Looking into Captain William F Dement, commander of the First Maryland Artillery on the campaign of September 1862, I came upon this scrap of paper – a receipt for ammunition issued to his battery at Leesburg, VA on 5 September… continue reading

Franklin Gaillard, standing between his wife Catherine Cordes “Tattie” Porcher (1832-1856; m. 1853) and niece Catherine Marianne Gaillard (1835-1869). Front row: Franklin’s sisters, Lydia Henrietta (1831-1913), Elizabeth Octavia “Betsy” (1825-1908) and Marianne Gendron “Nan” (1833-1912). A newspaper editor in Columbia,… continue reading

William Riddle, from a prosperous and well-known Pittsburgh family, was 19 years old when he enrolled as 2nd Lieutenant of Company F of the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves in October 1861. His First Lieutenant, from Towanda in Bradford County, was Addison… continue reading

or, yes, there is at least one Confederate in the cemetery On my recent visit to Sharpsburg I took photographs of several headstones in the Antietam National Cemetery, as is my habit, intending to look into the men under them… continue reading

Walter David McAdoo came from a long line of successful merchants and entrepreneurs in Greensboro, Guilford County, NC. He left Dickinson College in Pennsylvania at the start of the Civil War and enlisted as a Private soldier in the Guilford… continue reading

22 year old Private Charles A Trask of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry was mortally wounded in the lower abdomen by this chunk of iron at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and died about two weeks later in a hospital in… continue reading