SakshiStruggle To Know More
All Kochersperger had was these letters. So he decided to make the best use of it. He initiated his investigation by analyzing the writer’s handwriting. The man took this step because he suspected that the letter might have been written by some other soldier with better handwriting even if it is undersigned as Shepherd. Surprisingly, this was a common practice in those days.
Nelson Shepherd Found
After a thorough investigation involving hundreds of soldiers, Kochersperger narrowed down to three different writers and one of them was named Nelson Shepherd. Kochersperger described Shepherd “I identified with him as a boy off to see the world,” and “I could also identify with his parents since I have five kids of my own.” Kochersperger saw points of commonality between him and Nelson’s parents but one needs to wonder if Kochersperger’s children were as troublesome as Nelson Shepherd was in his growing days.
His Childhood
Shepherd came to this world in the early 1840s and spent his childhood in Grass Lake, Michigan with his family. There were more surprising details about Nelson Shepherd that he was going to uncover. Shortly after, Kochersperger found that Shepherd had committed burglary before the occurrence of the Civil War and even served for a short term in Jackson State Prison. It was just the tip of the iceberg.
Change Of Mind
However, Shepherd came back to right path once his adolescent phase got over. After he got released from the jail he decided to make money in the right way. By 1860s the man had severed all his connection with his immoral past and had started working in a town of White River as a mill hand. When the Civil War broke out, the Shepherd family was living there only. Confederate forces attacked on the federal, Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. However, no casualties were reported but the attack did trigger the fight. President Lincoln gathered a team of 100,000 volunteers to suppress the insurrection springing up in South. Initially, Shepherd stayed at home unaffected by this tragic development but son the battle dragged him in.
One And A Half Century
Admirably, in a short span of time Kochersperger had managed to find out a lot about the Shepherd but still the mystery regarding how it remained stuck in postal circulation for 150 years and reached Boes. For that, he needed to dive deeper into the mystery. The man got a breakthrough when he learned that Shepherd was also associated with the 26th Michigan Volunteer Regiment. The sleuth still does not know why he admitted himself in the group but one thing is for sure that it occurred in 1862. The war had taken its ugliest form in the North and maybe that is what forced him to join the team.
The Civil War
The Union already had lost two battles while trying to conquer confederate capital (Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Bull Run) by the time summer of 1862 arrived. And was about to get its first major win at the Battle of Antietam. It is difficult to say as to what motivated 18-year-old Shepherd to take part in the battle. Was it his youthful enthusiasm and the excitement to see the country for the first time or moral that was not very much popular in the North during those times? In the first part of December, his unit made its march towards the nation’s capital, and it is from there Shepherd developed the habit of writing.