146 Years Ago Today...

July 2, 1864..... For most people this date means nothing. Sometimes it goes by and I don't think much about it other than I'm usually gearing up for the 4th of July weekend which, along with Christmas is my favorite holiday. I'm thinking parades, fireworks, cook-outs and a day off of work.

146 years ago a man by the name of Benjamin Franklin Bartholomew probably would've liked to have been thinking of a holiday weekend with his family too. Instead he was dying in a Civil War hospital in Jeffersonville, IN.

You might say, "So what? A lot of people died during the Civil War." You're right about that. But not all of them happen to be my Great-great-great grandfather. I don't know his whole story but I'm trying to find out more.

I do know this much. He was born in 1827 in Ohio. He married my great-great-great grandmother, Asenath Rice and they moved to Michigan sometime in the late 1840's to early 1850's. He enlisted at 36 years of age in Vicksburg, MI in January of 1864 and served in the 19th Michigan Infantry, Co. E. and by July of that same year he was dead. He left behind a wife and five children; one unborn that he may have not even known was on the way. Of those five children the next to youngest; Walter, would be my great-great grandfather.

So many times I've run it through my mind, using different scenarios trying to figure out why he would enlist 3 years after the war started. . I've asked myself, "Why? At age 36 with a wife and children, why? Did he feel guilty not going? Were they offering large sums of money? Was he thinking of a better life for his family? Why?" I don't know. I hope someday I find out. I do know this; I'm so proud of him. I can't even imagine what was going through his mind knowing he was leaving and what hardships his wife and children had to go through without him around.

I don't know what battles he was in or how he died or what he died of. But in talking with people in Jeffersonville I have found out that Jeffersonville was home to the third largest Union hospital during the Civil War. The hospitals there were used for bringing wounded soldiers away from the front lines of the battle. If this is true then most likely he was wounded in some way and probably died either from the wound itself or complications with disease that had set in. I have to wonder what was running through his mind as he lay in the hospital. Was he thinking that he would pull through and see his family? Or did he know it was the end and that he would never see home again?

Grandpa Benjamin is buried in the New Albany National Cemetery in New Albany, IN just a few miles from Jeffersonville. I have been to his grave many times since I was a kid. Grave # 848. That's all some poeple will ever know. B.F. Bartholomew, #848, MICH. It doesn't seem fair that after such sacrifice many of the graves are so impersonal. I suppose they did the best they could. The family was too far away to come to a funeral service. He would have been dead and buried for days or even weeks before word ever reached home. Each time we visit his headstone is a little more weathered showing the wear and tear of the years. It gets a little harder to read each time we see it. I've often wondered what is buried with him. His uniform? A sword? A gun? Letters from home? Is there something that would've given us a clue to his life? I guess we'll never know.

For many years we were puzzled by his death because according to cemetery records he died and was buried the same day. Jeffersonville and New Albany are on the Ohio river just opposite of Louisville, KY. At first we thought that maybe he just happened to die at the right spot and they buried him there because they were in Union territory. We have since learned about the hospitals and it all makes more sense.

I also found out one other thing that gave me chills when I read it. In 1862 President Lincoln established the National Cemetery in New Albany; one of many throughout the country. Prior to this cemetery being instituted other fallen soldiers were buried in another area of town. The wooden grave markers had rotted away and in 1927 the city built a ball park over the cemetery without moving the graves. If Grandpa Benjamin had died before 1862, he could have been in one of those graves that was covered up and we never would've known where he was buried.

Each time I go I gain more and more appreciation for the sacrifices he and his family made. It makes me a little more sentimental each time I go visit because I think about the direction this country is going and I know that he and so many like him never intended for us to get as far away from our foundations as we have. They gave all and the freedoms they died to give us are slowly being taken away. One word comes to mind when I think of how much more they thought of us, people they would never know, than they thought of there own lives. Sobering.

So as I get ready to celebrate my favorite holiday this weekend, I will be excited about the fireworks, parades and all of that good stuff. But, I also will be reminded of one man's sacrifice in particular that hits a little closer to home. I will have fun and enjoy myself because I'm sure he would've wanted it that way. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." Thanks Grandpa.