Monday, May 29, 2023

Memorial Day, 2023

Today is Memorial Day, the last Monday of May, originally observed on May 30. It began in the South in 1866 to recognize their war dead, and became a national holiday in 1868. We now memorialize all those who died in service to our country, and it has become customary to honor also our friends and family who are deceased. To my knowledge, my family on my mother's side has only one Civil War dead to honor, Jacob J. George, my great grandfather's youngest brother. In a cruel irony, his parents who lived in Adams County, Pennsylvania (Gettysburg is in that county) sent their youngest boy to live in the relatively safe area of Lee County Illinois with his adult brother, a farmer.

Although we can find Jacob's name in the History of Lee County Illinois with the other volunteers from Company G, he and the others (almost 2,500 just from that county) had no idea they'd signed on for bad food, injuries, disease and prison. Lee County was paying $100 bounty, and it probably seemed like a great adventure to him (obviously lied about his age). He enlisted on January 4, 1864 when he was 15 years and one month old.

He's buried in The National Cemetery in Nashville, TN with over 16,000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate, whose names are known, and another 3,500+ unknown. He died in the hospital of acute diarrhea on May 10, 1865, having entered the hospital on April 12. General amnesty was proclaimed by the President on May 29, 1865, and the war ended. Many in this cemetery were transferred from hospital burial grounds. His Discharge papers (death certificate) showed his age as 18. He was 16.

It was about 120 years later that my mother and her sister learned about Jacob through the genealogical research of their cousin, and a few letters were found that he had sent his sister in Iowa describing his ordeal and homesickness. This is my own speculation, but I'm guessing his brother in Illinois, my great-grandfather, never mentioned him to his family. His birth and death dates are not in the family Bible. It's possible that when Mom was a little girl waving her flag at the parade on May 30 when the old Civil War veterans marched by, some may have been from Jacob's regiment.

No comments: