behind AotW

This is Francis Alexander “Frank” Shuford, late of the 4th North Carolina Infantry, with his family almost 30 years after the Maryland Campaign of 1862, where he was made a prisoner of war. Left-to-right they are Alice Mabel, Frank, Carrie Lee, Laura Jones Harbin, and Fred Homer Shuford.

Daughter Mabel arranged for his government headstone in 1936 …

… but a War Department clerk inserted “44 Regt” on her application and someone in the Department got Frank’s year of death wrong, which is why his stone is not quite right.

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The family portrait above was contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by user A touch of TLC in 2021. The photograph of his marker is by James Arthur, also on his memorial page. Mabel’s application for that stone is from Frank’s Compiled Service Record jacket, online from fold3.

Private Robert J.M. Barber of Company B, 4th North Carolina Infantry was twice captured during the war: at Frederick on the 1862 Maryland Campaign and in 1864 at Winchester, VA.

After his release in February 1865 he returned home to Rowan County, North Carolina, where, like so many former Confederate soldiers, he signed this document. This copy is from his Compiled Service Record file at the National Archives; I found it online thanks to fold3.

This clipping from an unknown Iowa newspaper announces the unfortunate death in August 1880 of Antietam veteran Stephen Decatur Cagwin, late Private in the 89th New York Infantry. Big thanks to Jim Smith for forwarding this from Cagwin’s descendants.