VERY RARE CDV-GETTYSBURG "CHILDREN OF THE BATTLEFIELD

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This has to rate right up near the top of famous photographs from the Civil War. It is a CDV image of three young children. It has the backmark of "F. Gutekunst, Photographer / 704 & 706 Arch St. Philadelphia". This photograph is of the children of Sergeant Amos Humiston. He was the only enlisted man at Gettysburg who has his own monument on the battlefield (see pictures). It wasn't because of his heroism in the battle. A Union sergeant in New York 's 154th "Hardtack" regiment, Humiston was killed on the first day of fighting in Gettysburg , after Confederate troops overwhelmed his company at a spot known as Kuhn's Brickyard. What earned him a permanent marker was his love for Frank, Freddie and Alice. Humiston was just one of more than 3,000 Union soldiers who died in the monumental three-day conflict. But when his body was found later that week, lying in a secluded spot at York and Stratton streets in Gettysburg, he was holding an ambrotype (an early kind of photograph), and on it were the serious, round faces of his three adored children: 8-year-old Frank, 6-year-old Alice and 4-year-old Freddie. Somehow, historians believe, Amos Humiston had managed to drag himself to this patch of ground after he had been wounded, and was probably looking at his children's faces when he died. Even then, Humiston might have faded into obscurity, because t was nothing on his body to identify him and the few soldiers from his unit who survived the battle had moved on before he was found. Somehow, though, the image of his children ended up in the possession of Dr. John Francis Bourns, a 49-year-old Philadelphia physician who helped care for the wounded at Gettysburg . Months after wrapping up his volunteer work t, he decided to try to find out the identity of the children's father. His efforts produced a wave of publicity that swept the North when the Philadelphia Inquirer published the story. That is w Philinda Humiston, living in Portville , N.Y. , first saw word of the ambrotype and the dead soldier. She hadn't heard from Amos since weeks before Gettysburg , and when she saw the description of the children, she feared the worst. So she contacted Dr. Bourns through a letter written by the town postmaster. Bourns had printed copy upon copy of the children's picture to respond to inquiries, but so far, none of the people who had contacted him had turned out to be the right family. He replied to Philinda's inquiry as he had to the others. And so it was that one mid-November day, four months after the battle, she opened the envelope from Philadelphia and knew for sure that she had been widowed for a second time, and that her children were fatherless. The story might have ended t if it weren't for another idea Bourns had. He believed he could capitalize on the outpouring of sympathy toward the Humistons to raise funds for an orphanage in Gettysburg , to house the children of fallen Union soldiers. And so a second publicity campaign began, appealing for donations. Gifts came from the wealthy and the humble. The orphanage became a reality in October 1866 and began with 22 soldiers' children ranging in age from 5 to 12. At its peak, the Homestead , as it was known, had just under 100 children. For whatever reason, the Humiston children almost never mentioned their childhood celebrity, and most of those who knew them had no idea they were once the "Children of the Battlefield." Yet their story continues to be told because of a father's love that has survived the centuries. In his last letter to Philinda, two months before his death, Amos expressed those feelings with his own sense of spelling and punctuation . "... I got the likeness of the children and it pleased me more than eney thing that you could have sent me how I want to se them and their mother is more than I can tell I hope that we may all live to see each other again if this war dose not last to long." This is truly a fantastic image and extremely difficult to find. It is only the second one I came across in the past 10+ years....the first ... read more

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