Oh the heartbreak.
As reported here previously, my g-g-grandfather Henry Martin Walker, Sr. (1929-1865) died in a troop train accident during the Civil War. It was March 2nd, 1865, and he was a member of Company A, in the Thirty-Third Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Now let's get a bit of perspective. There were several hundred of regiments fighting in the Civil War. And most all regiments had several companies. So what are the odds?
Researching the Thirty-third and the train accident, I found a 1914 publication of the Illinois Historical Society indicating that I might find useful a book written in 1883 by Alfred O. Marshall called Army Life or Recollections of a Private Soldier which I was lucky to find online here. And I got really excited to begin reading that he was a member of Company A in the Illinois Thirty-Third! And it is over four hundred pages long! What are the odds?!!
Jumping to the end of the book, I couldn't have been more crestfallen to read that the book ends when Mr. Marshall was mustered out -- three months before my g-g-grandfather enlisted, and five months before the train accident. Sigh. What are the odds?
Ugh.
Copyright © 2010 by Kevin W. Walker
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