Paper Trail
Printed on a thin strip of paper cut from a newspaper page and tucked behind the mat of Oliver Gardner’s portrait are poignant details of his Civil War service. He
Tag: wounded
Sylvester’s War: The journey of an Indiana volunteer from Tippecanoe County to Tennessee
By Ronald S. Coddington Corporal Sylvester Leaming drifted in and out of consciousness from his hospital bed in Nashville on a June day in 1864. Wasting away from disease and
Army Life: An essay in ambrotypes and tintypes
By David B. Holcomb, with images from the author’s collection The Sentries Around 8 a.m. following reveille, breakfast call, and sick call came the call for Guard Mounting. The first
The USCC at Camp Letterman
By Elizabeth A. Topping The bloody conflict that raged in and around the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg for three days in early July 1863 resulted in 51,000 casualties. They included
Alas, Poor Yorick!
At Cold Harbor near dawn on June 1, 1864, a Confederate corps changed position along its main line before another day of brutal combat. Union forces spotted their movements through
Accusations
The pencil inscriptions above the portraits of these Union officers leave no question about the point of view of the unnamed writers. The major pictured on the left is branded
Custer’s “Main Stay In a Tight Place”
The veteran 2nd Ohio Cavalry earned high praise for its service from legendary golden-haired Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer. According to the June 1, 1865, issue of the Cleveland Daily
Wed by the “Famous Fighting Methodist Preacher”
One spring day in 1864, John W. Widney and Mary A. Fitzwater Brown were married in Orange, Ohio. The newlyweds were accompanied by John’s mother, Eliza, and Mary’s brother, John.
Unsung Pioneer Photo Collector: Samuel Crocker Lawrence and the Medford Collection
By Ronald S. Coddington Veterans have always told war stories. Those who survived the Civil War were no exception, and they number among the earliest to recall their service through
Yankee & Doughboy: A trove of newly discovered photographs documents a father and son
By Aaron D. Purcell, with images from the Jeremiah T. Lockwood, Jr. Collection, Special Collections, Virginia Tech On Aug. 28, 1862, 16-year-old Jeremiah Talcott Lockwood, Jr., from Bedford, N.Y., stepped