The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-11-12
LONG-LOST BROTHERS.
Restored After Many Years-A Romance
In Real Life.

!
In Real Life.
An evening paper of this city, says the
Cincinnati Commercial, publishes a
romantic story of the loss of little child
at the capture and pillage of Corinth
Miss, by the Union forces in the late
war and of his restoration to his family
after thirteen years had passed and the |
little boy had grown to be a man. In
the flight of the inhabitants from the |
burning town, most of the people hur-
ried down the railroad track leading
from the southern part of the place, and
took refuge in the woods and fields along
the route. Soon the streets were desert |
ed by all except this little boy, who be-
came separated from his friends, and,
stricken with terror, ran thither and
thither in his bewilderment, and at last
hid himself in a freight car which had es.
capped the general confagration. Among
the Union soldiers who soon poured into
the city was Capt. (afterward GEN.
Hickenlooper, of the Fifth Ohio Bat
terry, who discovered the boy and took
him back to camp, where, by his youth
full intelligence, he became a great ia
vorite. The boy stated that his name
was Frank Foster, and his father and
brother were in the rebel army, his
brother being an aide TO Gen. Beaure-
gard but as all search for them had
failed, ii was believed that they were
dead. The General, out of pity, adopt
ed the boy, and in August, 1862, sent
him to Cincinnati, where he was taken
charge of by the Generals father and
mother. He was sent to school, and af-
terward served an apprenticeship in the
Surveyors office under his patron, the
General, becoming at length good civil
engineer. During all these twelve or
thirteen years he never ceased, when an
opportunity offered, of making diligent
inquiry with regard to his parents and
family, but in vain all he remembered
was his fathers and mothers names );
and with only this to guide him it
seemed hopeless task.
He wrote repeatedly to his old home,
but the letters were all returned, no one
having called for them. He inserted
from time to time advertisements in the
Memphis and other Southern papers,
but they brought no response ; and,
from the day that he was first taken to
the Union Camp, nearly fourteen years
ago, wrapped i'll an old army blouse that
reached to his ankles, until Saturday of
last week, did never he hear one sylla-
BILE with regard to father, mother, or
friends.
One evening, year or two ago, young
Foster, in company with friends, visited
theater in this city. and while all were
affected with merriment by the perform
ance of particular comedian, Foster
was silent and serious, and being after
wards asked the cause, answered, "That
man looked so much like my mother that
it starts me to thinking"
Again one night last week young Eos
ter visited the same theater and to his
establishment the same comedian ap-
peared on the stage. This time it made
such an impression on Fosters mind
that he could not sleep. On Saturday
morning of last week two interested
friends visited the theater, and found the
comedian alluded to Mt rehearsal. They
questioned him closely the names of
both father and mother corres,9onded
exactly, but he had no brother. His
only brother, Frank, was lost, he said,
when a child, on the battlefield OF
Corinth, and all search for him for thir-
teen years had proved unavailing, and he
had finally been given up as dead. The
history of the family was then related
i'll detail, how after the siege and burn
ing of the town, they had
returned to their old house
in Dunkirk, n. Y, finally moving
to Cleveland, where they have been ever
since the fathers death the now heart
broken old mother; the struggles of the
only surviving son to earn living foi
his mother and sisters, and his final
debut and success on the stage the I'M
availing search for the lost brother the
advertisements in papers in Eastern and
Southern cities; the journeys, many OF
them on foot to distant places, of the
distracted mother, still searching for hei
lost child.
The brothers, as soon as they were sat
isfied between themselves that they were
brothers, dispatched message of good
news to their mother i'll Cleveland,
and followed the message in person to.
gether