Posts belonging to Category 'Deaths'

The Life of Peter Jorgensen

For nearly two decades, he and his wife published The Winchester Star and other local papers, but his most lasting words might be the ones on his tombstone — that roughly 450-word treatise and list of accomplishments is carved into a seven-foot-tall slab of Barre, Vt. granite.
Death was no surprise to Peter Jorgensen. He and [...]

Bones find renews Civil War dispute

City workers made a startling discovery in Socorro Tuesday when they dug up a human skull and pieces of a casket reopening a fight over what may be a Civil War cemetery.
The February 1862 Battle of Valverde brought wounded Confederate soldiers to Socorro, and some historians believe those who later died were buried under what [...]

At U-Va., Jefferson Scholar Examined the Links in Liberty’s Legacy

Merrill D. Peterson, 88, a University of Virginia professor whose writings on Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other figures made him a renowned historian of 19th-century America, died Sept. 23 at a retirement home in Charlottesville. He had pneumonia.

Dr. Peterson was teaching at Brandeis University when he wrote his first book, “The Jefferson Image in [...]

Civil War News Publisher C. Peter Jorgensen dies

C. Peter Jorgensen died of cancer at his home in Tunbridge, Vt., on Sept. 25 at age 68.
He grew up in Arlington, Mass., where he joined the auxiliary fire department when he was 18.
During college he and friends ran a Boston news photo agency that supplied fire and emergency services photos to wire services and [...]

Deaths: Civil War historian Bill Scaife, 82, of Lake Allatoona, known for maps

Bill Scaife’s maps of Civil War battles were drawn with such intimate detail you could use them to pinpoint how, exactly, skirmishes unfolded. He’d take USGA topographic maps, then overlay them with information and facts of what transpired.
And because of that, enthusiasts could stand on a battlefield and relive history.
“He did great maps,” said Leon [...]

Celebrated Historian Altered Understanding of Slavery

Kenneth M. Stampp, 96, a historian who helped transform the study of slavery in the United States by exposing plantation owners as practical businessmen, not romantics defending a noble heritage, died of heart ailments July 10 at a hospital in Oakland, Calif. He had vascular dementia.

His death was confirmed by the University of California at [...]

Kentucky’s last daughter of Civil War veteran dies

Kentucky lost its last living daughter of a Civil War soldier Thursday.
Eva Martin, 94, of Bethelridge in Casey County, was the 14th child of John Green Watson, who served as a private in the Union Army’s 1st Kentucky Calvary.
That division, nicknamed the “Wild Riders,” fought in Kentucky during the Battle of Wildcat Mountain in the [...]

David Herbert Donald, Writer on Lincoln, Dies at 88

David Herbert Donald, a leading American historian of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War who won Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of the abolitionist statesman Charles Sumner and the novelist Thomas Wolfe, died Sunday in Boston. He was 88 and lived in Lincoln, Mass.; Wellfleet, Mass.; and Key West, Fla.
His death was confirmed by his [...]

Newtonia, friends gather to honor Elery

A crowd of some 50 friends attended a dedication service in Newtonia on Sunday to honor Gail Elery, long-time resident of the town and former city clerk.
The patriotic service, led by Newtonia Mayor George Philliber, was held at the base of a new flagpole and memorial bench constructed on city property near the former Newtonia [...]

Historian Was Authority on Lincoln

Steven Lee Carson, 66, a former archivist and editor who became a historian and lecturer on presidential history, notably as an authority on the life of President Abraham Lincoln, died March 27 at his home in Silver Spring after a heart attack.

During the past few years, he was a presidential historian at the Woodrow Wilson [...]