Yesterday’s blog posting about the Civil War reminded me of a photograph I took several years ago. 

I'd attended a Memorial Day service at the tiny cemetery where my parents are buried. The “C.S.A.” on Jacob Whitmore’s Civil War gravestone caught my attention. I was surprised to see a Confederate veteran buried near the little town of Gann Valley, South Dakota.

Today I contemplated the photo again. Ancestry and Findagrave confirmed basic facts, i.e., his 1837 birth and 1909 death. My curiosity was piqued by the U.S. Military Headstone application submitted by the local American Legion Post. 

In 1940?  For a Confederate soldier?

Here’s how ChatGPT explained the situation:

In 1906, Congress authorized the War Department to provide headstones for Confederate soldiers buried in federal cemeteries. Then in 1929, the policy expanded further: The government could furnish headstones for Confederate veterans buried in private cemeteries, not just national ones.

Interested in Jacob's story, I dug further. The community was fortunate in its early days to have a bustling newspaper, The Dakota Chief. Twenty years of issues (1893-1913) are digitized on Newspapers.com. Here’s a portion of the lengthy obituary published April 22, 1909:

OBITUARY

Jacob H. Whitmore was born in Augusta county, Virginia, October 21^st, 1837, and died April 15^th, 1909, of grip and paralysis.

Mr. Whitmore lived in Virginia until 1868 when he removed to Logan county, Ohio, where he resided until 1900 when he moved to a farm six miles northwest of Gann Valley where he has since resided….

During the Civil War, Mr. Whitmore lived in the storm center and was forced into the Confederate army. At the first opportunity he left that service and on Feb. 5^th 1864 at New Creek, W. Va., took the oath of allegiance to the United States...

What gems one can find in old newspapers! The July 2026 theme of The Septs, IGSI’s journal, is “Using Historical Newspapers.” If you have a story to share, contact the managing editors at SeptsMnged@IrishGenealogical.org well before the May 15 deadline for submission.

In the meantime, the April 2026 issue of The Septs--with its “Irish Tapestry” theme--will be out in the next week or so.