In honor of No. 768

Gordon Meriwether
Published: November 12, 2008

We’ll never know for sure, but it might have happened like this ...

He was 17 when he volunteered. It was all the rage. The cause was just, the girls excited, the bands played, and the nation had called its young men to go to war to save the Union.

The preacher at the Presbyterian Church on the town square had been sermonizing week after week on freedom and justice for the slaves. His mother begged him not to volunteer now. His older brother, Jonathan, was already serving in the cavalry.

The family dairy farm outside of New Hartford, N.Y., needed him. His father couldn’t handle it alone. But those pleas fell on deaf ears. His young mind raced with thoughts of the adventure of war in far-off places. With other volunteers, he boarded the train for the trip east along the Mohawk River to Albany to sign up with the New York Volunteer Infantry.

The Army was bewildering, exciting and terrifying, all wrapped in one. Ed Horton, from Herkimer, was his sergeant and seemed to delight in making their lives unbearable, but at the same time he always looked out for the guys.

Training had been quick, and soon they found themselves bivouacked in a small Virginia town, Culpeper Court House. It was August and he was as hot as he can ever remember being.

This morning General Pope had ordered them to the south. Rumors were that the Rebs were encamped at a place called Cedar Mountain. It was good just to be moving. Too much time on your hands and your thoughts drifted to home, and that meant homesickness and missing sweet Emily. He planned on marrying Emily when he got back. Soon enough. Now they were moving to push the Rebs back to Richmond.

With a sweep of the sword, his lieutenant had ordered them forward into battle. All around was carnage. He saw Sgt. Horton go down and then the lieutenant. He was on the ground with bullets, shrapnel, and cannon balls flying everywhere. He hugged the ground next to a dead Confederate officer. He could hear the Rebel shot hitting the body.

When he dared look up, he could see the Rebs firing down on his position and the smoke of the cannons in the distance.

A young captain he didn’t recognize called to all around to follow him. With his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, the officer motioned the tattered and frayed company forward to attack the Confederate positions. As he stepped over the body of his shield, he was wretched with a shock and spun to the ground on top of the young officer, torn apart by a ricocheting cannon ball. He died quietly, staring at the clear sky with no sounds in his ears but that of his mother calling him in from the field.

In the evening, the scavengers who followed every battle took his money, his grandfather’s watch and his identification. They rolled what was left of him to the side and picked over the young Confederate as well. Soon, other Confederate soldiers and their Union prisoners came by and removed the officer, pushing the mangled body of the young New Yorker into a shallow grave with a makeshift wooden cross.

Years later he was moved to a quiet hill in a new national cemetery along the tracks in downtown Culpeper. He has but a 9-inch square stone marker: No. 768. He is one of the 912 unknown Union (and one Confederate) dead in our cemetery.

His mother never knew his fate. Emily married another returning veteran after giving up hope that he had survived. He died with honor, but anonymously; not with any particular heroic action, but in battle where everyone dies a hero.

On this quiet and peaceful hillside is where I met him. I keep him company on an occasional dawn. His dreams and passions surround you in the crisp and clear morning air. On this Veterans Day, all I can do is thank him for his gift of service. Brave young men on both sides paid with their lives for the foolishness and failure of politicians. They still do.

Our veterans respond to the nation’s call to action year after year. Our young go in harm’s way to protect our way of life after diplomacy fails. They are owed a nation’s respect and gratitude, and our people’s resolve to do all we can to stop all wars before they start.

Gordon Meriwether is an independent columnist who lives in Culpeper. He appears every other Thursday in the Star-Exponent. E-mail