I posted this a few years ago on Facebook. Since then, I have located the exact spot where he lost his life. For this Memorial Day I re-submit this entry ….

-- I had lunch with Corporal John Milton Taylor today. A few of you already know what that means. For the rest of you … go get a drink. And when you get back, I’ll finish the story.

-- This story began long ago. Like 157 years ago. My involvement is only 44 years. -- I was a college student in a small town in Pennsylvania. The town has an old graveyard. No. An ancient graveyard. The type of burial place where the veteran’s flags salute those who served in 1776, 1812 and the Civil War.

-- The graveyard sits prominently atop a wooded knoll that looks down over a lake so old that it was formed when the glaciers began their great retreat thousands of years ago. So, the lake, the wooded knoll and the graveyard were all certainly there in 1861 when John Milton Taylor kissed his little sister Emma goodbye and marched off to fight the Civil War. Emma was eleven years old. It was the last time she would ever see him. It was her headstone that I sat on today while I ate my sandwich and talked to her brother.

-- In the summer of 1974, the graveyard was a well-kept but forgotten place. The view over the lake was quiet, peaceful and secluded. A great place for a picnic date. It was the young lady I was with who first noticed John’s headstone. Back then it was a slab of weathered, white marble about two feet high and two inches thick. 113 years’ worth of wind had bent it back a bit and almost erased the carved lettering. Indeed, at first look the marble slab appeared blank. Only as you began to walk by it could you make out the words. She ran her hands over what was left of the letters. All it said was: ----“John Milton Taylor ---Killed at Gettysburg”

-- I walked away from John that day and thought of him only rarely until about seven years ago. At that time, I happened to be looking through a book of Mathew Brady photographs of the Civil War. (For those of you unfamiliar with Brady’s work, if you see a picture of Abe Lincoln it was Brady who took it.) Among the old, faded pictures in the book were a collection entitled “The dead of Gettysburg”. Included with the pictures was a letter written by the Chaplain of the 145th Pennsylvania Infantry describing, in detail, how the battlefield dead were initially interred. For an example, the Chaplain described the finding and burying of one John Milton Taylor. I stood frozen on the spot. The memory of that forlorn, crooked, weather-scarred and unlovely headstone rushed to the center of my mind. There were 50,000 casualties at Gettysburg. What were the odds?!

-- Knowing that John had served with the 145th I was able to research the regiment. It had been recruited in Erie County Pennsylvania and marched south where it fought in all the battles through Virginia and Maryland. It was a veteran unit when it marched north 2 years later as part of the Union Army of the Potomac to stop Confederate General Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania.

-- The 145th had already marched about 15 miles that hot July day when they arrived at Gettysburg only to be thrown right into combat. To halt a Confederate advance, they formed in line along a narrow stretch of a farm road and advanced, shoulder-to-shoulder across an open expanse now called The Wheatfield. They succeeded in pushing the enemy back across the field, across a shallow brook and up a hill, atop which they halted. As night approached the 145th fell back to their original position along the farm road. Somewhere between that road and the top of that hill John Taylor died. I do not know the exact spot. The Chaplain wrote “We buried John by the apple tree beneath which he had fought.” But there are no apple trees there today.

-- For the last few years, I have traveled to Gettysburg to walk his final steps. During one of those visits I stopped by the National Cemetery there to stand on the spot where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Although the battlefield dead were initially buried where they fell, the bodies were exhumed over the course of the next year and reinterred into a central location that came to be known as the National Cemetery of Gettysburg. It was at the dedication of this cemetery that Lincoln spoke.

-- As I was exiting the National Cemetery I stepped over row after row of headstones, all of them flush with the ground and staring up at the sky. All of them just said “UNKNOWN”. There are thousands and thousands of them. As I was about to step over yet another row of them I noticed that these had names on them. Since the soldiers back then wore no dog tags the only way a battlefield grave could be identified was if the fallen soldier was found and buried by his friends who took the time to mark the grave. The headstone I just happened to be staring down at now read “J.Taylor Co. C 145th Rgt”. Again … what are the odds?

-- My curious relationship with John was quickly turning into a haunting. The new question now became; just where is he buried? The man has TWO headstones. It is certainly not unusual for families to place a headstone in the family plot to honor a loved one whose body could not be recovered. It was also not unusual during the Civil War for families “of means” to have the body of their loved one transported home. It was in an attempt to answer this question that I found the web site “Find A Grave.com”. (Yes! It really exists!) Typing in John Milton Taylor produced yet a THIRD headstone. This one was a modern granite reproduction of the original old weathered, marble one that I had found back in 1974. Evidently, John’s old stone had been removed and replaced. Better yet, somebody was taking care of the old Taylor family plot. His name was Reeder.

-- I emailed Mr. Reeder to introduce myself and relate the story I have just told you. He was as intrigued as you must be if you are still reading this. He told me he was unaware that John had a grave site at the National Cemetery but that he had often wondered if John was actually buried beneath that old stone overlooking the lake in Edinboro. He did tell me that the Veterans Administration paid for the new granite stone there which he doubted they would do if John wasn’t actually there.

-- We kinda left it at that, agreeing to share any future info as to John’s actual whereabouts.

John Milton Taylor Edinboro cert of burial.jpg

-- About a year later I received an email from Mr. Reeder. Attached was a photocopy of a certificate of burial from 1936 for one John Milton Taylor at Edinboro, Pennsylvania. It seems that on her deathbed, John’s little sister Emma, then 86 years old, as a dying request, asked her family to bring back her brother and bury him next to her that they may be together again and forever. I am happy to be able to tell you that her family … her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren … traveled to Gettysburg, had big brother John’s body exhumed, transported and reburied next to the fresh grave of his little sister Emma.

-- So anyway … next time I tell you I had lunch with Corporal John Milton Taylor. You’ll know what I’m talking about.