[CIVIL WAR] Died at Andersonville, Skilled Woodsman

Full length quarter plate tintype, identified as Raymond Grouse. Full leatherette case. Period ink note housed behind image reads, “Raymond Gouse on Sept. 3rd 1857. Skilled woodsman also of Company B 22nd Penn. Cavalry Reg. Died Oct. 27th 1864 at Andersonville Prison.”

A fascinating seated image with period identification.

Indeed, the German-born Gouse did serve his country for more than two years before his capture during a Confederate raid on a scouting party near Lost River Gap, West Virginia in May 1864. Sent to Georgia’s notorious Andersonville Prison, Gouse ultimately succumbed to dysentery some five months later. His remains rest there today in the National Cemetery.

The 1860 Federal Census records Gouse as a laborer on a farm owned by the McMilian family in North Strabane Township, Pennsylvania. The young immigrant decided to cast his lot for the Union in 1862, trading his trusty axe for a rifle. Pictured here cradling the head of said axe with both hands, he certainly appears proud of his trade and worthy of the “skilled woodsman” notation. Just a few years later he would lay down his life for his country, never to return to his peacetime trade.

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