Memorial remembrance (2023)

(Note: This is a revised version of articles first published in 2019)

“Whose father was he” – Headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer

After the battle at Gettysburg, in July 1863, the body of a soldier was found by a young girl within the city in a location removed from the main battles. He wore a blue Union private’s shirt, but otherwise carried no identification, not even a unit insignia. He was, however, clutching a small glass plate image, called an ambrotype, of three children, which he had removed from his pocket for a final look before dying of his wounds.

But who was he?

The girl notified one of the many burial details around the small community which were moving bodies of fallen soldiers to a central area for identification before burial. Unfortunately, determining the name was not always possible. In the Civil War era, identifying dog tags, which are so ubiquitous today, did not exist; so, the process of recording the names of war dead was more happenstance. Some soldiers carried personal information in a pouch or folder as a means of identification. If survivors of a unit were still in the immediate area, they could help provide names and essential information such as the home state or hometown. Officers and senior Sergeants would check-off the soldiers still alive after a battle and often could record in official records, the names of those who had died. But in the chaos of battle, there were soldiers who remained unidentified and were simply buried with a marker as “unknown” or, even more tragic, in a mass grave.

The burial detail she summoned permitted the young girl to keep the plate image of the three children, to whom she now felt a connection. Her father ran a small tavern and boarding house in a village nearby, and the girl placed the picture in a prominent location as a way to honor the unidentified soldier. Patrons would note the display and soon people came into the tavern just to see the image and ponder the sad circumstances. It was not unusual for Gettysburg artifacts to be on display in businesses and homes in the area, as the great battlefield was littered with weapons, hats, badges, and other paraphernalia carried by soldiers. But this item struck a chord with many who saw it.

The girl had asked the burial detail to inter the soldier’s body in an individual grave, marked with the date and location where his body was found, and the words “A Father” added as a reminder. A local resident provided a plot, and they all hoped that someone, somehow, sometime would eventually provide a name.

Within a few days, one person, who just happened upon the tavern and saw the display, decided to try and identify the family. John Bourns, a physician from Philadelphia was on a volunteer mission to Gettysburg to help care for the several thousand wounded who were still near the battlefield. Dr. Bourns asked the tavern owner if he could take the image and show it to some of the wounded men in the hope that the unusual item might be recognized. Unfortunately, he found no one who recalled the image.

However, Dr. Bourns did not give up. First, he located the grave, which had been marked as requested, and placed a more permanent sign explaining the image held by the dying soldier. Then, when he returned to Philadelphia, he had copies printed on small cards with his contact information and, began to hand out the cards and sent them to various publications.

On October 29, 1863, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a letter, not from Dr. Bourns, but from someone who had received one of the cards. The Inquirer re-printed the letter with the image on the front page. The caption read, “Whose Father is He” and continued with, “How touching, how solemn.”  The writer then went on to tell the story he had heard about the soldier’s dying effort to see his children’s faces and added, “What pen can describe the emotions of this patriot-father as he gazed upon these children, so soon to be made orphans!” The writer then encouraged all who might see the letter and the image to contact other newspapers and magazines throughout the north in an effort to locate the family. Within days, the image and the story were appearing all over Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and throughout New England. At a time with no radio, no TV, and no internet, this story had quickly captured the attention of an entire region.

On November 3, the publisher of the “American Presbyterian” made room to include the article from the Inquirer. However, the newsletter did not have the capability of printing an image so the editor tried to describe the picture of the three children as best he could. The American Presbyterian newsletter was circulated throughout the Northeast and a copy went to a subscriber in Portville, New York, who reprinted it and circulated copies to other parishioners and churches in the area. One recipient took the letter to Mrs. Philinda Humiston, the mother of three small children, whose husband had not been in contact with her for months. Of course, she feared the worst, but had heard nothing from the Union army and knew that many Union soldiers were held as prisoners by the Confederacy. After reading the description of the image of the three children, Mrs. Humiston said that she had sent a similar picture to her husband the previous May and that she had received a letter from him acknowledging the gift, in which he wrote, “I got the likeness of the children and it pleased me more than anything thing that you could have sent to me. How I want to see them and their mother is more than I can tell. I hope that we may all live to see each other again if this war does not last to long.”

Dr. Bourns was contacted and he quickly had a copy of one of the cards delivered to Mrs. Humiston. When she finally saw a copy of the glass image, she knew that her husband would not be coming home and that her children would never again see their father.

Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, had died in the service of his country, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, nearly four months earlier.

This image of Sergeant Humiston was taken before the war. Artists later added a beard and uniform for souvenirs.

The American Presbyterian, in its publication of November 19, 1863, announced the details of the search and the resolution. Ironically, that was also the day that Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address at the new National Cemetery, where Sergeant Humiston was later moved to a final resting place. This time to a well-marked grave.

As it turned out, most of Sergeant Humiston’s 154th New York Regiment had been captured by Confederate forces on the day he was killed, so no one who knew him was available to identify his body. Therefore, without a young girl’s compassion, and Dr. Bourns’ willingness to devote time to the effort, Sergeant Humiston’s family would never have had closure and his sacrifice would not have been honored.

And, he has been honored.

Bourns raised several thousand dollars selling the cards he had made and gave  a portion, as well as the original ambrotype, to Mrs. Humiston.  He then used the rest of the proceeds, plus fees from the sales of a poem about the story, to build an orphans’ compound in Gettysburg. Amos Humiston’s family was the first to live there.

And, in addition to his grave, which visitors can visit today, a commemorative plaque can be found near the place where he fell. Sergeant Humiston may still be the only enlisted soldier with an individual memorial at Gettysburg.

Rest in Peace, Amos Humiston and all of the other hundreds of thousands of Americans who died in service to this nation.

POSTSCRIPT

But who was Sergeant Humiston? Why was he found alone? Certainly, there must have been more to his life story than his unfortunate death and more to the man than a brief obituary.

And there was.

Amos Humiston was born in New York, in 1830 and spent his childhood there. Before he settled down, Amos wanted to see the world and when he was nineteen years old, he joined a whaling crew; although, he had never been on a ship! Amos was not reckless, just eager, and he learned that the ship “Harrison” was captained by a man known to be fair (but firm) and he was accepted as a “green” sailor. This was a hard life, with danger at every whale encounter. And it was a long tenure. The Harrison took almost three months to sail into Pacific waters and then the ship reversed course and followed the whale migration into the North Pacific and back into the South Pacific; for three years! There were ports along the way where their cargo of whale oil and whale bone could be sold or traded for more supplies, so Amos Humiston did get to see the world. He said in a letter, however, that the “work is much harder, much bloodier, and much smellier, and the storms are more frightening” than he imagined. But, once on a whaling vessel, there is no opportunity for a change of heart, so his home was the Harrison and Amos became an experienced sailor. 

When he finally returned to New York, he went into the leather finishing business a few miles from his boyhood home. He was skilled and industrious, and his business flourished. Amos was twenty-three years old when he met Philinda Smith and he wrote “It was as if struck by lightning” and within weeks, they married on July 4, 1854.  Over the next five years, the Humiston’s had three children and life was good for their family.

But the United States, after only about eighty years as a new nation, was in peril! Amos was a vocal supporter of the Union and, when the first seven states did secede and form the Confederate States of America, he believed that President Lincoln was right to force the seceded states back into the Union through military action. Amos did not immediately join the army or the local militia because, after all, like almost everyone else in the North and South, he thought the war would quickly end; and he had a business to run, a family to care for, and he was already thirty years old.  However, a year after the war had started, and after a few Confederate victories, Amos decided it was his patriotic duty to serve, and on July 26, 1862, he enlisted in the 154th New York regiment.

Amos regularly wrote to his family, describing army life, but his letters also indicated that he was ready for battle and prepared for the dangers involved.  Also, he had been promoted to Sergeant. On May 2, 1863, Sergeant Humiston and his men were thrust into battle at Chancellorsville and were handed a stunning defeat. Of the 60 men under Sergeant Humiston, 12 were killed or missing and another twelve severely wounded, a staggering forty percent casualty rate. While he was struck in the chest by a bullet, it must have already lost speed, because he only received a bad bruise. He wrote to Philinda that night, “It could have been worse, but it made me think of home and you and the children.”

A few days later, Sergeant Humiston received the special gift from his wife, the ambrotype image of his three children. He quickly wrote back to her the same day, writing in part,“…it pleased me more than anything you could have sent to me. How I want to see them and their mother is more than I can tell. I hope we may all live to see each other again….”

Then, Sergeant Humiston and his men were given orders to march out of Virginia, toward Pennsylvania, to a small town called Gettysburg.

They arrived on July 1, 1863 and were ordered into the outskirts of Gettysburg, to help halt a Confederate charge that threatened to break through the Union lines. It was a poor decision by Union officers, because Sergeant Humiston’s 154th New York unit was vastly outnumbered and most of the 154th regiment who did not die in the quick engagement, were surrounded and captured by the Confederates. A few Union soldiers who were not captured attempted to flee back toward the town. Among those who retreated, evidently, was Sergeant Amos Humiston. At some point in his scramble, he must have lost his personal pack, which would have contained some identification and, probably, letters from his wife.

But he never made it. Sergeant Humiston fell to the ground on the outskirts of Gettysburg. He propped himself up against a fence, removed the ambrotype from his pocket, and looked at his children for the last time.