I have spent thirty or more years searching for this document referenced in family papers – including an unsuccessful trip to the National Archives. Tonight I found it on the Internet. Samuel Meacham Withers is my great-great grandfather. He died in 1864 of a disease he caught while enrolling soldiers to fight in the war we know as the Civil War.
With my cousin Anne, I've stood on his land, sat beside his grave, and held his Bible. Now, I finally found the proof to go along with family stories.
Next year is the 150th anniversary of the "War Between the States" - or as cousin Anne reminded me on an earlier post the war is sometimes called, "The Late Unpleasantness."
Time to go back to some of those battlefields and visit some new ones.
