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 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 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.
Carole also found a newspaper article that described what happened
to Francis Martin after the war. She said the discovery was stunning,
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“Nobody thought he could go
and be a soldier. But all of a
sudden he just sprouted.”
but her husband wants to save the surprise so that readers can find
out when they read the book.
“[The Martins] felt like family,” Carole says. “It felt like you
knew them.”
Her husband began trying to publish the book in 2010 but 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,” he notes.
Eventually, Young 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.” n