One of the
most pathetic was a small daguerreotype of a beautiful young girl. On a
card, beside the picture, is the story of it, so far as that story is
ever likely to be known:
Picture found on the dead body of an unidentified Federal soldier.
Presented by C.C. Calvert, Upperville, Va.
"We have always hoped," said Miss Susan B. Harrison, house regent of the
museum, "that some day some one would come in and recognize this little
picture, and that it would find its way back to those who ought to have
it, and who might by this means at last discover what became of the
soldier who was dear to them."
An even more tragic souvenir is a letter addressed to A.V. Montgomery,
Camden, Madison County, Mississippi, in which a mortally wounded soldier
of Confederacy bids a last good-by to his father. The letter was
originally inclosed with one from Lieutenant Ethelbert Fairfax, C.S.A.,
informing the father that his son passed away soon after he had written.
The text, pitiful and heroic as it is, can give but the faintest idea of
the original, with its feeble, laborious writing, and the dark-brown
spots dappling the three sheets of paper where blood from the boy's
mangled shoulder dripped upon them while he wrote:
Spotsylvania County, Va.
May 10, 1864.
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