The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-05-29
A SOLDIER ROMANCE.
A STORY WHICH LAYS RueYARo kip.
LING IN THE SHADE.
Hugh rhompson. wandersr on the Face
Of the Earth for Twsn.y-fivs Years and
Could Not Recall his own Name.

than Rudyard Kipling ever dreamed
Of says writer in the Washington
Post 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
faneifui creation of novelist than Geld
reality.
Sept l. 1862. there enlisted at Van
Vert. o., in the Fifteenth Ohio Yolun-
teer Infantry slender. blue-eyed youth
of 20 named Hugh Thompson. There
was nothing TO distinguish him special
ly 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 bright, cheer-
full young fellow. with q low pitched
voice, as one of them remembers, and
always cheerful and ready ssr duty.
At the battle Of Ghickamauea, as q
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 regiment was en-
gagged. case shot. probably detected
from tree, struck him in the head and
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 yards in dazed way.
and then fell in heap as Confederate
brigade swarmed into the woods, and
his comrades were forced to leave him,
evidently dying from mortal wound.
He never rejoined them.
The War Department records bear
opposite bis name this note: Wounded
u -. - Il.
mauga. Sept. 10. 1861 Aud so he
disappeared from comrades, and
friends. and home. one of the unknown
dead. remembered only as component
of the myriads of soldier boys who
gave their young lives for their coun-
try. His father, years afterward, ap-
piled 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 his
tory opens on snowy country road in
Northern Illinois. near the village of
Cleveland. in the winter of 1870. Night
was coming on as a smail-sized but
sturdfly built traveller breasted his way
against the keen winds that swept the
bleak prairie. He was comfortably
dressed in good working suit, with
pair of new boots on his feet and q
coon-skin cap on his head. He carried
an old-fashioned oil-cloth yalise, and
appeared to be looking for a place to
stay over night. And there on the
lonely road in the darkening twilight
of that freezing February evening in
the year of grace 1870. Hugh Thomp-
son. the wounded soldier of Chieka-
frrh =
pressed it 1t was just as if at that mo-
ment he had awoke from a dreamless
sleep of seven years and become con-
scious of existence.
But his memory was gone, totally
and absolutely. But other faculties
were keen enough. but he could not re-
call his own name. where he had been,
his family. or his home. His entire
past up to that moment was simply q
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
and was given employment in q coal
mine.
When asked his name he replied
mechanically. Henry Thompson. u
though why he said Thompson"
rather than Brown or Smith he
could not explain. He was 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 vividly. He became aware that
Ia l.. . \ H.
wounded. Along in the SOS he drifted
to Kansas and entered homestead. on
which he settled, having married in
Illinois.
He finally became satisfied that he
had served in an Ohio regiment, and
then, aided ny the Grand Army men of
Kansas, to 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
own or not. The local newspapers
took up the matter. gave accurate de-
scriptions of him. and the strange his
tory 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 per-
sonal description~ts in measure
with that OF his long-mourned son, and
correspondence followed.
The son, while not able TO recall Van
Vert, had clearer version of his boy
hoods home. and wrote an exact de-
scription of it as he had last seen it, q
quarter of century before-log house
and stone chimney. the well 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 backwoods.
The result was that he returned home
in 1887. was easily identified by his
family and former comrades. applied
for pension, and the certificate direct
ing payment to him as the wounded
and missing Hugh Thompson of
Chickamauga was duly forwarded.
Through all his wanderings-and
this sounds like Sunday-school tale.
but the incident is legally proved. and
forms part of the evidence of his iden-
tity-he carried little Testament.
gwen to him by sister. with an In
scription in rhyme. when he enlisted.
The sister, still living. recognized it at
once when he exhibited it upon his re-
turn. 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 Chicka-
manga until the strange awakening OF
his dormant perceptivc faculties in
1870.
He has dim impression of working