Carol:

In the large city papers column after column of the dead were printed
following major battles. My guess is that the papers serving smaller
communities would pick up the lists from the city papers and then print the
names of local men.

I need to check the "long Islander" from Huntington, Suffolk County, L. I.
to see how it handed the war dead. My death-marriage indexes of that paper
begin in 1878.

My great-great-grandfather from Smithtown, Suffolk County, L. I. died during
the Petersburg Campaign in 1864. He was in the 139th New York. My
great-great-grandmother's brother from Babylon, Suffolk County, L. I. died
during the Union occupation of Yorktown and the Virginia Peninsula in 1863.
He was in the 127th New York. How my two great-great-grandmothers found out
about the death of the one's husband and the other one's brother, I really
don't know. This would be an interesting question.

I worked on an index for the local St. Mary's County, Maryland, paper for
our public library, starting in 1852. The local paper was shut down by the
Lincoln government for being critical of the Lincoln administration and for
running pro-Confederate editorials. The editor was sent to Fort Lafayette
[where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge now stands] and rode out the war in
prison ..... so much for "freedom of the press."

I suppose the local Confederates found out about war deaths via the Richmond
papers ?

I'll see what I can find from members of my Civil War Round Table in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, & from a friend w/ the National Park Service at
Chickamauga National Military Park in North Georgia.

David

David Roberts
Hollywood, MD


----- Original Message -----
From: "carol kammen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 10:21 AM
Subject: [NYHIST-L] Civil War death notices


> Dear All
>
> I have a feeling I should know the answer to this, but don't.
> How were families in upstate New York notified when loved
> ones in the Civil War were killed.
> I cannot imagine a soldier coming to the door; rather, I
> think it must have been a telegram.
>
> Could anyone tell me?
>
> with much appreciation
>
> Carol Kammen
> Tompkins County Historian
>