"What’s in a Name? Solving the Mystery of an ..." Topic

…Italian Confederate

"Rev. Patrick Reilly, headmaster of St. Mary's College in Wilmington, Delaware, often received letters from his former students during the Civil War years. Some had gone off to fight for the Union, while others had done so to support the Confederacy. Most of the letters came from, or were about, individuals with Irish surnames, like his own. However, on July 23, 1863, he received one that was especially perplexing because of the names of the people involved. The letter was about a concerned father, identified merely as "Signor George," who was worried about his Confederate son recently imprisoned in Fort Delaware (not far from Wilmington), who was identified simply as "young George." All that the letter disclosed was that the father formerly lived in Richmond, Virginia, but now resided in Baltimore serving as the choir leader in St. John's Catholic Church there, and that the son, described as "a stout, well built boy about 18 yrs. old," had been serving in an unspecified Virginia regiment at the time of his capture by Union troops shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. Most significantly, both were described as Italian citizens! As a presumably Italian Catholic, "Signor George's" an appeal to a prominent Catholic priest and educator who regularly administered the sacraments to the prisoners at Fort Delaware would have seemed prudent…"

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Armand

Fascinating!

Happy you enjoyed it Bill…

Armand