Tag Archives: Alvan M.C. Heath

Fathers from Gardiner sought the 16th Maine’s dead at Fredericksburg

New Year’s 1863 proved bitter for Gardiner resident John Berry. He was a lumber dealer, with real estate worth $2,800 and a personal estate worth $2,500, according to the 1860 U.S. census. Four sons lived with Berry and his same-age wife, Mary; the oldest boy, 17-year-old George H. Berry, worked as a clerk, possibly in […]

Dearest Father, I am dying here on this battlefield

  Pain wracking his shattered body, George Ray Parsons shivers as he stirs in the damp Fredericksburg mud in midafternoon on Saturday, Dec. 13, 1862. He’s been hit, whether by a 0.58-caliber lead bullet or a shell fragment, he cannot tell. Seeping blood suggests the wound in his side is bad … real bad. Parsons […]