Walking through history – 10 years later

My faithful readers might remember this: About 10 years ago, I did a walking tour of the Lexington City Cemetery and then wrote a six– (or seven–) part series about what I thought were some of the more prominent or interesting people buried there.

One of those people was Albert M. Hunter, a Civil War veteran who fought for the Union (see here). I could tell because his grave, an obelisk about as tall as me, was marked with a bronze five-point star Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) marker.

Curiously enough, his was the second GAR marker I found in the cemetery. Earlier, I had discovered the grave site of Charles E. Burgess. Wow, I thought. Two Union soldiers buried in a small-town Southern cemetery. What are the odds?

Could there be others?

Guess what? Yes.

About a week or so ago, my good friend and fellow Civil War enthusiast Jay Egelnick texted me that while searching for the burial site of a distant family relative, he came across the humble headstone of Samuel S. Hunter, complete with GAR marker.

Samuel Hunter and his GAR marker.

 Double wow! Now we had three Yankee soldiers buried in the cemetery, and two of them were named Hunter. What are the odds?

I sent Jay my original blog about Albert for his perusal, and he promptly dove into the research, utilizing Google, Ancestry.com and whatever other tools he had available.

And this is what he found:

 Samuel Shields Hunter was born on July 3, 1842, in Liberty township, Adams County, PA. Just to refresh your memory, the county seat for Adams County is a small, unassuming farm town named Gettysburg.

He enlisted in Company K of the 209th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on Sept. 9, 1864 at the age of 22.

The fact that the regiment number is in the 200s is an indication that it was a late-war outfit. The Union never replaced its existing regiments with individual soldiers. Instead, it simply created new regiments. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe since it's because Union soldiers were generally recruited regionally, even locally, it could have been done for unit cohesion: if you grew up and knew the guy you were fighting with, perhaps you might fight a little harder.

Anyway, the 209th was a part of John G. Parke's 9th Corps. The provisional regiment was first detailed to Bermuda Hundred outside of Richmond, VA, in November 1864, and then became part of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division of the 9th Corps a little bit later. It participated in the Petersburg Campaign, serving when Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. 

The 209th saw limited action at Petersburg, losing 39 men. Hunter was mustered out on May 31, 1865, and went back home to war-ravaged Gettysburg and Adams County.

In 1871, Samuel fell in love and married Maria Elvira Catherine Musselman (a good Adams County apple butter surname). Somewhere along the way, they moved to North Carolina. I have no idea why. Barbecue, maybe. Or maybe the textile industry, which brought many Yankees south during Reconstruction.

Samuel died on Sept. 21, 1928 in Guilford County at the venerable age of 86, and was buried in Lexington City Cemetery on Sept. 23, 1928. I have no idea what happened there. Did he live in Lexington and die in Guilford County of a heart attack? Old age? An accident? Barbecue? Perhaps.

At any rate, Samuel ended up buried in Lexington in the same cemetery as his older brother ... wait for it ... Albert M. Hunter.

The brothers are not buried together. Their resting places are about 200 yards apart from each other, with Albert close to the State Street fencing while Samuel is buried more toward the center of the old section, under an old Blue Atlas Cedar tree, along with his wife Elvira (the name she preferred and who has a bigger headstone than Samuel's. The family plot also includes a Lula and a Rife, who could be their children).

Imagine, two brothers, both Yankees and both veterans of the Civil War, buried in a Southern cemetery. It can't get any stranger than that, right?

Well, not unless you walk a few yards away from Samuel's grave and come across the Confederate marker of Pvt. Andrew Hunter of Co. H, 35th North Carolina. Andrew, like Albert, died in 1911, so the timeline prevents them from being immediately related, if they are related at all. Unless they're twins. But, geez, this is really getting weird.

Many thanks to Jay Egelnick for his steadfast research for this blog and for making my head explode.