Company B: 1864

Submitted by Dave on Sun, 10/03/2010 - 5:21pm.

August 1864. Petersburg, Virginia. "Siege of Petersburg. Group of Company B, U.S. Engineer Battalion." Wet plate glass negative. View full size.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is offering bronze medallions to attach to existing, privately purchased headstones or markers, signifying a deceased's status as a veteran. The new item can be furnished instead of a traditional government headstone or marker for veterans whose death occurred on or after Nov. 1, 1990, and whose grave in a private cemetery is marked with a privately purchased headstone or marker. Next of kin will receive the medallion along with a kit. For more information on VA-furnished headstones, markers and medallions, visit the VA website. Instructions on how to apply for a medallion are on the VA website at www.cem.va.gov/hm_hm.asp. Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the VA website at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.

Reminders of the Second Seminole War

“The Dogs of War”.

By Geoff Dobson

On August 14, 1842 at Depot Key, General William J. Worth declared the Florida War, now known as the Second Seminole War, at an end. The war had lasted seven years.

The war had commenced with the killing of civilians at Fort King, present day Ocala, and the Massacre of Captain (Brevet Major) Francis L. Dade and his men at Wahoo Swamp sixty-five miles north of Fort Brooke on December 28, 1835.

It took several days for official word to be received by the army at Fort Brooke (present day Tampa). Unofficially, there was a realization that something had gone amiss when the dog of one of the three survivors of the massacre, Captain Charles Gardiner, reappeared, wounded, at the Fort. It was, perhaps, the only time when the military received word of a disaster in the field from a dog.