He Ran Away to Join the Cavalry

This my great grandfather William Myers' certificate of discharge from the 10th Ohio Cavalry following the general order to demobilize in 1865. He was eighteen at the time of the discharge and had served since 1862. Here's a picture of William, who was my mother's mother's father.

Comments

[SeanH]

Did he borrow that hat? It seems a bit small. Or was a tiny hat the fashion back then?

[Lloyd]

I think he is just wearing it at a jaunty angle, cuz he looks like a fellar that knows how to have fun. I'm sure I can see a smirk hiding under that stash.

[Ana]

He does kind of have those zany runaway bride eyes.

[CraigC]

It is one of the great points of family pride that the family progenitor in America on my father's side was hanged as a Tory sympathizer during the revolutionary War. Once a Republican, always a Republican!!

[Ana]

Damn. You and my husband could be related. Only his ancestors just sailed on back to jolly old England when the unpleasantness broke out.

[CraigC]

I don't think so. My ancestor's name was Jorg Kaufmann, or Kansman, from Germany. If you know your Revolutionary War history, there was a notoriously brutal English Colonel name Chivington, who had been involved the day before Jorg's demise in a massacre. The local populace was inflamed, and when they caught Jorg, who was a courier, on the road, they hanged him from a nearby Oak tree. He hadn't been involved in the massacre, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[gail]

William was actually fourteen when he first ran away to join up, but the Army kept sending him back to his parents. They finally got fed up and gave him permission to join at 15.

[gail]

I've been preserving family documents and pictures by scanning them. The Civil War stuff is obviously disintegrating pretty fast.

[CraigC]

Yeah, when my grandmother died, I suddenly got an interest in the family history. It's pretty amazing that this stuff is actually out there, and can be found.

[gail]

I haven't even looked up anything about my family online. All my stuff comes out of shoeboxes.