Raynors HCA 2019-01
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/21/2019
Music Sheet “The Children of the Battle Field” 6pp., by James G. Clark, published by Lee & Walker, 1864, Fine. The music is preceded by a Sketch describing the melancholic scene of the slain and unidentified soldier’s body found on the fields of Gettysburg clasping the ambrotype. The Sketch notes that “few readers of the public journals will fail to remember” this scene—“no other incident of the present fratricidal war is known to have so touched the heart of the nation.” The ambrotype came into the possession of one J. Fancis Bourns, M.D. of Philadelphia, who had traveled to Gettysburg to tend to the wounded. In turn, Bourns reproduced the ambrotype in The Philadelphia Inquirer, hoping that its greater circulation would lead to the discovery of the family, identification of the slain soldier, and even perhaps the funding of the fatherless family. Numerous newspapers throughout the country publicized the story, and in time the family was identified as that of Sgt. Amos Humiston, from Portville, New York, a sergeant in the 154th New York Volunteers. A note appears on the title and sketch pages reading “the net proceeds of the sales of this Music are reserved for the support and education of the Orphan Children.”
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