Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,892
By This is the grave of Elmer Ellsworth.
Born in Malta, New York in 1837, Ellsworth grew up in Mechanicville and then New York City. In 1859, he moved to Rockford, Illinois. Because he wanted to marry the daughter of a wealthy man, his future father in law in Rockford demanded that Ellsworth get a real job, so he moved to Chicago and started reading for the law. He ended up in Abraham Lincoln’s circle and went to Springfield in 1860. They became good friends and Lincoln invited him to Washington after his election.
Ellsworrth was interested in military matters, more so than most northerners, and he was involved in local militias. He was inspired by the French Zouaves and had the troops create uniforms based upon them. So when Lincoln called for volunteers in the Civil War, it wasn’t surprising that Ellsworth signed up immediately, both because he was friends with the president and became he was enchanted with the military. He organized the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of firemen, who had their own super-masculine culture already. He trained them on Zouave lines and they had fancy uniforms.
Then on May 24, 1861, the Union took over Alexandria, Virginia. An inn owner raised a large Confederate flag over his establishment. Angry at seeing the treason flag, Ellsworth took his men up to the roof and grabbed the flag. That led the owner, a guy named James Jackson, to shoot Ellsworth dead. A private named Frances Brownell immediately killed Jackson.
Elmer Ellsworth became the first officer to die in the Civil War. He was 24 years old. The flag Jackson had taken down went to Lincoln.
Elmer Ellsworth is buried in Hudson View Cemetery, Mechanicville, New York.
If you would like this series to visit other American officers who died in the Civil War, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. James Birdseye McPherson (what a middle name!!) is in Clyde, Ohio and John Sedgwick is in Cornwall Hollow, Connecticut. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.