Children of Union Soldiers (including Andersonville POWs) Write to the Newspaper

Gary Morgan

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Aug 2, 2019
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Occasionally, the National Tribune - a newspaper aimed at Civil War vets , and edited by Andersonville POW and "memoirist" John McElroy would run a column called "Our Young Recruits" and published snippets of letters sent to the paper by the children of Union CW vets. Sometimes the kids were curious, and asked their father's comrades to contact them. Sometimes they were political, like the little girl who wrote demanding answers as to the high number of vets in Michigan poor houses. Some were touching, like the little boy who worked odd jobs to get subscription money so that he could read the Tribune to his blind father. And then there was the little girl who wrote to reprimand McElroy for a typo relating to her father's regiment, only to have McElroy reprimand her for her penmanship.

I never did like McElroy, much.

The common denominator to all of these letter is how very, very proud these young people were of their family soldiers. Anyway, here's a column from June 5, 1884, page 2

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