Mary's life didn't end when John was hanged

Mary Brown with daughters Annie (left) and Sarah (right)
in 1853, Vernon, New York (Library of Congress)

John Brown's son, Salmon

I was surprised, some years ago, to learn that Mary Brown—the 2nd wife of John Brown of Bloody Kansas and Harpers Ferry fame, and his wife at the time of his execution—was buried in my "back yard," in the South [San Francisco] Bay town of Saratoga, in the hills southwest of San Jose. Surprised, too, to learn that she taught English to Japanese migrant workers in the Santa Clara Valley (today more often referred to as Silicon Valley, where remnants of the once-endless orchards still survive as isolated fruit trees in fenced-off back yards).

I wasn't surprised that she had made her way to the western end of the continent in the years after her husband was hanged in Charles Town, West Virginia. According to a direct descendant, Mary Brown and her children—and a stepson, Salmon, from John's first wife—moved to California to let their families experience a life "out of the shadow of John Brown."

I was surprised because I'd never heard about it before—surprised that in an area so enamored of its history, not many people beyond the local historical society know that the widow and other family members of the man author Tony Horwitz describes as "the most successful terrorist in American history" is resting peacefully in this beautiful and affluent Northern California suburb.

It wasn't always thus, of course. As is the way with history, things are forgotten over time. Her presence in California—first in Red Bluff, then up amongst the giant coastal redwoods in Rohnerville with daughters Annie, Sarah, and Ellen, and next door to Salmon Brown and his family—was well known and widely reported in her day. Daughter Annie reportedly served as her father's secretary during at least part of his anti-slavery campaigns. During the centennial of the Harpers Ferry raid, on October 18, 1959, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Annie "had, when but 16, assisted Martha Brown, wife of John Brown's son, Oliver, with the cooking at the Kennedy farm, where the daring maneuver was prepared" (this from Jessie Faulkner at the Humboldt County Historical Society).

In 1881, about three years before her death, Mary Brown relocated to Saratoga, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, and is buried in Madronia Cemetery along with her daughters Sarah and Ellen.

To the end of her days, it seems, she was both harassed by enemies of her late husband (even having to outrun southern vigilantes on the Oregon Trail, by one account) and warmly embraced by his supporters (supported financially to some degree by well-heeled abolitionist literary figures like Thoreau and Emerson), wherever she went. The latter outnumbered the former in this Far West Union state. Check out this blog entry about John Brown's great-great-great-granddaughter, Alice Keesey Mecoy, speaking about her famous ancestor. "'I didn't know I was related to him until I was 16,' Alice Keesey Mecoy said Sunday to a packed room at the Saratoga History Museum. 'I said, What? I'm related to this crazy man?'"

In 2009, dirt from Mary's grave in California and John's in North Elba, New York, were commingled. 

I enjoyed a number of hours reading material at this excellent John Brown blog, which includes considerable information on Mary Brown.

This Allies for Freedom website has lots of interesting information on Mary Brown and her family in California.

The 9/11 of 1859

Vivenne Flesher and Ward Schumaker

Author Tony Horwitz wrote this NYT Op-Ed piece in December of 2009, on the subject of his forthcoming book about John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (Midnight Rising, John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War, coming from Henry Holt in October of 2011).

The "9/11 of 1859" essay can be read in its entirety here. Scroll down at this page of the publisher's site to hear a five-minute audio from Horwitz discussing what he was trying to accomplish in writing the book.

Here's an earlier (October 2010) Horwitz Op-Ed piece on the enduring Civil War, "The 150-Year War."

Charles Town, W. Va.

ONE hundred and fifty years ago today, the most successful terrorist in American history was hanged at the edge of this Shenandoah Valley town. Before climbing atop his coffin for the wagon ride to the gallows, he handed a note to one of his jailers: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
-- from "The 9/11 of 1959"

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War

I extend a hearty thank-you to my history-major neice Susan for bringing this forthcoming Horwitz volume to my attention. First, let me say how gratified I am that there are still history majors, and that I am related to one of them. Second, let me say how excited I am that Horwitz took on the John Brown raid. Like many a Civil War buff, I enjoyed his Confederates in the Attic, and his talent as a writer and a journalist caused me to follow his efforts afterwards—his chronicling of Captain Cook's adventures (Blue Laditudes), and I did download, on the advice of the aforementioned Susan, his most recent book, A Voyage Long and Strange.

Not everyone cares for Horwitz's style, but I like it. I love the conflation of serious journalist, history enthusiast, and travel writer in his narrative voice. I don't even care if he turned to John Brown to capitalize on the sesquicetennial fervor (even if he's behind the date on the John Brown raid). I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, having never been disappointed thus far. It's also a perfect segue to my forthcoming blog post on John Brown's wife, Mary.

Google Earthing the Civil War

Look at the neat things Andy Hall has done with Google Earth over at his consistently interesting Dead Confederates blog. Through "image overlay," and careful scaling of the original to align with the Google image (when will someone come up with an App that scales these images for you?), one can get a reasonably accurate look at how a historic image fits into today's satellite view. Pretty damn cool. Have at look at what he did with the location of Henry Wirz's gallows (at the Old Capitol Prison -- see the full essay on the Wirz Execution photos here) in relation to today's U.S. Supreme Court building. Likewise, the overlay of 1865 Galveston with the modern view. The application of Google Earth tools to historic documents is as unlimited as our nearly infinite capacity for avoiding doing any real work (or as Andy put it, the functionality is limited only by the imagination of the user). 

Thus far, with respect to Google Earth, my imagination was limited to creating three Civil War quizes in which participants view an overhead view of a part of a battlefield or significant landmark -- just out of context enough to be disorienting for some -- and try to guess the Civil War location. If you haven't given it a shot yet, links to the quizes and answers are given below. Quiz #1 centers on fairly famous battlefield features, without clues, while the subsequent two quizes include more-or-less useful clues. 

Google Earth Quiz Number One is here -- Answers to Quiz One are here

Google Earth Quiz Number Two is here -- (the answers for Quiz Two are found in the last of the 3 comments attached to that post).

Google Earth Quiz Number Three is here -- Answers to Quiz Three are here

The largest offensive ever mounted by a Confederate army. . .

Historian Bobby Krick addresses members of the CompuServe
Civil War Forum at their 15th annual battlefield conference, April 2011

Yesterday was the anniversary of the battle of Gaines's Mill, a major fight that remains obscure even to many self-proclaimed students of the American Civil War. Why Gaines's Mill, the rest of the Seven Days Battles, and the overall 1862 Peninsula Campaign remain in the backwaters of Civil War studies is a mystery to me.

Fortunately for us, organizations on the front lines of the Civil War preservation movement have not given the Seven Days backwater status. Just this year, important portions of the Gaines's Mill battlefield have been saved by the Richmond Battlefields Association and the Civil War Trust.

Speaking of the Civil War Trust, the July 1-8 issue of "The Week" named Civil War Trust as their "Charity of the Week," noting that they have saved 30,000 acres on 110 Civil War battlefields in 20 states. Not a bad track record.

Civil War Trust's web site continues to grow into one of the most useful and fascinating resources on the Civil War. The articles, maps, interviews, photo galleries, and videos make up a treasure trove of some of the most reliable and interesting information to be found in one place. Their Gaines's Mill page, for example, is the perfect starting point for planning a visit to the battlefield. Once there, you would do well to get in on one of NPS historian Bobby Krick's tours of the battlefield.

In the penultimate essay, Krick looks at the climax of the battle of Gaines's Mill, by far the bloodiest of the Seven Days. His topic is Brig. Gen. W. H. C. Whiting's two-brigade division and its late-afternoon assault that breached Union lines near the Watt House. Krick draws on an impressive array of materials to make sense of the attacks, which, among other results, catapulted the soldiers of John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade to fame as the army's finest shock troops. Krick reminds readers that the offensive at Gaines's Mill was the largest ever mounted by any Confederate army, its 50,000 participants far exceeding the number involved in more famous attacks by George E. Pickett and James Johnston Pettigrew at Gettysburg and Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville. He also sees the attack on June 27 as a pivotal event that marked the first offensive tactical victory for Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. The general and his soldiers built on that foundation to create one of the most famous and effective military partnerships in American history.

[The extract above is from the introduction to Gary Gallagher's, The Richmond Campaign of 1862: the Peninsula and the Seven Days, speaking of Bobby Krick's contribution to the volume.]

Remembering Edwin Francis Jemison

This portrait of Private Edwin Jemison is one of the most iconic images of the war. Though he was descended from two of the founding families of Georgia, his branch of the family moved to Louisiana before the war. When secession came, Jemison enlisted in the 2^nd Louisiana Infantry as a 16-year-old.  

The 2^nd Louisiana was sent to Virginia, where it came under the command of John Bankhead Magruder. The regiment saw limited action at Dam Number One in the opening movements of the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, but was not engaged again until the last of the Seven Days battles. There, at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862, 17-year-old  Private Jemison was killed in action.

With family roots in Milledgeville, Georgia, it was presumed that his remains were returned to the family plot there, and indeed, there is a gravestone for him there, as well as a more substantial monument to his memory (Memory Hill Cemetery).

Two researchers, however -- Alexandra Filipowski and Hugh T. Harrington -- have concluded that Private Jemison’s remains are buried elsewhere, namely at Malvern Hill where he was killed. This, based mainly on a contemporary obituary that mentions his burial at Malvern Hill, and the lack of any documentation that Jemison’s body was relocated to Milledgeville. You can read those researchers’ convincing argument in this America’s Civil War article from 2004.

When I think of Milledgeville, I think of Sherman’s troops ransacking the then state courthouse, and I think of Flannery O’Connor, one of my favorite authors. If Jemison is buried at Memory Hill, then he’s in good company.

"Everything you know about the Civil War is wrong. Almost."

Based on Joan Walsh’s outstanding critique at Salon.com, I purchased the Kindle version of this book today. The prospects of a well researched and thoughtful new “big picture” view of the run up to war and the appalling abandonment of African Americans afterwards – the effects of nativism and religion, religious intolerance, and bigotry – and the drawing of parallels to the political landscape 100 years later, is too intriguing to pass up.

I’ll revisit this subject with my own views once I delve into it, but be sure to read Walsh’s review by clicking HERE.

From the review:

Goldfield's book has been well-reviewed, because if it's sympathetic to Southern whites, it depicts the savagery of slavery and post-war white terrorism with unflinching and gut-wrenching clarity. (Literally. The book's tales of slaves' abuse and Southern white post-war savagery will make you sick.) Still, this Civil War history challenges the absolutism of the "Northerners were heroes, and Southerners were vicious, violent racists" school of history. He exposes and excoriates Southern whites' violence against black people before and after the war. But he also links the war to the pro-business evangelical Protestant crusade to eradicate native American Indians, Mexicans, Irish and German Catholic immigrants, and an emerging class of landless Northern laborers – anyone who stood in the way of their vision of clean, hard-working, business-friendly American progress. 

*  *  *  *

Harriet Beecher Stowe moved to former Confederate Florida, became an Episcopalian, wrote a best-selling book about home decorating for women, and never again troubled herself about the (former) slaves. Abolitionist Horace Greeley gave up on Reconstruction and black rights quickly. His New York Tribune, which once crusaded against slavery, began to feature "exposes" of Reconstruction, including tales of black "corruption" and political incompetence. Even the Nation magazine, which we remember as a journal of abolitionism, soured on the experiment with black suffrage.

*  *  *  * 

For many reasons, Northern Republicans gave up on the early goals of Reconstruction: to grant free blacks civil and economic rights. Goldfield quotes a Northerner observing a general desire to forget the war, and particular "apathy about the Negro" – shades of the "compassion fatigue" that would be diagnosed by neoconservatives 100 years later, after the Great Society. The parallels between the backlash against Reconstruction, and the backlash against Lyndon Johnson's civil rights reforms, are unmistakable and chilling.  . . .After each morally overdue reckoning, the parties suffered, and then they changed sides. Republicans were trounced after Reconstruction, as Democrats became the party of the South; 100 years later, Democrats were trounced, and Republicans became the party of the South. The Civil War is still not over.

Freakonomics: Why Does the South Still Commemorate the Civil War, But Not the North?

Freakonomics fearlessly explains everything. It's tempting to say that the South commemorates the War more than the North because the South is where the war was fought. But I suspect there's more to the story than that, particularly when you consider that many of those who are most eager to commemorate it are also eager to rewrite the history of the War.  

Those consequences are most apparent in the economic inversion that took place following the war. The parts of the South that were generally the richest in 1860 are today its poorest. These were the areas with the highest concentration of plantations: a swath of land stretching from coastal South Carolina down through Georgia, and west into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Today, this region is home to some of the poorest counties in America, with high rates of unemployment, low-skilled labor, and other social ills like obesity and a lack of education.

From the June 7 blog posting at "Freakonomics: the Hidden Side of Everything."

"Thanks a lot, Ken Burns"

For all its appeal, however, The Civil War is a deeply misleading and reductive film that often loses historical reality in the mists of Burns' sentimental vision and the romance of Foote's anecdotes. Watching the film, you might easily forget that one side was not fighting for, but against the very things that Burns claims the war so gloriously achieved. Confederates, you might need reminding after seeing it, were fighting not for the unification of the nation, but for its dissolution. Moreover, they were fighting for their independence from the United States in the name of slavery and the racial hierarchy that underlay it. Perhaps most disingenuously, the film's cursory treatment of Reconstruction obscures the fact that the Civil War did not exactly end in April of 1865 with a few handshakes and a mutual appreciation for a war well fought. Instead, the war's most important outcome—emancipation—produced a terrible and violent reckoning with the legacy of slavery that continued well into the 20^th century.

From "Thanks a lot, Ken Burns," by James M. Lundberg, Slate, June 7, 2011

Over 4,000 Civil War graves identified in a Brooklyn cemetery

Using the cemetery's own burial records, plus government, military and privately owned documents available online, Green-Wood's project has identified the graves of about 4,600 Civil War veterans. Green-Wood historian Jeffrey Richman estimates 3,000 to 4,000 more are scattered among the cemetery's more than 560,000 total interments.

The Civil War dead buried at Green-Wood include unknown privates and famous officers, buglers and Medal of Honor recipients, Yankees from Maine to Iowa, fathers, sons and brothers, and even 75 Confederates, including two generals. None of the original gravestones for the Confederates gave any indication they had fought for the South, an intentional omission being rectified by the installation of new granite markers provided by Veterans Affairs.

Read the full article here. 

Solarium: A novella

I just finished reading a pretty amazing short work of fiction called, "Solarium: A novella," by Josh Weil. It was published in the journal, "American Short Fiction," vol. 13, issue 50 (Winter 2010/11). I had subscribed to the journal because the previous issue featured a short story by a friend of mine (great job, Rob!), and because I was curious what this resurrected literary journal was doing these days.

I was surprised to find a story set during the Civil War—"Solarium" takes place on a Virginia plantation in 1865, beginning some time before Richmond falls and continuing beyond. But I was really surprised that the author boldly told the tale in the first-person vernacular of mid-19th century master and slave. Generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that if your name is not William Faulkner, the practice should be avoided, but author Josh Weil did an admirable job. So I will modify my recommendation to say don't do it unless you're good enough to pull it off. Seriously, who are you trying to kid?

The story is told in six overlapping narratives—each headlined simply by the narrator's  name (As I Lay Dying)—mainly giving alternating perspectives from a cotton farmer and certain of his slaves. I so want Civil War historical fiction to be as engaging and powerful as the material itself, and I am so regularly disappointed, that I started reading this novella with trepidation.

But I was soon caught up in the strange story centered on the discovery one day of an errant hot air balloon that lands on the farm. Weil skillfully gives us characters to care about (which is to say believable and compelling), and builds an ever-rising tension about the coming of the end for some, and the promise of a new beginning for others.

It's hard to review a 90-page story without giving away elements that would otherwise contribute to the reader's pleasure of discovery, but suffice it to say I found it impressive in its construction, unpredictable, and exciting. What more do you want from historical fiction, other than a reasonable faithfulness to accuracy? It has that, too.

One of the best things you can say about a work of art is that it causes you to reflect on it long after you've moved on. I've been thinking a lot about "Solarium," puzzling out some things I moved over too quickly, suddenly recognizing a larger image that I was too close to discern while reading, or replaying in my head a powerful scene, as if I had seen it acted out. Damn it, I'm going to have to read it again, and life is already too short to read all the books I own once.

I had never heard of Josh Weil, but his biography in the journal indicates he's off to a good start—many prizes and many prestigious fellowships. His 2010 triptych of novellas, The New Valley, is described in some detail on Amazon.

You can read "Solarium" by buying the current issue of "American Short Fiction" at the publisher's website—"Solarium" and three other short stories—for five bucks. Unless I'm mistaken.

the Wire, to Treme, to Lincoln Assassination?

Steve Earle, May 20, 2001 at Kepler's in Menlo Park, CA

Friday night I went to see Steve Earle promote his brand new first novel at a local bookstore, I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive. I enjoyed his earlier book of short stories, and very much like his literary "voice." Of course Earle has made his name with his music -- I'll be seeing him again at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this fall. He's written a few Civil War-themed songs that, for me, arrive at a happy intersection of great music and a favorite historical subject. I posted a blog entry on Earle's Ben McCulloch earlier this year. Great song.

Earle has also had some roles in David Simon's highly acclaimed HBO series, The Wire, and more recently in Simon's newer series, Treme. During the Q&A Friday night, I got the opportunity to ask Earle if he reads a lot of Civil War history. He said he has in the past, but not lately. The question, however, caused him to relate the story that David Simon told him not to cut his beard, because he had him in mind for a particular cavalry officer who participated in the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. Earle said Simon, who is a crime reporter at heart (was, in fact, a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun) had no interest in Lincoln or Booth so much as the other characters involved. It occurred to me that Robert Redford recently addressed this very subject, but undoubtedly Simon would take it in another direction.

I hope it comes to fruition. Might be a nice counterbalance to all of the other assassination-related dramas we're going to see in the next few years.

"I was wearing the name of Lewis Smith"

Portrait of Dick Barnett and his wife, date unknown.
(Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, RG 15)

A fascinating article. . .

Winter 2005, Vol. 37, No. 4

Voices of Emancipation:
Union Pension Files Giving Voice to Former Slaves
By Donald R. Shaffer and Elizabeth Regosin
© 2005 by Donald R. Shaffer and Elizabeth Regosin

Civil War pension files have the potential to rival the more famous WPA narratives of ex-slaves in offering evidence on the experiences of 19th-century African Americans from a black point of view. In fact, based on when the information was collected—mainly between the 1880s and 1910s—they are arguably superior. Civil War pension files are much more contemporaneous to the experiences of slavery, the Civil War, and their aftermath than the WPA narratives, which were not gathered until the mid-to-late 1930s. Many pension files include in-depth interviews of former slaves by special examiners for the purpose of clarifying information on such issues as military service, identity, health and disability, marital and family relationships, employment, economic circumstances, and previous ownership. The depositions are often quite effective in giving a voice to former slaves, allowing them the opportunity to talk about their lives and provide important clues about how they saw the world.

 Read the full article here. 

Five Myths About Why the South Seceded

ALEXANDER GARDNER/ AP - A photograph of Abraham Lincoln taken
by Alexander Gardner in Washington in August of 1863.

Lies Across America author, James W. Loewen, dispenses with some enduring misconceptions about secession in this piece for the Washington Post. 

As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war’s various battles — from Fort Sumter to Appomattox — let’s first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.

(1) The South seceded over states’ rights.  (2) Secession was about tariffs and taxes.  (3) Most white Southerners didn’t own slaves, so they wouldn’t secede for slavery.  (4) Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.  (5) The South couldn’t have made it long as a slave society.

Loewen's offers up his reasons for each point.  

"The Foolishness of Civil War Reenactors," by Glenn W. LaFantasie

Though I'm a regular reader at Salon.com, I just learned of this article by visiting Andy Hall's excellent Dead Confederates blog. 

The Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina

The people have spoken. Every year a dedicated contingent of long-time members of the Civil War Forum—along with a handful of welcome newcomers to the group—meet at a different battlefield for three days of battlefield tramping, good food, and good company. Next year, the group has voted to visit North Carolina. Mark your calendars.

16th Civil War Forum Battlefield Conference
The Battle of Bentonville
Wilmington & Fort Fisher
March 29 to April 1, 2012
Headquarters: Dunn, NC

Mark Bradley, author of the definitive campaign study, The Battle of Bentonville: Last Stand in the Carolinas, will guide us through Averasboro and Bentonville, and Chris Fonvielle, author of The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope, will handle the Forts Fisher and Anderson tours. Additionally, we'll visit the Monroe's Crossroads battlefield on the grounds of Fort Bragg.

Check out the Civil War Trust's Bentonville and Fort Fisher pages for maps, articles, and other resources.

We'll do things a little bit differently next year, in that I'll most likely book the bus for three full days, reserving the last day for the long ride to Wilmington and back (Sunday, April 1st). For that trip, we'll put on a Civil War movie and pull out the refreshments, to include copious amounts of adult beverages.

We'll be headquartered at a hotel in Dunn, North Carolina, which is about an hour from the biggest airport in the region (Raleigh), and close to the battlefields. Stay tuned for hotel info and final itinerary. Let me know if you'd like to receive registration information by email.

End of the line for Lincoln

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Dockworkers prepare to receive the Lincoln
as it arrives at the Mare Island shipyard in Vallejo.

----------
A gray old ship, the Lincoln, that is part of San Francisco's maritime past was towed up the bay Thursday on a final voyage to be scrapped at Mare Island in Vallejo. . . .

The trip was part of an unusual nautical swap in which the government traded the Lincoln for its identical sister ship, the President. Both vessels will be scrapped: one of them in Texas, the other in Vallejo. 

The two ships - originally named President Lincoln and President Tyler- were built in San Francisco in 1961 and sailed out of the city on voyages all over the world for years. They were general cargo ships, operated by American President Lines, a company that traces its roots to the Gold Rush of 1849.
----------

Read the full article here.

How the "Lost Cause" poisoned our history books

[from salon.com. . .]

Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Union Army and the 18th president of the United States, would have been 189 years old last week--not long after the "official" opening of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, which will run through 2015.

Grant -- like George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower -- was both a professional warrior of a defining war and a twice-elected president. And like Washington and Eisenhower he dominated his era, which in his case encompassed both the Civil War and its aftermath, called Reconstruction, from 1862 (when he rocketed to fame with his defeat of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson) to 1876.

 Read full article here. 

Was one of your ancestors lost on the U.S.S. Monitor?

The skeleton to the left, victim “Monitor 2,” is shown
by digital overlay where it was uncovered after the photo
of the first victim was taken. (Monitor Collection, NOAA)

The United States Navy would like to identify the remains of two men found in the turret of the U.S.S. Monitor -- two of the 16 officers and crew who went down with the ship on New Year's Eve, 1862. If you think you might be a descendant and are willing to produce some DNA, contact  Jeff Johnston at (757) 591-7351, Jeff.Johnston@noaa.gov. Thanks to Robert Moore for highlighting this article at Civil War News. 

List of Monitor casualties:

OFFICERS:
Attwater, Norman Knox: Acting Ensign
Frederickson, George: Acting Ensign
Hands, Robinson Woollen: 2nd Asst. Engineer
Lewis, Samuel Augee: 3rd Asst. Engineer

ENLISTED AFRICAN-AMERICAN:
Cook, Robert: 1st Class Boy (b. Gloucester County, VA)
Howard, Robert H: Officers’ Cook (b. Howard County, VA)
Moore, Daniel: Landsman (b. Prince William or Loudoun County, VA)

ENLISTED WHITE:
Allen, William: Landsman (b. England) 24 yrs.
Bryan, William: Yeoman (b. New York City) 31 yrs.
Eagan, William H: Landsman (b. Ireland) 21 yrs.
Fenwick, James R: Quarter Gunner (b. Scotland) 23 yrs.
Joyce (Joice), Thomas: 1st Class Fireman (b. Ireland) 23 yrs.
Littlefield, George: Coal Heaver (b. Saco, ME) 25 yrs.
Nicklis (Nickles), Jacob: Seaman (b. Buffalo (?), NY) 21 yrs.
Stocking, John: Boatswain’s Mate (b. Binghampton, NY) 27 yrs.
Williams, Robert: 1st Class Fireman (b. Wales) 30 yrs.

The Civil War: 1861 (Forever)

Get these nifty Civil War postage stamps (commemorating Ft. Sumter and First Bull Run) while they last. Avoid long lines and surly civil servants by ordering them online.