Original Gettysburg Sheet Music titled “Children of the Battlefield”, dated 1864 (SOLD,DF)

This is another nice Gettysburg piece being offered, it is original Civil War period sheet music titled “The Children of the Battle Field”. It is complete and measures 13” x 10” and is dated “1864”. Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry was found dead on the battlefield with a picture of his children in his hand. He was not identified at the time, so no one knew who the children were.

Shortly after the battle the daughter of an area tavern keeper, Benjamin Schriver, found the body of an unidentified soldier lovingly clutching an ambrotype photo of three children. She brought the photo back to her father’s tavern in Graeffenburg where, like many mementos from the battlefield, it became a local attraction. Fate in the form of a broken-down wagon brought Dr. John Bourns from Philadelphia to the tavern. When he saw the image, he knew that somewhere a family needed to know the final resting place of a missing father.

Dr. Bourns talked Schriver into giving him the photo, which he copied in the popular carte de visite format. Some copies he sent to newspapers throughout the North, while he sold others to raise funds. For weeks the story spread, then in October the news came from western New York – the family had been found! A friend had passed on a copy of a newspaper, and a family who had received no letters or news since the great battle had their worst fears confirmed. Dr. Bourns traveled there and in an emotional meeting presented to the wife of Amos, Phylinda Humiston, the original photo of their three children, “Frank, Frederick and Alice”, along with the funds that had been raised.

An orphanage was founded in Gettysburg on Cemetery Hill under Dr. Bourn’s direction and the Humiston family came to live there, with Phylinda Humiston on the staff. But Gettysburg was not a happy place for them, and they moved away after Phylinda remarried. Years later the orphanage would come to an end in charges of mismanagement and mistreatment of the children.

The Humiston children had moved on long before then and did well in their lives. All attended Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts. Fred became a successful merchant and Frank a doctor. And although she would eventually die in a tragic accident, Alice outlived them all, until 1933. Three lives that were profoundly changed by the act of a loving father who wanted to look at his children one last time.

This is a great original piece of sheet music and very difficult to find. I have one of these rare pieces in my book "Battle of Gettysburg - The Relics, Artifacts & Souvenirs", (see pictures) and I go into more detail surrounding this poignant event. As seen in the pictures, there appears to be a light water stain near the bottom, but it is complete and really in nice condition for being over 150 years old. I have seen this sheet music framed and it really looks great. I have only come across a handful of these pieces in the past 30+ years.