Historian Mark Dunkelman discusses Amos Humiston's story - Thurs., March 18 at 7:30 p.m.

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A free online event taking place this Thursday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. will be of interest to members who followed this popular thread about the New York Times series based on Mark Dunkelman's book "Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston." In a talk for the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, Mr. Dunkelman will discuss "the amazing set of circumstances that enabled him to write the book." The free program will be hosted on the Shenandoah Battlefields' Facebook page (@ShenandoahBattlefields), which you can join at this link: https://fb.me/e/1mUeAfirc.

One thing I am interested in hearing about is Mr. Dunkelman's search, in the past few years, for the original ambrotype of the Humiston children. As of 2017, its whereabouts were unknown.
 
Following up: It was fascinating to hear about the leads that Mark Dunkelman tracked down to discover Amos Humiston's story. The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District plans to archive the video on YouTube for future viewing. I'll watch for a link to add to this thread. As for the original ambrotype of the Humiston children, it is still missing. It had been in possession of the Humiston family for a time after the war, but was eventually returned to Dr. J. Francis Bourns, the Philadelphia physician who was responsible for the initial publicity campaign that led to Sgt. Humiston's identification, notification of his family, the establishment of the orphanage for soldiers' children at Gettysburg, and some instances of malfeasance that contributed to its eventual closure. But whatever happened to the ambrotype after Dr. Bourns's death is unknown.
 
Here is the link to historian Mark Dunkelman's presentation on researching Amos Humiston's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9fktuMrd-k. There were some persistent technical glitches on the presenter's end at the outset of the video, but the presentation itself is fascinating. I was glad to see Mr. Dunkelman's book about the Humiston story come out in paperback, because the original hardcover edition can be hard to find. My own local library's copy was missing at one point, so I had to wait a long whilebefore finally catching up with it.
 
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