I hope you will be spending time with family and friends this holiday weekend. Strawberry Pretzel Salad is a dish that is always well-received. You may find recipes online that call for only 1 pound of strawberries, but trust me, 2 pounds makes it better for the strawberry lovers in your family. Fair warning, it is an easy recipe, but it generates lots of dirty dishes.
Remember this weekend those in the military who died in service to their country. If you missed it, check out the blog about our cousin, James M. Dunn, who died on the first day at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
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JAMES M. DUNN & THE CIVIL WAR
We are fast approaching Memorial Day weekend, the day we remember those men and women of the armed services who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Here is the story of one of our ancestors who has his own story to tell. Many of the men of the Dunn branch of our family served in various regiments formed in Pennsylvania during the Civil War. Our first cousin 4X removed, James M. Dunn (December 11, 1834 – July 1, 1863), was recruited in Juniata County by the 151st Pennsylvania Regiment, Company D, for a 9 month term. He enlisted on September 9, 1862, in McAlisterville, Pennsylvania and joined his unit in Harrisburg as a 3rd Sergeant. At the age of 26, James had married Catherine Knisely on February 14, 1860, in McAlisterville. The young couple welcomed a baby boy, Harrie Hildebrandt Dunn, on January 17, 1861. The men of Company D came from Juniata County, taking their recruits from Thompsontown, East Salem, McAlisterville, Mifflintown, and other small surrounding towns. It became know as the schoolteachers’ regiment because as many as sixty of those recruits were reported to be schoolteachers marching alongside farmers (like James) and laborers. Their first assignment sent them to Virginia at Chancellorsville on April 30 for four days. There were 115,00 Union soldiers facing 60,000 Confederates. It appeared that it would be an easy win for the North. The 151st assisted the Union Army in holding back Confederate soldiers led by “Stonewall” Jackson, but the campaign was eventually a huge victory for the South with Jackson succumbing to his wounds. The North lost 17,278 men while the South lost 12,826. The survivors of Company D returned to Pennsylvania to the small town of Gettysburg and, under orders from their officers, marched to the front for the purpose of holding back the advance of the Confederates. They were now under the direction of Lt. Col. George McFarland. They were forced to retreat to the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary where they held their ground alongside the Federal Army troops. McFarland was shot in both legs with one having to be amputated below the knee. His men occupied Cemetery Ridge for 2 days. On the final day of the battle, the 151st effectively fired on Kemper’s Brigade off Pickett’s Division. The North won the Battle of Gettysburg, but at great cost. Here is a quote I found on the performance of the regiment: “The heroism displayed by the One Hundred and Fifty-first in this battle, is unsurpassed; it went into the fight with twenty-one officers, and four hundred and sixty-six men. Of these, two officers and sixty-six men were killed, twelve officers and one hundred and eighty-seven men were wounded, and one hundred were missing, an aggregate loss of three hundred and sixty-seven, upwards of seventy-five per cent. " ‘At Gettysburg," says General Doubleday, who commanded the First Corps, " they won, under the brave M'Farland, an imperishable fame. They defended the left front of the First Corps against vastly superior numbers; covered its retreat against the overwhelming masses of the enemy at the Seminary, west of the town, and enabled me, by their determined resistance, to withdraw the corps in comparative safety. This was on the first day. In the crowning charge of the third day of the battle, the shattered remnants of the One Hundred and Fifty-first Pennsylvania, with the Twentieth New York State Militia, flung themselves upon the front of the rebel column, and drove it from the shelter of a slashing in which it had taken shelter from a flank attack of the Vermont troops. I can never forget the services rendered me by this regiment, directed by the gallantry and genius of M'Farland. I believe they saved the First Corps, and were among the chief instruments to save the Army of the Potomac, and the country from unimaginable disaster’." Those casualties included our cousin, James M. Dunn. He was killed on the first day of the battle. His wife, Kate, received word of his death and searched the battlefield for several days for his body, but it was never recovered. There is a monument to the 151st Company D at Gettysburg National Military Park with James’ name inscribed on it along with the other casualties of the battle. In 1870, Kate married Joseph Nichols, a Pennsylvania Civil War veteran, and moved with him to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived for 58 years. She was a member of the Bethlehem Presbyterian Church. Her activities also included state secretary of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union who fought for the passage of prohibition and also chaplain of the Minnesota GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) who supported Civil War veterans and widows. Joseph died in 1927. Kate lived to see her four grandsons and died at the home of her son Harrie at the age of 102. Elizabeth Bassett, our 8th great grand aunt, was the third wife of John Proctor. They were both arrested for witchcraft in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller wrote the play, The Crucible, about them. John was executed, but Elizabeth was pregnant and was spared until after the child was born. By then, the witchcraft hysteria had ended and all suspects were freed.
Click on the photo below for their story. In case you are keeping track, this is the third ancestor of our family who was executed during the trials. The other two were Susannah North Martin and Samuel Wardwell. The 1950 census was released on April 1st and has finally been indexed for Ohio. I found the Edward Jones family in Cleveland. Check out lines 20-26 on the document below. Grandpa is listed with the middle initial P which should be H for Hall, but this is the right family. He also claimed that he was born in Massachusetts when he was actually born in Nova Scotia, Canada. Hmmm. Ted, Bett, Marge, Dolly, and Donna were still living at home then. Hope you can enlarge it.
Our 15th great grandmother was the mother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III as well as the great grandmother of Henry VIII.
From the Facebook Page Tudors Dynasty: #OTD in #History: 3 May - Birth of Cecily Neville, future wife of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Cecily was also the mother of Edward IV & Richard III (and she shared a birthday with her daughter, Margaret) |
Bonnie EastonHi! I am a Jones cousin, daughter of Evelyn Jones Easton. Since retiring as a reference librarian after 20 years, I have become a genealogy addict. Our ancestors want to tell us their stories.
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