Whose Father Was He?: Erroll Morris on The Mystery Soldier of Gettysburg

TOCWOC Reader Joe Laird send me an email last week pointing out an excellent five part series of blog entries by filmmaker Erroll Morris at his blog Zoom on the New York Times web site.  Joe’s email reads as follows:

Each day this week the New York Times ran a portion of a five-part essay by the filmmaker Erroll Morris (he directed The Thin Red Line among other works) entitled “Whose Father Was He?” (Access to the Times’s website is free although you may have to register). The essay is described as “an investigation into a photograph of three children found on the dead body of Amos Humiston, a fallen Union soldier, at Gettysburg in 1863.” I’m sure your readers are familiar with the story of Amos Humiston of the 154th NYVI and the book by Mark Dunkelman “Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier.” However, the Morris essay, which has a number of terrific illustrations, maps and photographs makes for first-rate reading and certainly brings the discussion of the Civil War, and related topics, to a tremendously wide audience (the daily comments on the essay number in the hundreds). The essay also has numerous interesting and enlightening footnotes. I highly recommend this essay to both you and your readers.

By the time I had read Joe’s email, my feed reader had also picked up the blog entries and I was eagerly reading along.  As Joe does, I HIGHLY recommend TOCWOC’s readers go check out this series.  It was a fascinating read on a well-known Gettysburg story.

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