Rare original CDV image of Gettysburg’s “Children of the Battlefield”

Offered here is a great CDV image of the famous “Children of the Battlefield”. Sergeant Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry was found dead on the battlefield with the picture of his children in his hand. He was not identified at the time, so no one knew who the children were. It is the typical size of Civil War CDVs 4” x 2 ½”. The front has the three children with their names “Frank, Frederick and Alice”.

Printed on the back is "The Children of the Battle Field / The proceeds of the sale of the copies are appreciated to the support and education of the orphan children”. In the center is the monogram of the photographers “Wenderoth & Taylor / 912, 914, & 916 / Chestnut Street / Philadelphia”.

Shortly after the battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863, 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 them with the original photo and 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.