One Wore Blue and One Wore Grey

I love the words to that song about two brothers who went to war:


One wore blue and one wore grey
As they marched along the way
A fife and drum began to play
All on a beautiful morning
One was gentle, one was kind
One was gentle, one was kind
One came home, one stayed behind
A cannonball don't pay no mind
A cannonball don't pay no mind
Though you're gentle or you're kind
It don't think of the folks behind
All on a beautiful morning

In an earlier post I mentioned that My great grandfather (me, my mom, her dad, his dad) George Colvin died from Typhoid Fever while serving in the Union Camp during The Civil War. Fevers and infections were just as fatal as a cannon ball back when there were no antibiotics or surgeons with precision tools and sterile recovery rooms.

My great grandfather (me, my dad, his mom, her dad) Elisha Shepherd, also served. He, however, wore the grey of the confederacy. On August 15, 1861 he enlisted at the age of 27. He was wounded in May of 1862 and hospitalized at Richmond. Yet, he returned to battle and on June 27 in Gaines' Mill, Virginia received critical and life threatening wounds. Our family stories say that he lost his arm. According to his Distinguished Service record that I was able to pull up on Ancestry.com he had injuries to his right lung, backbone & shoulder and was "disability discharged" in June of 1863. His regiment went on without him to fight on July 1-3 at Gettysburg, PA. (Elisha reenlisted later, which I find so amazing, and was detailed at the Richmond, Virginia hospital.)

I was delighted to read a physical description in his military records: He was 5' 11'', had blue eyes, light hair and fair complexion. This is the closet thing I've had of a picture of this man.

He was a farmer and returned to his home near the small town of Pedlar, Amherst County Virginia after the war. The 1880 handwritten census shows his 8 year old daughter as Jinnie. That's another mystery for me to solve, as my father said his mothers name was Jennie.

On the northern side of the war the hubby's great great grandfather (him, his mom, her mom, her mom, her dad), Ambrose Merrill Lord, joined the Union Army on October 19, 1861 in Company D, 1st Calvary Regiment Maine. The regimental history reads, " It was the equal of any in the service in the character of its men and the quality of its horses. He was nineteen. In this picture it appears that both he and his horse are not in the best of moods. I would say he is a lonesome and frightened young man.

We had an opportunity to look through a pocket diary that he had sporadically written in. The entry that stood out in my mind was when he penned his thoughts about the terrified screams and painful moaning from the infirmary where amputations were being performed with little or no anesthesia.


The list of battles these men fought were extensive. I reviewed them with one goal in mind: to see if our grandfathers ever faced each other on the battlefield.

I was shocked when I discovered that the day our grandfathers would have met in battle was July 3, 1863 in Gettysburg, PA. However, my grandfather Elisha did not join his troop because of the critical wounds that forced his discharge the previous month.

There are few people who have not heard of the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln memorialized it in his address there the following November.

"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

(Ambrose married, became a lumber inspector and moved to the Pacific Northwest where he died in 1909 in Everett, Washington.)

As we have studied the lives or our parents and their parents, the tree blossoms into the branches of people who have defined me, my husband, and my children.

History isn't just something that is written in a book that you pick up at school. These were people who lived and had dreams, they had families who loved them and buried them with tenderness.

Today I had tears as I thought about these brave men who fought for what they believed was their destiny and the women who worked the farms and held their children alone at night. Their "greatness" lives on in the potential of my grandchildren. Because of them.

Rest in Peace Grandfathers.

(Interesting update from my brother: In the 58th Virginia Infantry Book it is noted that there was an application for a prothesis for Elisha, but that he took money instead. He probably needed it to invest in his farm and family.)