This year was no different. On the morning of Memorial Day I asked Paul if he knew of anyone in our family who was actually killed during a war. Off the top of his head he said William P. Ramsdell. He was the brother of Paul's maternal great-great grandfather, Amos Ramsdell.
We had researched both of them in 2014. They were from Belchertown / Chicopee, MA. We actually found Amos's grave in Fairview Cemetery, Chicopee. In researching him, we found that he served in the Civil War. We wondered why he did not have a GAR grave marker with American Flag at his gravestone.
In researching them we also found a blog post from a Civil War buff about William P. Ramsdell. It said he was a 28 year old private who died at the Battle of Antietam. His head was blown off by a cannonball. It also said that he was buried at the site of the battle but then later reinterred at Maple Grove Cemetery, Chicopee, MA. We never found his grave. This cemetery has a lot of very old, barely readable gravestones.
This was what we knew as of Memorial Day 2020. We decided to take a ride to Fairview Cemetery to see if maybe the cemetery had added a grave marker to Amos' grave since 2014 or at least added a flag for Memorial Day. There was nothing there. I brought a little flag with me just in case, and put it in front of the gravestone.
We noticed a row of very old graves, all the same size with flags and in checking them out, they were all Civil War veterans' graves. It made me wonder if possibly there was a group of the same type of graves alongside each other at Maple Grove Cemetery where William P. was said to have been buried. We checked most of the graves with flags but, as I said, most of the older stones were not readable. They looked like some type of limestone marble that was disintegrating.
The next day Paul called The City of Chicopee to find out who to talk to about a veteran's grave without a flag. They put him in touch with Veteran's Services who, after given information about Amos Ramsdell, told Paul that they would leave a grave marker and flag out for us at their building that we could pick up. Paul also told them about not being able to find William P. Ramsdell's grave in Maple Grove Cemetery. She said she would leave another flag out in case we ever found him. A little while later she called saying that William P. already had a grave marker and flag in Maple Grove Cemetery and that he was in Lot #24. She also said that someone would be calling to tell us how to find it.
We were so thrilled!
We took a trip to Chicopee to the Veteran's Services and got the marker and flag. We then went to Fairview Cemetery and put it next to Amos' grave. Finally, Amos was recognized!
A little later, the man who oversees all of the cemeteries in Chicopee called with the information we needed to find William P.'s grave.
We found it, but it was not readable.
That was a little disappointing but at least we had found his grave. He, indeed, had the GAR marker and American flag. You can "read" the Ramsdell part if you run your fingers over it. The rest cannot be read at all. We are going to try a rubbing to see if we can "read" anything else.
William was killed a couple months after enlisting. A contemporaneous account said that moments before his death, he said that "if he was going to be hit, he would prefer to have the top of his head blown off". Then he was hit in the head by a cannonball.
Amos actually had three Civil War "lives". He started out in the cavalry and was thrown from a horse and severely injured. He left the service but returned later as an infantry private and became very sick. He recovered again and was eventually commissioned as a first lieutenant officer in a colored regiment. His name is listed on a monument to black Civil War soldiers in Washington DC with the black men he served with.
Doing genealogical research can sometimes be frustrating, but when you uncover stories like this, it brings so much satisfaction.
***Update
We went back to the cemetery to do a rubbing but the only thing we could read was the name. The rest seems to be in some sort of cursive and it did not transfer at all.
Poor William. His father died when he was four and his mother died when he was eleven. Then he gets hit in the head by a cannonball at age 28. We talk so much about the number that died, but it is a different feeling when you look at one individual. I am glad Amos made it. Paul would not be here otherwise!
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