Burke Davis relates a number of these unfortunate battlefield encounters in The Civil War- Strange and Fascinating Facts:
'Confederates captured Galveston, Texas, shelling and seizing the USS Harriet Lane [1 Jan, '63]. Major AM Lea went aboard the vessel with a boarding party. He found on deck, in dying condition, a lieutenant of the Lane, his son.
'When a Federal fleet captured Port Royal, South Carolina, [7 Nov, '61], the commander of defenses was Confederate General Thomas F Drayton. Captain of one of the attacking ships, the USS Pocahantas, was Drayton's brother [Percival].
'Captain John L Inglis, an Englishman with the Confederacy, led his Florida company on a valiant charge, overran the Federal guns, and acepted the surrender of their commander, his brother. [Where and when not specified.]
'During the battle of Gettysburg, John Wentz, an eighty-seven year old farmer, hid in the cellar of his home while, in the yard above, his son, whom he had not seen in twenty-four years, fought in gray with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. By tradition, the younger Wentz entered the cellar, found his father sleeping, and left a note pinned to his coat.
'Commodore Franklin Buchanan, first head of the United States Naval Academy, went South to command the old Merrimac when she became the ironclad Virginia. One of Buchanan's battle victims was the USS Congress, on which his brother [Paymaster McKean Buchanan] was an officer.'
__________________
'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
-Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC.
Last edited by ewc; 04-04-2006 at 03:04 PM.
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