While there are some wonderful free web sites (notably FamilySearch.org) from which you can access many online records, Ancestry.com and Fold3.com offer a wide variety of records that are not available anywhere else.  In fact, if you go to the National Archives in Washington D.C. to access the original microfilms for those records, you’ll be directed to

Capt. Solomon T. Lyon of the 5th Michigan Infantry has been described as a recipient of the Kearny Medal and there is a photo that seems to prove it.  The trouble is that, not only was Capt. Lyon not on the official list of recipients, but he apparently didn’t qualify to receive the medal.  So

Annie Etheridge is one of at least four women who are known to have received the Kearny Cross.  And, although she never actually enlisted in the army (serving as a volunteer field nurse or “vivandiere”), she is frequently described as one of the very few female private citizens who received a pension for her service to the

In “The Battle of Gettysburg Discussion Group” on Facebook, Jessie Weedleton pointed to an article in the The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which said that a memorial to Civil War soldiers in the city cemetery in Lisbon, Iowa included a large boulder that had been moved from the battlefield at Gettysburg.  According to the article, “The

As some of you know, I’m writing a book about the Kearny Cross: a medal which was awarded by Union General David B. Birney (and named in memory of his predecessor) to members of the First Division, Third Corps, Army of the Potomac. There were two versions of the medal: the “Kearny Medal of Honor”