"Till then the war had seemed a grand play"

    The accompanying article is from the front page of the Lincoln Republican newspaper in Lincoln, KS on May 27, 1886. This was within a few days of the 24th anniversary of the Battle of Seven Pines.
   The article does not include the author's name. If it were written by a member of the 85th PA living in Kansas, my guess would be Pvt. Jacob Deffenbaugh. He is the only confirmed member of Company I who moved to Kansas after the war. Deffenbaugh was a cabinet maker and cooper who moved his family to Kansas sometime between 1870 and 1887. Of course, we do not know if the article were first published in another newspaper and picked up by the Republican, so there is a possibility the author was not a Kansan.
   What is most striking about the article is the writer's description of seeing a dead comrade on the battlefield for the first time. The "Syndey H" that he refers to was 21-year old Corporal James Sydney Hackney.
    The regiment had experienced death prior to Seven Pines. Some had died from diseases. Meanwhile, Sergeant Daniel Miller had been grievously wounded three weeks earlier at Williamsburg, VA. He lingered in a hospital and did not die until after the Battle of Seven Pines.
     Another member of the regiment had written that the unit had to step over the bodies of dead Union soldiers on their way to getting into position at Williamsburg.
     Still, the writer conveys the startling realization upon viewing Hackney's lifeless body that a personal friend had now perished. He was shocked and sobered by the experience.
    The writer writes wistfully that Hackney will have no one to place flowers on his grave. At the time of the Battle of Seven Pines, early in the war, the Union did not have a system to bury their dead in military cemeteries near the battlefield in a timely fashion under a marked headstone. Hackney was probably buried on the battlefield a few days later in either an unmarked or poorly marked grave which became lost to family and friends.
    Deffenbaugh, meanwhile, the potential writer, played a key role at Seven Pines. Historian James Hadden, in his brief history of the 85th PA, wrote that the flag bearer "was removed [after suffering a hand wound] and Jacob Deffenbaugh seized the flag and bravely bore it aloft throughout the engagement."