"Union," the Turtle of the 26th Ohio

John Hartwell

Lt. Colonel
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Aug 27, 2011
Location
Central Massachusetts
tortoise.png

[Camp-fire Sketches and Battle-field Echoes (1886), p. 387]​
According to an account in the Perrysburg Journal (Ohio), April 17, 1885, the turtle was caught in Ringgold, Ga. in August 1884, by one Hiram Hensley. The former PoWs had left Columbus, Ohio on February 10, 1885 (not '86 as per above clipping), had toured the battlefields of East Tennessee, and were on their way to Atlanta when the stationmaster at Ringgold showed them the turtle. Some of them recognized it immediately.
 
Not exactly a Civil War turtle, but he might have been ... if he weren't actually a tortoise and 10,000 miles away in the Seychelles at the time.

Meet Jonathan:

World's_Oldest_Reptile_(15844883993).jpg
Believed to be the oldest living animal, Jonathan Tortoise was fully mature, and believed to be about 50 years old when he was captured, and brought to the island of St. Helena in 1882. The picture above was taken in 2014, when he was about 182 years of age, and he is still going strong. Hatched about 1832, he was an exact contemporary of many of our Civil War veterans. Below is a picture taken of Jonathan from about 1900: beside him stands a Boer POW, who was being held on St. Helena at the time.
Jonathan-the-tortoise-1900.jpeg
wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_(tortoise)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/good-new...t-living-animal-aged-184-has-first-ever-bath/
 
Not exactly a Civil War turtle, but he might have been ... if he weren't actually a tortoise and 10,000 miles away in the Seychelles at the time.

Meet Jonathan:

Believed to be the oldest living animal, Jonathan Tortoise was fully mature, and believed to be about 50 years old when he was captured, and brought to the island of St. Helena in 1882. The picture above was taken in 2014, when he was about 182 years of age, and he is still going strong. Hatched about 1832, he was an exact contemporary of many of our Civil War veterans. Below is a picture taken of Jonathan from about 1900: beside him stands a Boer POW, who was being held on St. Helena at the time.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_(tortoise)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/good-new...t-living-animal-aged-184-has-first-ever-bath/
WOW! That's amazing @John Hartwell . Thanks for sharing :smile:
 
I've been googling all over the place trying to find turtle-ACW links. Mostly they're about the Pook Turtles -- which don't really count.

But, I find that what is "perhaps" the earliest photograph of a turtle, was taken in Gettysburg in 1864! It is a copyright cdv image, and can be seen on flickr: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/101789078@N06/12965101255/]. The story of the photo was published in Herpetological Review 43(4):593-596, and Zachary Cava invites anyone who wants to hear it to email him.

I haven't.
 
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