An Incident and Aftermath in Falmouth, Kentucky during the Civil War

I found this description, almost a "lost and found" like article in the April 1897 edition of Confederate Veteran magazine and the local aspect of it quickly caught my attention.

C. H. Lee, Jr., Adjutant Camp 682, United Confederate Veterans, Falmouth, Ky.: "In August or September, 1862, a company of Confederate cavalry came to Falmouth for the purpose of burning the K. C.  railroad bridge, and while here engaged in a fight (editor note: KC railroad bridge refers to the Kentucky Central Railroad ) with a company of Federal soldiers. In the fight several of the Confederates were killed and wounded. Among them was the orderly sergeant of the company, Dr. Jennings, who was wounded, and died in a few days at the residence of Mrs. L. E. Rule, the mother of the commander of our camp.


Capt. Ratcliffe's company belonged to the command of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, who was at that time in Kentucky threatening Cincinnati. (editor note: see info here about the Siege of Cincinnati ) It is not likely that the family of Dr. Jennings ever knew when and where he was killed. He was cared for while he lived by Miss Annie L. Rule (who has been dead a number of years), and to her he gave a ring, with the expressed wish that it be the means of making known his fate to his friends. There is engraved in the ring the initials 'J. K. C. to S. S. J.' 

Mrs. Flora Seaman, a sister of Miss Rule, living here, says that Dr. Jennings's name was Samuel, and that the ring was given to him by his wife before their marriage. Moreover, that Dr. Jennings said that his home was in Mobile, Ala.


Capt. Ratcliffe's company was made up principally of the crew of a gunboat, either the 'Merrimac' or 'Virginia,' and was an independent company, and at some time may have been Gen. Heth's bodyguard. I wrote some time ago to the commander of a camp at Mobile, asking his assistance in the matter, to which he promptly assented. I have not heard from him since, and conclude that he failed to find any trace of Dr. Jennings's friends, and I know of no better way now to proceed than to ask the cooperation of the VETERAN in the matter.


Will you kindly insert a short notice in the next issue, stating so much of these facts as will enable any friends of Dr. Jennings, should they see it, to recognize the subject of this sketch? The ring has been deposited with our camp. If any of his relatives or friends should see the notice, I would be much pleased to hear from them, and will be glad to give them any additional facts in reference to the Doctor's death and burial place that I can. Dr. Jennings was first buried here, but after the war his remains were removed to Cynthiana, Ky., and buried in ' Battle Grove Cemetery' with other Confederate dead."

Records from Battle Grove Cemetery in Cynthiana, a town south of Falmouth, on US-27, do list an S.S. Jennings as buried in the Confederate plot of the graveyard. This link shows that this cemetery was not dedicated until 1868 and that a Confederate Memorial was dedicated in 1869. This sounds like a great excuse for a field trip, to take some pictures of more graves of Civil War veterans, including Dr. Jennings.

I admit I do wonder if Dr. Jennings' friends ever saw this story and what became of the ring. Hopefully it survives somewhere and is in the care of someone who knows its history.

T. Addison Richards, painter during the Civil War period

While looking through a copy of the February 28, 1863 edition of Harper's Weekly: Journal of Civilization I found this brief article about artist T. Addison Richards, an English-born artist who lived in Georgia for years before moving to New York City.  He apparently created many paintings of various scenes of the south he viewed in his travels, including working with his brother on a collection of engravings of some of his work, which they called Georgia Illustrated.

His obituary provides some more information about his life and his more notable paintings, and a google search for his name will bring up many links to views of his artwork, or even examples of it currently for sale.

One thing I did not find out about him was his political preferences during the war. He stayed in New York during the war years apparently, so it seems like he may have supported the Union over the Confederacy, despite the years he lived in and the work he did about Georgia and the south. Or maybe he had no major preference, but stayed in New York for its business climate and his potential for business success instead of any major political feelings. 

Here's the brief article that Harper's Weekly printed on his activities at this point in the war.  I do find it curious that they would print what is basically an advertisement for his art sale, but that was part of the journalism business of the day, especially with someone who apparently had earned at least some fame. Free publicity for such an artist must have been helpful for business.

In these sober times the painters are still busy in their studios, and it is a curious relief from the stern excitement of the war to step into their quiet rooms and see the tranquil streams, meadows, grazing cattle, and hazy mountains. Mr. T. Addison Richards, the artist and well-known Secretary7 of the National Academy, proposes a sole of some of his paintings, sketches, and studios - landscapes, fruits and flowers, to the number of about 150, at the Derby Gallery on the 24th of February. The visitors to the annual exhibitions need no introduction to his  name; and we hope that every landscape in the collection will prove to be the site of a gold mine, and that every placid stream may be covered with that choicer game than canvas-backs, green-backs. 

Here is a picture of his painting Summer Sunlight, courtesy of Askart.com

CWPT Campaign to save 782 acres at Brandy Station

Here's a link to the announcement at the Civil War Preservation Trust's website.

I received the following announcement (slightly different than at the webpage) about it today via email

Help Save the Brandy Station Battlefield

Save the land where Buford, Rooney Lee, Hampton, and Devin fought
A Can't-Miss Opportunity to Preserve 782 Battlefield Acres
What would you think if I told you that you could help save 782 acres of hallowed ground at the Brandy Station battlefield in Virginia for just $85.68 per acre?

In a world where CWPT often must pay about $5,000 - $10,000 or more per acre of hallowed ground I've got to tell you that a price of $85.68 per acre gets your attention!
The two parcels that make up this new preservation efforts are highly significant to the Battle of Brandy Station. The northernmost tract is where Gen. John Buford's Federal cavalry fought with Rooney Lee's Confederate troopers. The southern parcel includes land where Federal cavalry under Col. Thomas Devin repeatedly clashed with Confederates led by General Wade Hampton. As historian Bud Hall puts it, “there is no piece of Piedmont plain in Culpeper County that witnessed more infantry and cavalry action than this property.”

Brandy Station 2010 Preservation Campaign

• Acres: 782 acres
• CWPT Fundraising Goal: $67,000
• Match: Roughly $116 to $1
• Match Sources: Landowner donated conservation easements

For more: www.civilwar.org/brandystation10
New battle map, historian videos, history articles, and photos online!

In this very extraordinary case at Brandy Station, we have two landowners donating conservation easements on their land directly to the Commonwealth of Virginia.
What this means is that, in return for federal and state tax benefits based on the value of their property, these landowners have forsaken all future development rights to this land meaning, it will be protected just the way it is forever. The funds that CWPT are raising will pay for necessary closing costs, making sure the land is preserved.
Please let me hear back from you as soon as possible, and please accept my deepest thanks for your generosity.
Very sincerely yours,

Jim Lighthizer
President, CWPT

Woman’s Work in the Civil War, Elizabeth Mendenhall of Cincinnati

I have, in various pieces, most pages of an antique book, published in 1867 by Zeigler, McCurdy & Co, and entitled Woman's Work in the Civil War. In it, I found a couple references to local women of the period.

I take the following profile, of Mrs. Elizabeth S. Mendenhall, from pages 617-620 of this work.

This lady and Mrs. George Hoadly, were the active and efficient managers of the Soldiers' Aid Society, of Cincinnati, which bore the same relations to the branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, at Cincinnati, which the Woman's Central Association of Relief did to the Sanitary Commission itself. Mrs. Mendenhall is the wife of Dr. George Mendenhall, an eminent and public-spirited citizen of Cincinnati. Mrs. Mendenhall was born in Philadelphia, in 1819, but her childhood and youth were passed in Richmond, Virginia, where a sister, her only near relative, still resides. Her relatives belonged to the society of Friends, and though living in a slave-holding community, she grew up with an abhorrence of slavery. On her marriage, in 1838, she removed with her husband to Cleveland, Ohio, and subsequently to Cincinnati, where she has since resided, and where her hatred of oppression increased in intensity.

When the first call for troops was made in April, 1861, and thenceforward throughout the summer and autumn of that year, and the winter of 1861-2, she was active in organizing sewing circles and aid societies to make the necessary clothing and comforts which the soldiers so much needed when suddenly called to the field. She set the example of untiring industry in these pursuits, and by her skill in organizing g and systematizing their labor, rendered them highly efficient. In February, 1862, the sick and wounded began to pour into the government hospitals of Cincinnati , from the siege of Fort Donelson, and ere these were fairly convalescent, still greater numbers came from Shiloh; and from that time forward, till the close of the war, the hospitals were almost constantly filled with sick or wounded soldiers. To these suffering heroes Mrs. Mendenhall devoted herself with the utmost assiduity. For two and a half years from the reception of the first wounded from Fort Donelson, she spent half of every day, and frequently the whole day, in personal ministrations to the sick and wounded in any capacity that could add to their comfort. She procured necessaries and luxuries for the sick, waited upon them, wrote letters for them, consoled the dying, gave information to their friends of their condition, and attended to the necessary preparations for the burial of the dead. During the four years of the war she was not absent from the city for pleasure but six days, and during the whole period there were not more than ten days in which she did not perform some labor for the soldiers' comfort.

Her field of labor was in the four general hospitals in the city, but principally in the Washington Park Hospital, over which Dr. J. B. Smith, who subsequently fell a martyr to his devotion to the soldiers, presided, who gave her ample opportunities for doing all for the patients which her philanthropic spirit prompted. During all this time she was actively engaged in the promotion of the objects of the4 Women's Soldiers' Aid Society, of which, she was at this time, president, having been from the first an officer. The enthusiasm manifested in the northwest in behalf of the Sanitary Fair at Chicago, led Mrs. Mendenhall to believe that a similar enterprise would be feasible in Cincinnati, which should draw its supplies and patrons from all portions of the Ohio valley. With her a generous and noble thought was sure to be followed by action equally generous and praiseworthy. She commenced at once the agitation of the subject in the daily papers of the city, her first article appearing in the Times, of October 31, 1863, and being followed by others from her pen in the other loyal papers of the city. The idea was received with favor, and on the7th of November an editorial appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette, entitled "Who Speaks for Cincinnati?" This resulted in a call the next day for a meeting of gentlemen to consider the subject. Committees were appointed, an organization effected and circulars issued on the 13^th of November. On the 19^th, the ladies met, and Mrs. Mendenhall was unanimously chosen President of the ladies' committee, and subsequently second Vice-President of the General Fair organization, General Rosecrans being President and the Mayor of the city, first Vice-President. To the furtherance of this work, Mrs. Mendenhall devoted all her energies. Eloquent appeals from her facile pen were addressed to loyal and patriotic men and women all over the country, and a special circular and appeal to the patriotic young ladies of Cincinnati and the Ohio valley for their hearty co-operation in the good work. The correspondence and supervision of that portion of the fair which necessarily came under the direction of the ladies, required all her time and strength, but the results were highly satisfactory. Of the two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars which was the net product of this Sanitary Fair, a very liberal proportion was called forth by her indefatigable exertions and her extraordinary executive ability.

The aggregate results of the labors of the Women's Aid Society, before and after the fair, are known to have realized about four hundred thousand dollars in money, and nearly one million five hundred thousand in hospital stores and supplies.

The Soldiers' Home of Cincinnati, one of the best managed of these institutions, was also established by the energy of Mrs. Mendenhall, and her associates. Up to the close of 1864, eighty thousand soldiers had been entertained in this "Home," and three hundred and seventy-two thousand meals dispensed. They also obtained by their exertions, a burial place of Ohio soldiers, dying in Cincinnati, at the Spring Grove Cemetery, the Trustees of the Cemetery giving one lot, and the Legislature purchasing two more at a small price.

The fair closed, she resumed her hospital work and her duties as President of the Women's Soldiers' Aid Society, and continued to perform them to the close of the war. Near the close of 1864, she exerted her energies in behalf of a Fair for soldiers' families, in which fifty thousand dollars were raised for this deserving object. The testimonies of her associates to the admirable manner in which her hospital work was performed are emphatic, and the thousands of soldiers who were the recipients of her gentle ministries, give equally earnest testimonies to her kindness and tenderness of heart.

The freemen and refugees have also shared her kindly ministrations and her open-handed liberality, and since the close of the war her self-sacrificing spirit has found ample employment in endeavoring to lift the fallen of her own sex out of the depths of degradation, to the sure and safe paths of virtue and rectitude.

With the modesty characteristic of a patriotic spirit, Mrs. Mendenhall depreciates her own labors and sacrifices. "What," she says in a letter to a friend, "are my humble efforts for the soldiers, compared with the sacrifice made by the wife or mother of the humblest private who ever shouldered a musket?"

Here's a link to some monthly reports of this group, courtesy of google books.

99th Post here at the Obsession

Well, after about 13 months in the blogosphere, I've reached my "post before my 100th post," and though 100 seems like the bigger milestone, I thought now would be a good time to do a "state of the Obsession" entry.

When I started this little experiment, I had no idea  how it would go or what I would get out of it, but I must admit I've really enjoyed it. It is difficult at times to find material to post, and the time to post it, and I have not quite posted the kind of opinions and thoughts that I originally believed I might, but it has been a good learning experience.

When I started this, I thought I would enter all kinds of original opinions, observations and thoughts about the war and, at the start, I did. Since then, I've started adding a lot more reprints of various pieces I've found in old books, newspapers or ephemera, and have added a few book reviews as well, but not as much original opinion, analysis or insight.

The time I started blogging was also about the same time I started reading various Civil War blogs, and that has been quite an eye-opener. I see some very well-written, thoroughly-researched articles and entries, and several bloggers I have found offer really detailed and informative analysis of various subjects related to the Civil War. There really is quite a lot to learn just from the blogs.

I'm not convinced I can offer the type of insight that many other fellow bloggers do, but I plan to keep trying to find something new or interesting to post. I hope I can average at least one entry per week, though more would be ideal, but I think the direction my blog has headed in recent months is one I like and will try to continue to follow, with a mixture of book reviews, discussions of recent articles, re-printing older articles, poems or stories, and I'd like to add some more original type of material as well.

I will see where this continuing experiment takes me, but I've really enjoyed it so far. By starting this blog, I have found some very enjoyable blogs to follow and discovered new ways to learn about this fascinating period of time. I hope that in some small way I can contribute something unique to the world of Civil War study, as I continue to explore my Civil War Obsession.

Thanks for indulging me in this perhaps self-congratulatory post.

Biography: A Poem about Abraham Lincoln

At a used book sale a  few weeks ago, one of the items I picked up was Songs After Lincoln, a book by Paul Horgan, an author of whom I knew nothing. (copyright 1960, 1965, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

I still know little of him, but I have learned that he was a prolific author and historian, who won not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes in history, both for books about New Mexico history.  Here is a link to his wikipedia page, but for those looking for a more reliable source, this short biography should work.

This versatile writer wrote this particular volume "as a commemorative observance of an event that touched all Americans one hundred years ago," according to the dust jacket, which was referring to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Horgan, it continues, "returns to his earliest forms of expression as an author" in this book that was the "fruit of a life-long interest in the Civil War and its greatest hero."

I may return to this book from time-to-time with some of his writings, but tonight I will republish the one he entitled "Biography" from pages 59 and 60 of this volume.

Did you ramble in the wood, 

Abe, my boy?

I got lost within the wood, 

But there I listened as I stood

And I learned everything I could, 

Said Abe, the boy. 

Did you come round the river's bend,

Young Abraham?

I saw round the river's bend, 

I saw what we'd have to fend,

And how to steer until the end,

Said Abraham

Did you gaze at books, and wonder, 

As a hired man?

Any book seemed all of wonder,

Strong enough to set asunder

This from that, almost like thunder,

Said the hired man.

Did you measure our own land,

Mr Surveyor?

I legged my chains across the land,

I studied late on what I spanned,

And so discovered where I'd stand,
Said the surveyor.

Did you seek the word of law,

Mr. Attorney?

I saw nature in the law,

And fate weighed heavy by a straw,

And it was my own life I saw,

Said the attorney.

Did you ponder on the War,

Commander-in-Chief?

I never could escape the War

I knew what we were fighting for,

It beat within my very core,

Said the commander-in-chief.

Did you know what had to come,

Mr. President?

I often dreamed of what might come,

But not where it was coming from,

I knew the numbers, not the sum,

Said the President.

I admit I'm curious as to why there are not verses on Mary Todd (or Anne Rutledge) or emancipation, and this work will never be mistaken for Shakespeare, but I still found it an interesting way to summarize Lincoln's life in verse.

"The Beginning of Slavery's End": A poem

These verses were apparently published in London's Punch Magazine shortly after Abraham Lincoln's election as President of the United States. I don't know if any Northerner who favored the abolition of slavery could have summed up their thoughts and beliefs in verse much better than this.

I found it republished on page 133 of Abraham Lincoln: The Year of His Election, A Cartoon History by Albert Shaw (The Review of Reviews Corporation, 1929).  Unfortunately, as I did some brief research on it, I found a link to Google books that showed that the version I found was missing a few verses, only printing what this link showed to be the first, second, fifth and final verses. I have transcribed the entire poem from this link.

Thus far shall Slavery go, no farther;

That tide must ebb from this time forth.

So many righteous Yankees are there, 

Who Good and Truth hold something worth, 

That they outnumber the immoral

Throughout the States, on that old quarrel

That stands between the South and North.

The great Republic is not rotten

So much as half; the rest is sound.

Most of her sons have not forgotten

Her own foundation; holy ground!

The better party is the stronger,

And by the worse will now no longer

Bear to be bullied, ruled and bound.

The nobler people of the nation

The baser sort no more will stand,

Nor cringe to truculent dictation

Enforced with strength of murderous hand,

By ruffians, for example, brawling

To back slave-soil against free land.

Their higher-minded fellow creatures

Of all these brutes are tired, and sick

Of slavery's blaspheming preachers,

That snuffle texts with nasal trick

To justify the abomination

That's cherished by their congregation

Whose feet these canting parsons lick. 

Enough of frantic stump-haranguing,

Invectives of a rabid Press,

Tarring and feathering, flogging, hanging,

To stop free mouths; the mad excess

Of human-fleshmongers tyrannic

Who rant and revel in Satanic

Enthusiasm of wickedness!

This is America's decision.

Awakening, she begins to see

How justly she incurs derision

Of tyrants, while she shames us free;

Republican, yet more slaves owning

Than any under Empire groaning,

Or ground beneath the Papacy

Come, South, accept the situation; 

The change will grow by safe degrees.

If any talk of separation,

Hang all such traitors if you please.

Break up the Union? Brothers, never!

No; the United States for ever, 

Pure Freedom's home beyond the seas!

Some pro-John C Freemont feelings in 1856

In an old pamphlet, entitled Address Illustrative of the Nature and Power of the Slave States, and the Duties of the free States, a reprint of a speech delivered by  Josiah Quincy, past mayor of Boston and President of Harvard,  on Junes 5, 1856 "at the request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Quincy, Mass." I found the following dedication, regarding that year's upcoming Presidential election.

Dedicated to THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES, who are entreated to consider the views and statements it presents.

The question to be decided, at the ensuing Presidential election, is, Who shall henceforth rule this nation, - the Slave States, or the Free States? All the aspects of our political atmosphere indicate an approaching hurricane. Whether it shall sweep this Union from its foundations, or whether it shall be prosperously weathered, depends, under Heaven, on the man whom the people shall choose to pilot them through the coming storm. In my judgment, that man is JOHN CHARLES FREMONT.  I have not, and never had, any connection with the party that selected him. Personally, I know him not; but I have read the history of his life, and believe him to be a man as much marked out by Providence for the present exigency of our nation as Washington was for that of our American Revolution.

 He comes, from whence great men usually do come, from the mass of the people. Nursed in difficulties, practised in surmounting them; wise in council; full of resource; self-possessed in danger; fearless and foremost in every useful enterprise; unexceptionable in morals; with an intellect elevated by nature, and cultivated in laborious fields of duty, - I truest he is destined to save this Union from dissolution; to restore the Constitution to its original purity;. and to relive that instrument, which Washington designed for the preservation and enlargement of freedom, from being any longer perverted to the multiplication of Slave States and the extension of slavery.

JOSIAH QUINCY, 
Quincy, July 1856

Of course, the Election of 1856 resulted in the election of the Democratic candidate James Buchanan instead of Fremont.

William Starling, Soldier and Engineer

I recently found an obituary published in the form of a four page pamphlet,  by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States  (MOLLUS) for William Starling, an Ohio native who served in the Civil War. He was born on January 25, 1839 in Columbus, Ohio and passed way on December 10, 1900, at the age of 61, in Greenville, Mississippi.

Below, I reprint the biographical information published in this obituary.




Our late Companion, William Starling, was descended from one of those pioneer families, which played a distinguished part in the early settlement of Kentucky. His father, Col. Williams Starling was a native of Franklin County, Ky., and his mother was a daughter of Judge Samuel McDowell, of Mercer County, Ky., who was president of eight of the nine conventions held in Kentucky preparatory to its admission into the Union, and Marshal of the U.S. District of Kentucky from 1789 to 1801.


His father went to Columbus, then a small village, to look after teh interests of his uncle, Lyne Starling, who owned most of the land on which the city was subsequently built, and during his father's stay there, our late Companion was born.


He attended the University of New York where he graduated in 1856 with honors, having the philosophical oration and obtaining the degrees of A.M. and C.E. from that institution. He entered upon his profession as Civil Engineer soon afterwards. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, he came to Frankfort, Ky., where his parents then resided. Upon the organization of the Third Kentucky Cavalry, commanded by Colonel after-wards Brigadier General James S. Jackson, he was appointed First Lieutenant in Company G of that regiment, and in May following, was promoted to Captain Company C, Ninth Kentucky Infantry. On May 18, 1863, was promoted to Major of his regiment, and on December 20, 1863, was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps. During the greater portion of his service he was on staff duty as Chief Engineer of Crittenden's, after-wards Van Cleve's Division. At the battle of Stone River, he was severely wounded, and on his recovery was on Court Martial duty at Louisville, till he resigned in September, 1864. In all of his military service he gained the approval and confidence of his commanders.


After the war, he resumed the practice of his profession, but in 1870 was engaged in cotton planting in Arkansas, near Greenville, Miss. His professional interest was aroused by the problem of controlling the Mississippi floods, and during a vacation, after some time spent in the study of the Dutch language, he visited Holland to examine the dike system of that country. On his return, he published a volume entitled, "Some Notes on the Holland Dikes," for which the Society of Civil Engineers gave him a gold medal. He was subsequently appointed Civil Engineer of the Mississippi Levee District, and constructed the works that have protected the Yazoo delta and brought it under cultivation. For a short time in 1898, he had charge of a levee district in Louisiana. Some time before his death, he was appointed by the President, a civilian member of the commission to report on the improvement of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi, and appointment highly complimentary to his professional standing and to his special knowledge on the subject of  river control.


Companion Starling was devoted to his profession, and an industrious writer on professional subjects. Besides the work on the Holland Dikes, mentioned above he wrote monographs on the Improvement of the Mississippi River, The Discharge of teh Mississippi River, The Floods of the Mississippi, and a number of shorter articles on similar subjects. At this death, he left the complete manuscript of a work that is soon to be published.


He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and of the Instituion of Civil Engineers of Great Britain. he was prominent in the Masonic Order; Past Grand High Priest; Past Grand Commander Knights Templar, and Past Grand Master of the Masons of Mississippi.


Companion Starling was never married; of his immediate family a brother and two sisters survive him.


Professionally, a competent authority says that Companion Starling was regarded as one of the most thoroughly informed and efficient officers in the Engineer Service.


In all his personal and social relations, he was admirable, kindly, considerate, a thorough gentleman always, a brilliant and entertaining conversationalist and a most genial companion; he was popular with all, and most admired and loved by those who had the best opportunity to know him.

R. M Kelly,
Thomas J. Bush,
Frank White,
Committee

Here's a link to another obituary, from Google books, which points out that this Northern soldier had earned appointment as Chief Engineer of the Mississippi Levee district, winning the job over two competitors who had been former Confederate soldiers. It lists his date of death as December 11, 1900 instead of the 10th as the pamphlet I have shows.

I did find one website with some information about the 9th Kentucky Infantry. It appears to be the same information available at the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers and Sailors  site, but this site is a direct link. The 9th Kentucky served in the Western Theater, throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. It was in Nashville, and  saw action at Shiloh, Corinth and northern Alabama, before being part of the pursuit of Bragg's Army, after which the 9th ended up in Louisville, Ky, before being part of Buell's unused reserves at the Battle of Perryville. This unit  eventually returned to Nashville, then participated in the fight at Murfreesboro (Stone's River) where Starling was injured and his active field service came to an end.

MOLLUS, it's official website linked in the first paragraph above, was an order established in 1865 for officers of the Union Military forces who had fought in the Civil War.