James Masters, A Civil War Soldier: His Life and Legacy - Softcover

Curtis, David L

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798989676071

Verlag: Purslane Media LLC, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

In August 1862, a twenty-year-old farm laborer with little schooling, enlisted in Company E of the 17th Michigan Infantry. Within weeks, James Masters was under fire at South Mountain, where his regiment earned the title "The Stonewall Regiment." Over the next three years he marched thousands of miles as part of "Burnside's Geography Class," survived Antietam and the slaughter at Spotsylvania, and was captured and held at Andersonville Prison and the Florence Stockade. When he was finally released, he weighed 65 pounds. James never rose above the rank of private. He was not a general or a hero of textbooks-he was an ordinary soldier whose endurance made everything that came after him possible. Drawing on pension depositions, regimental histories, prisoner narratives, census records, and decades of archival research, David L. Curtis reconstructs both the war James survived and the family that descended from him, tracing five generations across Michigan and beyond. James Masters, A Civil War Soldier: His Life and Legacy is a tribute to survival, memory, and the ordinary lives that history usually leaves unrecorded.

The genealogy chapters open with Daniel and Phoebe (Kilborn) Masters in Kitley, Ontario, and follow the family through Junius, Seneca County, New York, to Augusta and York Townships in Washtenaw County, Michigan, and on to Milan, Northville, and Plymouth. Allied surnames include Kilborn, Bissell, Case, Bell, Gregg, Hance, McKahan, Sowle, and Curtis, and the line carries a documented descent from Mayflower passenger John Billington. Alongside the military record, Curtis draws on county deed and land records, Michigan vital records, city directories, Grand Army of the Republic post records, newspapers, cemetery and DNA evidence, and family letters, all cited in footnotes. Photographs of family artifacts, gravestones, houses, and a pedigree chart are included, with an editor's afterword by a descendant living near the Florence Stockade site.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DAVID L. CURTIS has pursued genealogical and historical research since 1982, work that has taken him on twenty-five trips to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and to numerous local and national conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management, an Associate Degree in Engineering, and an Associate Degree in Architecture. In 2001 he retired from DTE Energy after 35 years in engineering, supervision, and labor relations.His service to the field includes ten years on the Board of Directors of the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, where he held the offices of President and Vice President; recording secretary for the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Michigan; and several years as Director at Large for the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County. He has served sixteen years as a commissioner on the Canton Township Historic District Commission and, from 1982 to 2025, held numerous officer positions on the board of the Canton Township Historical Society. As the Society's historian, he researched and wrote extensively about Canton's past and founded the "Adopt a Civil War Soldier" program, which secured pension records for the township's ninety-seven Civil War soldiers. From 1982 to 1995 he was also active with the 17th Michigan Civil War reenactment group.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Purslane Media LLC
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798989676071
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 80
• Herausgeber: Masters-Wheeler Ph.D. Christine
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Printed by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxemburg