Five weeks after Robert E. Lee’s brilliant victory at Chancellorsville, Virginia, in early May, 1863, the Confederate general marched his 75,000 man army north into Pennsylvania. During the first three days of July, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia battled Union General George Gordon Meade’s 90,000 man Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg.

In one of the most important and bloodiest battles of the Civil War, just over 7,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed (more than the total number of American military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2015), 4,000 more would die of their wounds and 29,000 soldiers would survive combat injuries.

More than 5,000 slain horses were doused with coal oil and burned. Pools of human and animal blood attracted thick swarms of flies. Historian James M. McPherson states that for months after the battle “the stench of hospitals and corpses unburied and buried in shallow graves hung over the town and countryside.”

In the days following the great battle, soldiers and townspeople began burying the dead. Walking among the bodies, someone found a dead Union soldier holding a photograph of three children. The soldier had no identifying regimental marks on his cap or uniform, nothing on his person that would reveal who he was or where he came from. The photo was given to Benjamin Shriver, a tavern owner from a small town about 12 miles from Gettysburg. (One of Shriver’s daughters or a close family friend likely found the soldier clutching the photo)

After their wagon broke down, four men traveling to Gettysburg to help the wounded stopped at the tavern and saw the photo. One of the men, Philadelphia physician J. Francis Bourns, convinced Shriver to give him the photo so that he (Bourns) might use it to discover the dead soldier’s identity and locate his family.

Upon returning to Philadelphia, Dr. Bourns had the original photograph copied and reproduced in a carte-de-visit (CDV) format. About 2-and-a-half inches by 4 inches, CDVs were especially popular during the Civil War. Often brandishing weapons, newly enlisted soldiers were photographed in their new uniforms before marching off to war.

Bourns hoped distributing hundreds of inexpensive CDVs might lead to the identity of the fallen soldier. But he also needed a much wider circulation of the story. On Oct. 19, 1863, three-and-a-half months after the Battle of Gettysburg, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about the photo and the circumstances under which it was found under the headline, “Whose Father Was He?” Because photographs could not be reproduced in newspapers at that time, the article described what the children were wearing, noting the youngest was sitting in a highchair between his siblings, and estimated their ages as five, seven and nine years old.

The roughly 300 word article contained the following passage: “Wounded and alone, the din of battle sounding in his ears, he lies down to die. His last thoughts and prayers are for his family. He has finished his work on earth; his last battle has been fought; he has freely given his life to his country; and now, while his life blood is ebbing, he clasps in his hands the image of his children, and, commending them to the God of the fatherless, rests his last lingering look at them.”

The Inquirer article — or a version of it — was reprinted in newspapers across the North. Ten days later on October 29, a Philadelphia religious journal, The American Presbyterian, also ran the article. A few days later a copy of that article reached a subscriber in Portville, New York, a small town in the southwestern part of the state (Cattaraugus County) near Olean.

The journal article eventually found its way to Philinda Humiston, the mother of eight-year-old Franklin, six-year-old Alice, and four-year-old Frederick. Two weeks later Dr. Bourns received a letter from the Portville postmaster written on behalf of Philinda. The letter stated that only weeks prior to the Battle of Gettysburg Philinda had sent a photo as described to her husband, Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. On November 19, 1863, the American Presbyterian ran a story stating the father of the children in the now famous photograph had been identified. This was the same day President Abraham Lincoln was delivering his stirring words at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg.

Once again newspapers across the North picked up the Humiston story noting that Dr. Bourns would travel to Portville and give the proceeds from the sale of the CDVs to Phillinda Humiston. According to historian Andrea Volpe, the sale of the Humiston children CDV and the public display of Dr. Bournes’ trip to Portville, reinforced the notion “the orphaned children were the Union’s children, and that the nation was an extended family charged with their care.”

With Dr. Bourns playing a key role, the National Orphans’ Homestead Association was founded in October, 1865 — an organization, as historian Mark Dunkelman notes, ‘dedicated to raising funds to establish an asylum for Union soldiers’ orphans.” After a successful fund raising campaign in October, 1866, about 30 children took up residence in a newly purchased Gettysburg building that was transformed into an orphanage. The three Humiston children were in that group and Philinda was employed by the institution.

In 1869, Philinda married a minister from Massachusetts and moved to that state with the children. Frank, Frederick and Alice were educated at the Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts. Frank attended Dartmouth College, then the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. A practicing physician, he married, raised a family and died in 1912. Frederick became a successful grain merchant. Remaining in Massachusetts, he also married and had child, dying in 1918. Alice worked at numerous jobs in New York and New England before moving to California where she lived with one of her brother Frank’s children. Never married, Alice died in 1933 when her dress caught fire from an open flame.

In 1876 a series of newspaper articles alleged that some children at the Homestead Orphanage had been denied food, clothing and schooling, were sometimes beaten and constrained by leg irons. The school “matron” was charged and found guilty on one count of aggravated assault (and not guilty on two more counts), ordered to pay a fine of $20 and court costs “whereupon she returned to Homestead.” Unable to withstand the scandal, the orphanage was closed in 1878.

In July, 1993, a monument was dedicated to Amos Humiston – the only monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield dedicated to an enlisted man. A poem written by Stephen Bady, “The Unknown Soldier,” was read by the author at the ceremony:

A soldier lies in battle, face buried in the mud; a picture of his children there painted in his blood. Fighting for their freedom, he fought until his death; He kissed his children’s picture as he took his dying breath. His side lost the battle, but no one ever wins; For when this war is over, another war begins.

P.S. The words “His side lost the battle,” refers to the Union Army’s defeat the first day of the three day Battle of Gettysburg. For a thorough and exceptionally well written account of the Humiston family story see Mark Dunkelman “Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier” below.

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Sources

Dunkelman, M. (1997) “Union Soldier Who Died at the Battle of Gettysburg,” Aug. 18, HistoryNet, www.historynet.com

Dunkelman, M. (1999) Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston, Preager: Westport, CT

Horvath, L. (2013) “Battle ‘aftermath’ sheds perspective on Gettysburg,” July 6, Trib Live, http://triblive.com

McPherson, J. (2001) A Walk at Gettysburg – Hallowed Ground, Crown Publishers: New York

Morris, E. (2009) “Whose Father Was He? (Five Part Series) March 29 – April 2), New York Times Blog, http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com

Volpe, A. (2013) “The Carte de Visite Craze,” August 6, New York Times Blog, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com