Jack Bender turned an $85 investment at an auction several years into an avocational interest in the Civil War.
He spoke at Humboldt Friday night and again Saturday afternoon in Iola at the Allen County Historical Society Museum about letters written by Civil War soldiers with ties to the Humboldt area.
The auction acquisition occurred when Bender, an attorney and Air Force retiree who lives in Halstead, was on his way home one afternoon. Curiosity got the better of him, and while looking through things bound for the block, he noticed two boxes and a suitcase stuffed with letters and old photographs.
“That was before cell phones,” Bender said, and took the risk of putting his wife in a dither by lingering at the auction.
On closer inspection at home, Bender found about 80 of 500 letters were written during the Civil War; others dated to the mid-1850s.
An aside that piqued his interest more, was that some the letters referred to his ancestors, the Gallemores. They also led him and another Civil War buff, Jerry Puckett, a Humboldt native, to search for the Evan Young Cemetery, which they found on the Geffert farm just northwest of Humboldt.
The first tombstone they happened on identified the interred as George Myers, a relative of Bender’s, and two others marked the burials of Puckett relatives.
In addition to using the letters to piece together information about Humboldt residents’ participating in the Civil War, Bender has made their contents available for research by scholars smitten by the war. They also have prompted him to take a keen interest in family genealogy.
Among the letters Bender has are some to do with three Humboldt families of the period, the Youngs, Cormans and Deals. The letters are personal in nature, sometimes stereotypical love letters of the time, when soldiers and wives, or girlfriends, were separated for months and even years.
Through digging into the letters’ contents and putting in historical perspective, Bender has found that several of the soldiers, as well as units containing other Humboldt soldiers, were involved in chasing William Quantrill, rebel guerrilla who raided Lawrence Aug. 21, 1963. He also found information about many skirmishes, some of which haven’t been reported in much detail — or not at all — in historical examinations of the war.
Bender touched on the 9th Kansas Calvary, in which some from Humboldt served, and other regional Civil War events.
EMPHASIS for Bender’s presentations was the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, which essentially began 150 years ago tomorrow (April 12, 1961) when at 4:30 a.m. Confederates under Gen. Pierre Beauregard opened fire with 50 cannons on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C.
The Allen County Historical Society Museum, 20 S. Washington Ave., has comprehensive exhibits drawing attention to the war and local influences.
