The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-12-23
THE NAMELESS SOLDIER.
Hugh Thompson Partially Called
Back After Years of Mental
Darkness.
His Memory Still Almost Gone,
Though Glimpses Of the
Past Como.
Romance of 'tl,e Nameless Soldier" Re-
vaaled by the Pension Ofico-The
Sons Return.

WAsH1NGroN, Dec. 22-Among the mil
lion claims filed away in the pension bu-
reau is hidden away material for more
thrilling romances than Rudyard Kipling
ever dreamed of. There was u case brought
to final adjudication the other day that
even when told in the rigid, concise phrase
ology of the legal documents. verifying its
strange features, reads more like the fanci-
full creation of novelist than cold reality.
On the 1st of September, 1852. there en-
listed at Van Vert. Ohio in the Fifteenth
Ohio Volunteer Infantry, n slender blue
eyed youth Of twenty, named Hugh Thomp-
son. There was nothing to distinguish
him specially from n thousand ether far
mer lads vino donned the blue and march
ed away to the front in the early days
of the great war. His surviving older
comrades recall hims as Il bright, cheer
full young fellow. with q low pitched voice,
MS one of them remembers, and always
cheerful and ready for duty. At the battle
of ChickamaUga. AZ comrade relates.
while they were lying on the ground at the
front to escape the tempest of balls that
swept the thin woods where his reg ment
was engaged, Il case shot, probably detected
from O tree. struck him i'll the head, aud |
his face was instantly covered with blood. |
His companion spoke to him, but he did not
answer.
Just then the order to fall back was given.
He was assisted to his feet, staggered few |
wards in q daZed kind of way. and then |
fell in a heap as a confederate brigade
swarned into the woods, and his comrades
were forced to leave him, evidently dying
from mortal wound. he never reJolneu
them.
The war department records bear op2o
site his name this note: Wounded and
missing in the battle of Chickamauga, Sep /
TENDER 10, 1867 And so he disappeared
from comrades and friends and home. one
of the unknown Dead remembered only rs
component of the myIads of soldier boys
who gave their Young lives for their coun-
try. His father, years afterward, applied
for pension on account of his service, his
mother having died prior TO his enlistment.
No doubt was raised as to his death in the
army, but the claim was rejected on the
legal ground of noE-dependence.
The next Gene il this strange history
opens on snowy country road IN northern
Illinois, near the village of Cleveland, in
the winter of 1870. Night was coming on
as small sized but sturdily built Traveller
breasted his way against the keen winds
that swept the bleakspraire. He was com
fortably dressed in good working suit,
with pair of new boots on his feet and
coon-skin cap on his head. He carried an
old fashioned oil-cloth valise, and appeared
to be looking for place to stay over night
And there, on the lonely road. in the dark
ening twilight of that freezing February
evening. in the year of grace, 1870 Hugh
Thompson, the wounded soldier of Chicka
manga, "came to himself" as he expressed
it. 1t was just as if at that moment he had
awoke from a dreamless sleep Of seven
years and become conscious of existence.
But his memory was gone, totally and alb
solutely. His OF her faculties were keen
enough. but he could not recall his own
name, where he had been. his family. or his
&In&
was simply blank. The only thing that
connected him with former existence was
An idea that he was looking for n Mr.. Ba-
ker. who needed men to work. This turned
out to be correct. He found him, and was
given employment in a coal mine.
When asked his name he replied mechan-
ically. Henry Thompson" though why he
said Thompson rather than Brown or
Smith he could not explain. He was u
good and reliable worker, but subject to
SPELLS when he would disappear for days
and weeks, but always returned and took
up the thread Of existence where he had
left it.
The cloud on his darkened mind grad
ually lifted, and old scenes and incidents
came back to him more or less vividly. He
became aware that he had been in the army
and had been wounded. Along in the SOS
he drifted to Kansas and entered home
stead. on which he settled, having, married
in Illinois.
He finally became satisfied that no had
served in an Ohio regiment, and then, aided
by the Grand Army men of Kansas to
whom he told his story, he set about dis-
covering his home and his family. The dis
couraging feature to him was that he did
not know whether the name he went by was
really his own or not. The local newspa-
pers took up the matter, gave accurate de-
scriptions of him, and the strange history
of the Nameless Soldier. as he came to be
known, travelled to Ohio and was read in
the columns of the Van Vert Gazette by his
aged father. The personal description tai
lied in measure with that of his long
mourned son, and correspondence fol-
lowed.
The son. while not able to recall Van
Vert, had clear vision of his boyhood 8
home and wrote an exact description OF II
as he had last seen it q quarter of century
beTore-log house and stone chimney. the
we'll with the long sweep to raise the buck
ct, the hi2h-banked stream that ran through
the farm-al! still as he had left them. tor
changes are slow in the backwooda.
The result was that he returned home in
1887. was easily identified by his family and
former comrades applied for a pension.
and the certificate directing payment to hin
rs the wounded and missing Hugh Ihomp-
son, of Chickamauga was duly forwarded.
Through all his wan derings-and this
sounds like a Sunday-school tale, but TIL
incident is legally proved, and forms a part
Of the evidence of the identify he carried
little testament, given to him by sister
listed. The sister, still living, recognized i
at once when he exhibited it upon his re
turn. All his efforts have so far failed t.
recall to him anything that occurred fro,
the time that he tumbled over ON tn
bloody field of Chickamauga until tn
strange awakening OF his dormant percep
tive faculties in 1870.
He has dim impression of working in
village or town, with a fountain in IL
square, and of a bright-faced German gil
there named TIME, but where this was
when is blank. Should his memory eve
be thoroughly rehRbilitsted what strans
tale of a double life it might unfold.
Winter Excursions.
Southern tourists are already going
warmer climes-Florida. and all sou thel
states, Texas, Mexico, Hot Springs. Arl
and TO California. Passengers eoi,
through st. Paul or Minneapolis can
best accommodated by the fine service
g NJ L. y