The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-06-21
THE ROMANCE OF
An Ohio SOLDIER.
More Thrilling Than ANY Of RudYard
Kipling'S Stories.
Hugh Thompson, Wanderer on the Face Of
the Earth for Twenty-Five Years and
Could Not Recall His Own Name.

Among the million claims fled away In
the Pension Bureau is hidden material for
more thrilling romanceS than Rudyard Kip
ling ever dreamed of. There was a case
brought TO final adjudication recently 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.
September /, 1862 there enlisted at Van
Vert, Ohio. In the Fifteenth Ohio Volun-
teer Infantry, slender, blue-eyed youth of
20 named Hugh Thompson. There was
nothing to distinguish him specially from
thousand other farmer lads who donned the
blue and marched away to the front in the
early days of the great war. His surviving
soldier comrades recall him as a bright,
cheerful young fellow with a low-pitched
voice, as one of them remembers, and al
ways cheerful and ready for duty.
At the battle of Chickamauga, as a COM
rade relates, while they were lying on the
ground at the front to escape the tempest of
balls that swept the thin woods where his
regiment was engaged. case shot. probably
DETECTED from q tree, struck him in the
head. and his face was instantly covered
with blood. His companion spoke to him,
out be did not answer.
Just then the order to fall back was given.
He was assisted to his feet, staggered few
yards in a dazed way, and then fell in
heap as a Confederate brigade swarmed
into the woods, and his comrades WeTO
forced to leave him, evidently dying from
mortal wound.
He NEVER REJOINED THEM
The War Department records bear oppo-
site his name this note: wounded and
Ia h.sf n
TENDER 70, 1863" And so he disappeared
from comrades and friends and home, one
of the unknown dead, remembered only as
a component OF the myriads Of soldier boys
who gave their young lives Tor their coun-
try. His father, years atUerward, 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 nOn-dependence.
The next scene in this strange history
opens on a snowy country road in Northern
Illinois, near the village of Cleveland, in
the winter of 1870. Night was coming on
as a smali-szed but sturdily built tray
eler breasted his way against the
keen winds that swept the bleak prai-
RE, He was comfortably dressed IN
a good working suit of clothes, with
a new pair Of boots on his feet and a
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
eniug 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
awakened from a dreamleSs sleep Of seven
years and become conscious of existence.
But his memory was gone, totally and
absolutely. His other faculties were keen
uh bnt he Ponld rapan his
name, where he had been, bis family, or
his home.
HIS ENTIRE PAST
Up to that moment was simply a blank.
The only thing that connected him with
former existence was an idea that he was
looking for q Mr.. Baker who needed men to
work. This turned out TO be correct, He
found him and was given employment in
coal mine.
When asked lis namehe replied mechan-
ically " Henry Thompson" though why he
said Thompson rather than Brown
OF " Smith be could not explain. Ha was
a good and reliable worker, but subject TO
spells, when he would disappear for days or
weeks, but always returned and took up the
thread Of existence where he had left it.
The cloud on his darkened mind gradually
lifted, and Old scenes and incidents came
back TO him more or less wildly. He be-
came aware that he had been in the army
and had been wounded. Along in the SOS
he dritted 10 Kansas and entered home
stead, on which he settled, having married
in Illinois.
He finally became satisfied that he had
served in an Ohio regiment and then, aided
by the Grand Army men of Kansas, 10
whom he told his story, he set about
discovering his home and his family.
The discOuraging feature to him was
that he did not know whether the
name he went by was really his
- aal f,ax l.
the matter, gave accurate descriptions of
him, and the strange history of the Name
less 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
tailed IN q measure with that OF his long
mouTned son, anu
CORRESPONDENTS FOLLOWED.
The son, while not able to recall Van
Vert, had a clearer version of his bOyhoOd's
home, and wrote an exact description OF It
as he had last seen il, n quarter of century
befOre-lOg house and stone chimney, the
we'll with the long sweep to raise the
bucket, the high-banked stream that ran
through the farm-all still as he had left
them, for changes are slow in the back
woods.
The result was that he returned home in
1887, and was easily identified by his family
and former comrades applied for pension.
as the wounded and missing Hugh ThOmp-
son of ChickamauEa was duly forwarded
Through all his wanderings-and this
sounds like a Sunday-SchOOl tale, but the
incident is legally proved and forms part of
the evidence of his identiiy-he carried a
little Testament given TO him by sister,
with an Inscription in rhyme, when he en-
listed. The sister, still living, recognized it at
once when he exhibited it upon his return.
All his efforts have SO far failed to recall to
him anything that occurred to him from the
time that he tumbled over on the bloody
field of Chickamauga until the strange
awakening of his dormant pcrceptiye facul-
ties in 1870
He has dim impression of working in a
village or town, with a fountain IN the
square, and of bright-faced German girl
there named TIME. bat where this was or
when is a blank. Should his memory ever
be thoroughly rehablitated what strange
tale of a double life it might unfold
Washington Post.
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