Terry Middleton will be one of the 20th Maine Co. I Infantry and 4th Texas Volunteer Infantry re-enactors from the Maritimes and Maine taking part in services to honour Civil War vets such as John Daniel, whose grave is shown in Fernhill Cemetary.
Posted on 10/20/2003 6:00:19 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Most people know the storied American Civil War as a conflict that pitted brother against brother and the Yankee North against the Confederate South.
But too few people, says Civil War re-enactor Terry Middleton of Quispamsis, realize that it also pitted Canadians against Canadians.
"It wasn't just an American war," he says. "There were whole German units, Italians, you name it . . . We had thousands from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia who went down and fought, and they didn't always choose to fight on the same side."
That fact of history will be underscored at 2 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 25, when Mr. Middleton and the 20th Maine Company "I" Voluntary Infantry re-enactment group takes part in a graveside memorial service at Fernhill Cemetery honoring five veterans of the American Civil War.
Four of the five, including the future mayor (1900-1902), MLA and senator John W. Daniel, enlisted with the Union Army. The fifth, Saint John furniture maker Jonas Howe, threw in his lot with the Confederates when he enlisted in June of 1861.
It hardly matters now.
"This is just to bring some recognition that these Saint John men served in the American Civil War," said Mr. Middleton, president of the 20th Maine Company I reenactors.
The group took its name from the Maine company which 18-year-old Saint Johner, Alexander Lester, was serving in when he was killed at Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863.
The 20th Maine will also perform at 11 a.m. on the same day during a graveside memorial service at Thomson's Burial Ground in Dipper Harbour in honour of Edwin T. Clark, who served as an ordinary seaman on the USS Maria A. Wood during the Civil War. He died in 1929. Two of his sons - George and Arthur Clark - are expected to be on hand.
"They will be honoured, as well, because there is less than 100 known living children of Union veterans in the world, and we have two of them right here," says Mr. Middleton. "There's only five in Canada."
In addition to Mr. Howe (1840-1916), the Confederate sympathizer, the Saint John natives being honoured are John W. Daniel (1845-1933), John Berryman (1828-1900) and Leverett DeVeber, who died at the age of 69 in 1894.
Mr. Berryman, a future Liberal MLA, and commissioner of the General Public Hospital at the time of his death, and Mr. Daniel both served as assistant surgeons with the Union Army.
William Henderson, a black man, is the only U.S.-born Civil War veteran to be honoured at Fernhill. He moved to Saint John after the war and became a barber until his death at the relatively young age of 48. One of his daughters, Anna Minerva Henderson, became the first black to be permanently employed in the federal civil service after completing her studies as an educator.
Terry Middleton will be one of the 20th Maine Co. I Infantry and 4th Texas Volunteer Infantry re-enactors from the Maritimes and Maine taking part in services to honour Civil War vets such as John Daniel, whose grave is shown in Fernhill Cemetary.
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