Egbert Who??

I decided to go back to my cousin Pat’s book to determine once and for all, if there was any mention of Henry throughout the enormous body of her research. Flipping through the photos which corresponded with Henry’s parents, and siblings, I happened to spot a pair of photos which featured an older bearded gentleman, sporting a shiny medallion on the lapel of his dapper vintage suit. I held my breath as I scanned the preceding pages for an index. It identified the elderly man as Egbert Banks, Civil War Veteran. Ancestry.com listed Henry’s younger brother as an enlisted Private attached to Company E, of Iowa’s 11th Infantry Regiment. While his older brother went off to fight the rebellion, Egbert left Illinois for Iowa only to be recruited in 1864 to serve the Union cause, even if it was for just a few months. In retrospect, I realized that the date of the photo was from the teens, so my suspicion that the man in the photo might be Henry was a figment of wishful thinking, and nothing more. I continued, however to search for facts about Uncle Egbert, and I began with a random internet search. To my surprise, I found the following excerpt online from the book “The History of Clinton County Iowa” by L. P. Allen (1879):

Egbert Banks, proudly sporting his G.A.R. Medal

EGBERT BANKS, farmer, Sec. 5; P. O. Welton; born in Putnam Co., N. Y., in 1839; his father was drowned at Albany, N.Y., about 1849; after the death of his father, he lived in the family of his uncle, in Dutchess Co., N. Y., for four years; he also lived in Connecticut one year; lived for some time in Fairfax Co., Va., went to Illinois in 1854; he came to Clinton Co. in the fall of 1864. Fall of 1864, went as a recruit in the 11th I. V. I.; was on detached duty at Ringgold, Ga., until February, 1865; was afterward engaged in the battle of Kingston, N. C.; was mustered out of service with his regiment in July, 1865. He married, 1867, Elizabeth Dannatt, a native of Lincolnshire, England; has two children-Caroline and Benjamin D.  Mr. Dannatt has a well-improved farm of 120 acres.

The dates did, in fact jibe with those in the Banks family book, and subsequently, I discovered within this brief and random profile that my great-great-great grandfather’s death was attributed to drowning in Albany, NY in 1849, leaving Cynthia to care for 10 children on her own! No wonder Egbert wound up in the household of his uncle.

I later identified the medal pictured on Egbert’s chest as a Grand Army of the Republic Membership Medal. The GAR, according to Wikipedia was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army who had served in the Civil War. They were among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics. The organization was eventually succeeded by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW).