Memorial Day at the National Archives

After almost 14 years of wondering, I finally learned how my great-great-great-grandfather died in the Civil War. I have the National Archives Research Center on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. to thank for that.

FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT YEARS IN THE MAKING

It was in 2011, after I started an Ancestry.com account as a project with my aging grandmother to track our family history that I first learned that I am the progeny of a fallen Union soldier.

(A recommendation to younger adults with aging parents or grandparents: Put your family tree together — together. Someday your aging loved ones will kick the bucket. If they were half as wonderful as my Grandma Arlene, trust me — you’ll treasure those memories of sifting through old photos and hearing the oral family history.)

All we could find in 2011 was that my third-great-grandfather, Ezra Carson, had been a farmer in northern Linn County who registered for the draft on July 28, 1863. He died March 28, 1865 — not even two weeks before the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee that marked the end of the war — in New York, where no battles had been fought. Beyond that, we knew nothing.

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“I should really go to the National Archives someday and do some research,” I told Grandma Arlene, who passed away in 2018. I finally got my chance in January, having booked a couple extra days to enjoy Washington, D.C. after the presidential inauguration.

ARCHIVE’S RECORDS WIDELY AVAILABLE

The National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, advises interested researchers to reach out ahead of time. A number of records can now be found online. Many can even be found using resources at your community library, some of which have access to services such as Ancestry.com or Fold3.com for in-person patrons. You can also use those services for free at the National Archives research library — fitting, since the NARA provides most of those platforms’ records.

Ironically, I hadn’t needed to visit the National Archives to solve the mystery of Ezra Carson’s death. A helpful NARA staff member located the very answers I was seeking on Fold3.com, to which I could have subscribed at home for $7.95 per month.

It was right there on a government computer screen in front of me: Ezra Carson spent his final days (weeks, actually,) at De Camp General Hospital on David’s Island in New York Harbor. He died of chronic diarrhea.

For a split second, the revelation seemed mildly amusing, thanks to a few digestive incidents in the past that have evolved into time-honored family jokes. I was tempted to quip that Ezra Carson died of the same curse that has affected a few of his descendants.

But it’s not funny — not in the least. I can’t begin to imagine the agony he must have experienced. It had to have been horrific.

Even more horrific: it wasn’t remotely uncommon.

WAR’S TERRIBLE TOLL INCLUDED DISEASE

It’s long been held that around two-thirds of the approximately 620,000 recorded military deaths during the Civil War were due not to wounds received in battle but to disease, making it the leading cause of death.

Nothing reflects that sobering statistic like the pages of the official records, many of which list more instances of disease than battle wounds. The three volumes of death registers for Civil War volunteers from Iowa lists soldiers by the month and year they died, grouping them by the first letter of their surname. Of the 10 Iowa soldiers with surnames beginning with the letter “C” who perished in March 1865, six — including Ezra — succumbed to chronic diarrhea at different hospitals. One died from smallpox, another from “general debility” and another from “accidental discharge” of a revolver in his own hands. Only one was killed in action.

Regardless of what news reports or movie titles or battle hymns imply, there’s no glory in dying on a dirty mattress in a germ-infested hospital. There’s honor in dying for one’s country, but what better usurps that honor than the indignity of slowly wasting away in a puddle of sweat and filth and a cloud of stench. There are no stories of valor to be told about a case of chronic diarrhea or consumption or typhoid fever.

But like every other dead soldier, my great-great-great-grandfather’s story began long before Americans took up arms against each other.

BEFORE EZRA CARSON DIED, HE LIVED

Ezra Carson was born in Ohio in November 1834, the second of 10 children to George and Margaret McMillan Carson. He came to Iowa with his family on a steamboat in 1849, landing in Dubuque and taking a schooner to Quasqueton. He was a landowner by age 20, purchasing 40 acres of public land in June 1855 just east of Troy Mills. He married Mary Elizabeth Payton in 1859 and they had three sons, none of whom were old enough to remember their father before he died.

I pieced those facts together using the latest resources available with my Ancestry subscription. As helpful as it is (though I wouldn’t describe it as cheap,) I found out during my magical visit to the National Archives in Washington that viewing the physical documents is an experience on a whole other level.

PROTOCOLS ENSURE RECORDS ARE MAINTAINED

Researchers at a National Archives facility must be at least 14 years old, able to provide valid photo ID and willing to follow security protocols, including getting searched on the way in and on the way out. After completing the mandatory (and quick) online orientation, I was provided with my official researcher’s card, which is valid for one year. Records had to be requested in writing, which a NARA staff member would review before retrieving them from an area off-limits to civilians. Packets of documents were given one-by-one to be reviewed in the Central Research Room.

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Gloves weren’t required to handle my dead grandfather’s military records and pension papers, but let’s just say that prior to touching them, I hadn’t scrubbed my hands that hard since the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. If I were more of a crier, I would have been more worried about dripping tears on them — the experience was that emotional.

RECORDS TELL FALLEN SOLDIER’S STORY

Here’s what I learned from the records I held in my hand:

Private Ezra Carson of Iowa’s 15th Infantry Regiment, C Company, stood five feet, six inches tall. He had brown hair, light skin, and Carson blue eyes. He mustered in on Sept. 20, 1864. His soldier’s clothing was worth $46.57, or over $900 today.

He arrived in Marietta, Georgia on Nov. 13, 1864 to start his service. He fell sick in Beaufort, South Carolina and went absent from his company on Jan. 19, 1865. He was sent to De Camp Hospital on New York’s David’s Island, where he died on March 28, 1865.

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My great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Peyton Carson, never remarried, as she attested every time she applied for an increase to her widow’s pension. It started at $8 per month in 1866, increasing to $20 monthly in 1916 and $30 monthly in 1920. She died in 1923 at the age of 88 and is buried in Troy Mills along with a lot of other Carsons.

FAMILY’S MILITARY LEGACY PRECEDES, FOLLOWS PVT. CARSON’S

Ezra was not the first Carson to wear a uniform in service to the United States. That honor appears to go to David Carson, Ezra’s great-grandfather (my sixth great-grandfather,) a Pennsylvanian who joined the Continental Army in 1777 at age 33. He survived the war and returned to Pennsylvania, living into old age.

Ezra was also not the first Carson to die for his country. Private Robert Carson of the 20th Iowa Volunteers — one of Ezra’s six younger brothers — died of chronic dysentery in November 1862 in Missouri, where he is buried.

I can’t say for sure if Ezra, who is buried in Brooklyn, NY, was the last Carson to meet a soldier’s demise. His two surviving sons had at least 23 children between them, followed by several more generations. That’s a lot of wars, and a lot of Carsons to track down to confirm no one else fell in battle.

He was, however, far from the last Carson to answer the nation’s call in a time of war. For Carsons of later generations (including two of my first cousins,) finding the way home from places like the South Pacific and Iraq and Afghanistan was fairly easy. Finding the path back to peace proved more difficult at times. Those stories aren’t mine to tell.

Ezra Carson died 160 years ago. His legacy, however, is alive — infused in the DNA of his descendants whose very foundations are altered by the event of his death, just as they are by other events of the past like becoming a war widow, as Mary Peyton Carson experienced. Or surviving war to restart life in a free but fledgling nation, as David Carson did.

That’s how it is for every American. Our existence as a nation and a people is altered because of the sacrifices of countless men and women who fell in battle in service to our country. We don’t observe Memorial Day just to mourn them; we observe it to remind ourselves how their sacrifices endure in the very lives we live today. I can’t help but wonder how much more of my own story is written on musty, yellowed pages waiting to be found in our National Archives. I guess it’s a good thing I kept my research card.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com