MFDJ 08/11/24: The Death of Private Mills

Today’s Freely Given Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

An account of the death of Private Albion B. Mills, Company E, 16th Maine Infantry, 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 1st Corps at Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

Anna Morris Holstein, a volunteer nurse at Gettysburg, remembered this particular young man for many weeks after the battle. She reported their meeting:

In the (Union tent), as it was called, standing alone in a rebel row, [of tents] I found a boy of seventeen, wounded and “sick unto death,” whose wan, emaciated face, and cheerful endurance of suffering, at once enlisted my sympathy. He was the son of a clergyman in Maine; and in answer to inquiries about his wound, told me, with a feeling of evident pride, that “early in the day his right leg was shattered and left upon Seminary Hill, and he was carried to the rear; that the stump was doing badly; he had enlisted simply because it was his duty to do so; now he had no regret or fear, let the result be as it might.” I wrote immediately to his home, to tell them he was sinking rapidly; my next [letter] briefly stated how very near his end was; there were but a few days more of gentle endurance, and the presentiment of the child we had so tenderly cared for proved true—when, with murmured words of “home and heaven,” his young life ebbed away—another added to the many thousand given for the life of the nation. One week after his burial his father came; with a heart saddened with his great loss, [he] said that his eldest had fallen at “Malvern Hill,” the second was with the army at Fernandina, and Albert [sic], his youngest born, slept with the heroes who had made a worldwide fame at Gettysburg. They were his treasures, but he gave them freely for his country.

Private Mills hailed from Vassalboro, Maine. He was reported to have been wounded in his right leg on July 1. The ball caused an agonizing fracture and the limb had to be amputated at the upper third. He was seventeen or eighteen years old when he died on October 7; the burial followed the next day in the hospital cemetery at Camp Letterman, in Section 9, Grave #3, but the body was shortly moved to the National Cemetery.


2nd Corps Hospital, Gettysburg

Culled from: Killed In Action

 

Vintage Crime Photo Du Jour!


November 14, 1946

The woman in black—there was always one lurking around and possibly up to no good in the noir era—is Dorothy Sweeny of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and she’s a suspect in the murder of her husband. Ellis Sweeny was ambushed and shot dead on October 9, 1946, in “the back woods in Wisconsin,” according to the Dispatch. A man named Gilbert Dickerson, described as Mrs. Sweeny’s “paramour,” was charged with the murder, which in the news shorthand of the time was invariably described as “a triangle killing.” Dickerson soon went to trial where, to the surprise of the press and prosecutors, a jury found him not guilty.

Even so, authorities still suspected Mrs. Sweeny, who in this photograph appears to have her grief well in check, of complicity in the crime. After Dickerson’s acquittal in November, she was then brought to St. Paul for a polygraph exam. Among those gathered around the table to watch a criminologist administer the test are the sheriff and district attorney from Washburn County, Wisconsin, and, at right, St. Paul Police Chief Charles J. Tierney.

Mrs. Sweeny, a blood pressure cuff around one arm, looks perfectly collected in this photograph, telling a reporter, “I am not a bit worried.” As it turned out, she had no need to be. She passed the polygraph and was later freed from jail with credit for time served after agreeing to plead guilty to being an accessory to murder. Under Wisconsin law, she could be charged with that crime even though her supposed accomplice had been acquitted. “And so,” said the Pioneer Press in a story late that November, “the 29-year-old woods man’s widow walked out of court a free woman.”

Culled from: Strange Days, Dangerous Nights

 

Garretdom!

Many years ago, a fascinating collection of scrapbooks containing newspaper articles from the 1880’s/90’s appeared on eBay. The scrapbooks were obviously compiled by a kindred soul, as all of the articles were Grim, and were meticulously pasted into old textbooks.  I tried to purchase the collection from the lucky soul who found them at an auction, but he quickly realized what he had and started selling them on eBay where they went for astronomical amounts.  I was able to talk him into making copies of the books for me before he sold them off, and I’ve been slowly using them for my vintage newspaper Garretdom collection over the years.  I decided to start sharing them on a daily basis. So without further adieu, here is one of the entries saved by our 19th century kindred soul:

A YACHT DISASTER.

Four Members of a Pleasure Party Go Down With the Wreck.

ST. JOHNS, N. F., Sept 24.—A disaster occurred in the Bay of St. Johns this morning, the British schooner Mary Ann, and cutting her in two. There were twenty-seven persons on board the ill-fated craft, four of whom were drowned. Their names were Charles Weeks, Nicholas Milley, Leander Milley and Sarah Ann Fahey. The others saved themselves by clinging to the main rail of the Summerset or were picked out of the water by her boats.

The Mary Ann sank within two minutes after the collision. Fahey had hold of his wife’s hand, and was drawing her out of the companionway of the sinking vessel, when the mainmast and mainsail fell, parting husband and wife forever. Gregory Leman, another passenger, was fatally injured.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

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