of dirt from John Thompson's Kansas grave on his bookshelf at home. (Photo courtesy Richard Clem) A local newspaper carried the following: The death of Mr. Thompson has caused sadness over this community. Mr. Thompson was known and loved among his acquaintances as a faithful friend, and a kind and pleasant associate. Though of a retiring nature, he was a well read man. There were three brothers in the Thompson family, and not one of them died a natural death. One was killed by a falling tree, and another was killed in the Battle of the Wilderness, and the last one in the way known. Mr. Thompson was 65-years-old. His wife and three children are residents of this place. Alma placed a beautiful black, granite tombstone, the largest in Bushton Cemetery, on her husband’s grave. Olivia Thompson married George Jefferies and moved “somewhere” in southern Kansas; Pearl (Marie Theilken’s grandmother) married Ira C. Barner and relocated to Oregon Territory in the Northwest. With her daughters and husband gone, Alma and Johnnie moved into a new two-story home in Bushton. Johnnie Thompson Jr. never married and took care of his mother until her passing in 1919. Sitting on my bookshelf next to Civil War volumes rests a small jar labeled “Soil from grave of Capt. John S. Thompson, 3rd Vermont Regt. -- Buried: Bushton, Kansas.” This sacred ground was taken from Thompson’s grave years ago by Marie Theilken, who generously shared a handful with me. When I examined this black dirt from the Kansas plains and held Thompson’s personal ID disc, words of General Douglas MacArthur came to mind: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

Are you ready for a mind-bending experience? The 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War brings about familiar images and also reveals

Carte de visite of Dr. James H. Crombie by D.O. Furnald of Manchester, N.H. An 1838 graduate of Dartmouth Medical College, Crombie (1813-1884) served as assistant surgeon in the Amoskeag Veterans, an independent militia company organized in Manchester in 1855. According to a local historian, "The objects for which it was organized were designated by the constitution to be military parades, the protection of life and property, the preservation of the peace and social enjoyments. Its first parade and ball occurred February 22, 1855." The statement supports the dual role of militia from this period as social fraternity and military organization. The Amoskeag Veterans wore distinctive uniforms inspired by the Continental Army that had fought the Revolutionary War 75 years earlier. Crombie wears what may be the full dress uniform, complete with gloves, bicorn hat, and a sword and sash. In 1862, the New Hampshire Adjutant General reported that the ranks of many militia companies had been reduced due to high volunteer rates in new regiments organized to fight the Civil War. Other militias had been completely abandoned. The Amoskeag Veterans, however, continued to maintain their organization. Crombie numbered among those who left the militia to participate in the war. According to the "History of the New Hampshire Surgeons in the War of the Rebellion," he entered the army as contract surgeon in 1861, and was on duty in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, Virginia, until 1864." Another source notes that Crombie did not become a contract surgeon until after the Battle of Petersburg in 1864, and served as such for several months. Contract surgeons were hired by the U.S. War Department to bolster the ranks of commissioned surgeons, and were considered civilian personnel. Crombie returned to New Hamshire after his stint in the army, and resumed his place in the Amoskeag Veterans. He died of heart disease in 1884. Researching the life and military service of this soldier is currently in progress. If you have any information to share, including letters, journals, and other personal and public documents, please contact me. I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.

Civil War Home Front, designed by Barbara Brackman & Susan Stiff, pieced by Monica Rodarmer, 2009, 79 1/2" x 79 1/2". I hope you noticed the full-page advertisement for my Civil War Home Front reproduction collection for Moda in the October Quilters Newsletter. It features a reproduction quilt that makes the most of the stripes and paisleys in the collection. We are selling kits for this quilt, which is the result of a collaboration by five people. One is the anonymous maker of the original star quilt, in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum (#1997.007.0644). See it by clicking here: http://www.quiltstudy.org/includes/photos/quilt_database/large/1997_007_0644.jpg Moda artist Susan Stiff and I designed the reproduction quilt---which is more an interpretation than a copy. Monica Rodarmer pieced it. She wrote, "numerous times during the piecing I thought about the original quilters putting their quilt together...no rotary cutters, high intensity lights, computerized sewing machines…" And I am also grateful to the machine quilter whose name I do not know. The pattern for the quilt will be in the Dec/Jan 2009 issue of Quilter's Newsletter magazine. And the bolts should be in the quilt shops in late November. Hickory Hoops stripe above and Cracker Pie paisley. Below a woman with the ideal silhouette for Civil-War-era fashion. I named the individual prints in this collection for the make-do substitutes that Southern women came up with when they lost their access to factory and imported goods. The stripe in the edge triangles is called Hickory Hoops, reminding us that many rural women used wooden slats for home-made fashion underpinnings to support skirts like the one above. The paisley in the border is Cracker Pie, a recipe for a fake apple pie using seasoned crackers as the filling. Click on the link for a World War II era recipe for cracker pie, an idea that may have originated before the Civil War. Cracker Pie http://www.cakespy.com/2008/09/american-pie-recipe-for-quick-fix.html

A Civil War blog focused on Connecticut, Antietam, Gettysburg and stories of common soldiers

After graduating from Bowdoin College, Oliver Otis Howard (1830–1909) attended West Point, during which a twenty four- year-old Howard wore this triple-breasted wool coatee with a standing collar. The chevron insignia signifies the rank of cadet captain. In 1861, O.O. Howard joined the Union Army. He commanded the 3rd Maine Regiment before his promotion to brigadier general by September that same year. Howard served in several infamous campaigns, including at the Battle of Seven Pines, where he lost his right arm and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his action. General Howard is probably best remembered as commissioner of the U.S. Freedman’s Bureau during Reconstruction, and his role in founding Washington D.C.’s Howard University.

The Price of Freedom: Americans at War surveys the history of America’s military from the French and Indian Wars to the present day, exploring ways in which wars have been defining episodes in American history.

A Civil War blog focused on Connecticut, Antietam, Gettysburg and stories of common soldiers