My Forgotten Buddies

  What started out as a service project for our homeschool coop is a continuing project for me.  I am slowly looking up all the obituaries and regimental information for all of the veterans in Osage County.  I've gotten to know these guys so well by now that I call them my "buddies".  My most intensive searching has been at Burlingame Cemetery, partially because I can access most Burlingame papers for the time period I need on the internet for free. Because of this I've been able to find many veterans buried there that are unmarked by any tombstone - something my family hopes to be able to correct.  I've been focusing on these forgotten buddies so that they can be remembered too. 
  The first one that I was able to find information on was James S. Montgomery.  James signed up with the 2nd California Cavalry.  Before the war he was engaged to a woman, who said that she would wait for him.  While he was in service he was "dangerously" wounded by a gunshot wound to the lung and was discharged because of it.

When he came home, he found that his betrothed had not waited for him.  He was so saddened that he became a mountain man/miner and wandered the Wild West.  His lung troubled him terribly and he took the common treatment for the day - laudanum.  Unfortunately the nature of laudanum lends itself towards overdoses and he died from one while on a trip back to Topeka. He was buried by his Burlingame G.A.R. veteran friends with a full military burial.
  One of the newest veterans is going to be a challenge.  John Hardison was a gentleman of African descent who lived primarily in Topeka, but moved to Carbondale in the mid-1890s.  He had served with Co. I of the 17th United States Colored Troops as an Orderly Sergeant.  He became paralyzed in later life and the $12 pension he was receiving was not cutting it.  If you were receiving a pension, you could not be placed in the county poor farm, and the city of Carbondale would not offer him assistance, so he was on his own.  He died in a house fire in 1904 before anyone could get to it.  There is no record of his burial in Carbondale, and none that I have found yet in Topeka.  The search continues!

One of my other buddies is Isaac Williams.  Isaac also served with the USCT.  Because of his common name it has been hard to track down a pension record for him, and none of the newspaper articles listed his service designation.  I finally found a reference in the 1885 census that put him in the 4th Missouri.  Yay!  Trying to find his regimental designation after the USCT went federal, I did find that he was one of the first 4 people of color in Burlingame in 1865 (the town was about 300 people).  I also found this newspaper article on him:

1885 Osage County Chronicle

The title makes it seem like its going to be prejudiced in one way, and then what a slam!  The Stoddards that owned the Osage County paper at this time were very equal in their treatment of their colored friends.  They published such wonderful articles on people from the black community that it met with opposition.  They responded with an awesome editorial that pretty much said that they were just covering people of note in their community and that there were good and bad of both races and people just needed to let it go.  :)
  Another one of my guys is William "Pitt Green" Gaines who is also of African descent.  His double name confuses me, but it has me wondering if it doesn't have to do with his previous life in slavery (I would definitely appreciate any thoughts on this).  Pitt served with the 83rd USCT.  He was a well known penny pincher, in fact, the paper did a whole article on the time he spent a nickel.  The whole community of Burlingame was dying to know what he spent it on!  At the end of his obituary even, it said that he was supposed to have hidden a great deal of money in his house and the people of the community were going to hunt for it.   
  There are more than 20 veterans in Osage County without stones.  I am hoping I can bring them back from their forgotten status and share their wonderful stories!