Francis Martin
Order form for Francis Martin’s artificial leg
says. The letters often arrived only a few days after they were posted
and the soldiers’ family often sent care packages of perishable food,
such as butter and pies.
“We were shocked by that,” Hale says. “Today you can’t get a letter in
two days.”
The letters included a lot of mundane information, such as how the
soldiers constructed their winter quarters, but also provided unique
insights. One letter recounted an execution witnessed and another
described how Union soldiers burned corpses after the Battle of
Antietam instead of burying them. Young later visited the battlefield
and showed the letter to a park ranger.
“He told me that he had heard of this occurring but that he had
never before seen a firsthand account confirming it,” Young says.
Young eventually discovered a very distant connection to the
Martin brothers through his father’s side of the family that came from
Vermont. Young and the other members of his team visited the Martin
family farm and located the family cemetery as well, although it’s
unclear if Henry Martin’s remains were reinterred there. During his
research, Young also located a cousin who had some additional letters
and Henry Martin’s personal saber. They also went to the battlefields
where the two brothers fought and explored archives in Vermont. In
one archive they found a number of important documents including
the original order form for Francis Martin’s artificial leg and a picture
of him after his leg had been amputated.
Young’s wife, Carole, also found a newspaper article that described
what happened to Francis Martin after the war. Carole says the
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“Nobody thought he could go
and be a soldier. But all of a
sudden he just sprouted.”
discovery was stunning, but her husband wants to save the surprise so
that readers can find out when they read the book.
“They felt like family,” Carole Young says. “It felt like you knew
them.”
Her husband began trying to publish the book in 2010 but he
says it was very difficult to find a company that was interested in his
manuscript, because more than 50,000 books have already been
written about the Civil War. “About one book per day has been
published since the Civil War was over,” Young says.
Eventually, he decided to self-publish the book and has given
presentations at local libraries, book clubs and historical societies
about his work. “Rather than just walk away from it, I am left with a
desire to keep telling the story,” Young says. n