E T Sighting

 

Frustration.

I had found George A Thompson. His unit, company H was a part of the Fifth Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia (or MVM for short). Company H was also known as the Salem Guard.

According to his roster, George had enlisted 4/19/1861, a week after Sumter had been fired upon, and was mustered in on May 1 (more things to look up for understanding). And was listed as a casualty 7/21, the Battle of Bull Run (or First Bull Run, so as not to be confused with Second Bull Run).

But there was no Edward T Osgood. Not in company H, nor in any other companies of the Massachusetts Fifth regiment.

Another search finally turned up ET in the 23rd Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (MVI). On their roster he was listed as the fourth sergeant in Company A. But nowhere does it mention that the 23rd was at First Bull Run, in fact the date of his enlistment was given as August 21, 1861, a month after that battle. So, again there seemed to be no connection to Thompson.

As a first step, I looked up a listing for a regimental history of the 23rd, found it, and as my local library did not have a copy, I ordered it from the InterLibraryLoan department.

And waited.

Meanwhile I could wonder about some of the other clues from this roster entry.

Like exactly what was a “Cordr”?

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The Second Clue

North and South. Union and Confederate. Slavery and free.  I knew about these as concepts.

I didn’t know much about the Civil War when it came to the details involved.  Sure I knew about the individuals – Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee, etc.; and some of the battles.  But when it came to regiments, brigades and other units with state names and ordinal designations, I was in the dark.

And to discover how E. T. fit into all this, I would need to educate myself.  But where to begin?

I thought I had something when I found an old newspaper clipping in one of my grandfather’s volumes. It was from a Salem MA newspaper, I think from the 1960s. The writer of the article was describing a picture with something to do about the first casualty from Salem in the Civil War.  It gave his name as George A Thompson of Company H.  And he died in the first Battle of Bull Run.  It stated further that our mutual ancestor (Herbert is a distant cousin of mine) served with George and was a prisoner of war.

When I was first looking at this it was 1996 or 1997, so there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff on the Internet.  I had dial up at home, but no graphic interface (I went to the library for that).

So, it appeared that ET was in Company H and a POW.

Where to from here?

Stay tuned.