Gettysburg Presentation Cane / Sold

Gettysburg Presentation Cane - inventory Number: GET 222 / Sold

Inscription reads, "From Gen'l Suman to Capt John Lepell, Bloody Angle Gettysburg."

Sterling silver handle with raised foliate designs.  Top of the handle is engrave in script lettering.  Overall length 38 3/8".  

Isaac Suman Served in the Mexican-American war as a teenager, son of a Revolutionary War veteran who at one-time owned slaves, something Isaac reportedly detested.  He enlisted in the 9th Indiana as a Captain in 1861, Making Colonel in 1863.  Suman led his regimental company during the 1862 Battle of Stones River in an area that would later be dubbed “Hell’s Half Acre because of so many casualties.  During the fighting near Murfreesboro, Tenn., a bullet passed through his body.  Near the war’s end, President Abraham Lincoln offered to promote Suman to the Rank of Brigadier General. 

•  Burial: AFT 09 MAR 1897 Kimball Cemetery, Liberty Township, Porter County, Indiana 

•  Note: Berzilla Horner's tombstone located in Kimball Cemetery in Liberty Township, Porter Co., Indiana, indicates that he served in Company C of the 7th Indiana Cavalry. No date of birth or death is provided on the tombstone. 33 

•  Event: Letter 09 OCT 1900 Valparaiso, Porter county, Indiana 

In a Special Examination letter prepared Margaret J. (Coulter) Horner regarding the Civil War pension claim of Berzillia Horner dated October 9, 1900, Margaret writes the following:

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DEPOSITION A          

Case of Maggie J. Horner, No. 656,397         

On this 9 day of Oct., 1900, at Valparaiso, county of Porter State of Ind., before me, J. H. Barnard, a special examiner of the Bureau of Pensions, personally appeared Maggie J. Horner, who being by me first duly sworn to answer truly all interrogatories propounded to her during this special examination of aforesaid claim for pension, deposes and says:          

I am 49 years of age; my post-office address is 109 E. Main St., Valparaiso, Porter Co. Ind., occupation, general work.  

I am the widow of Berzillia Horner who served in Co. "A" 7th Ind. Vol. Cav. and Co. "I" 20th Ind. Vol. Inf. in the late war of the rebellion. I do not remember the dates of his enlistment and discharge. He never served in the army or navy of the United States except in the above mentioned organizations.

He died about a mile north of the city of Valparaiso, Ind., March 9, 1897. The cause of his death was hemorrhage of the lungs.      

I married to the said Berzillia Horner at Valparaiso, Porter Co., Ind. March 24, 1892, by Rev. J. H. O. Smith. My maiden name was Maggie J. Coulter, but in my marriage certificate the middle initial 'J' was left out. Our said marriage was recorded at the Court House in Valparaiso, Ind. 

Neither myself nor Berzillia Horner had ever been married prior to our marriage to each other. We lived together was husband and wife continuously from the date of our marriage until he died. I have not re-married since his death.         

Berzillia Horner left no children or children surviving him who were under 16 years of age on the date of his death. We never had any children.    

My late husband Berzillia Horner came to near Valparaiso, Ind., when he was a child, and lived here up to the time of his enlistment. His occupation was mostly farming, but was might be called a common laborer. George Culp of Valparaiso, Ind., Purnett Bronson and his wife Elizabeth Bronson of the same place, were well acquainted with him and knew the condition of his health before he enlisted. I have always understood that he was healthy until he went in the army. There is no physician living who would know his physical condition then. I do not remember having hearing him say anything in particular about his medical examination at the time he enlisted.   

As to which I have heard my late husband say about any injury he incurred or disease he contracted in the army, I have heard him relate the circumstances under which his right hand and arm were crushed, by his horse stumbling and falling with him. I also heard him speak about having the measles in the army, near White Station, Tenn. I do not remember when that was. I also heard him say he had the mumps and chronic diarrhea. I do not remember his speaking of any other disease or disability he had in the army.

When dicharged he came right back to reside in the same neighborhood near Valparaiso, Ind., where he was living when he enlisted, and lived near this city and some of the time in the city up to the time of our marriage. After our marriage we always lived within about four miles of this city until he died. His occupation after his discharge was that of a common laborer but he worked in a livery barn about 14 years in the first part of the time after his return from the army. He did a good deal of hunting and trapping. I do not know of his being injured or contracting any disease after his discharge from the army.

I did not know Berzillia Horner personally until about 2 1/2 years before we were married in 1892.

Well when I first became acquainted with him, his health was poor. He complained of his injured hand and arm. He also complained of weak lungs and I noticed that he coughed and would get hoarse particularly in bad weather and when he took cold. He had coughing spells when he died [---?---] take cold. His cough was not a hacking, but he expectorated a yellowish consumption. He complained also of catarrh in his head and said he could not smell anything. He also complained of severe pain mostly in his injured arm, but sometimes it would go all over him. The Dr. called it rheumetism. He complained of indigestion and his food sometimes laid heavy on his stomach.     

Question [J. H. Barnard, special examiner]: Describe as fully as you can your husbands physical condition at the time you married him, and give me a full history of his case up to the time of his death.

Answer [Maggie J. Horner]: Well I found his lungs weak - did not complain of this paining him, but just that they were weak. When he got up in the morning he had his regular coughing spells and coughed so hard he expectorated yellow matter. There was no blood in it there. His bronchial tubes seems to be affected and his head got stuffed up at times. He was not emaciated but seemed to bloat about all over but particularly his right hand. His right hand and arm were very painful but the injury was healed so that there was no sore there. He just complained of them being painful and weak. He was also complaining of rheumatism, which seemed to be located all over his right side, but worse in his hand and arm. Sometimes it got all over him and he would be bed fast on account of it and heart trouble which seemed to be sympathetic. He got short of breath and had suffocating spells, and his blood seemed to rush to his head and he would get as fark in the face and he would get kind of blind and have to sit down . He sometimes suffered with his kidneys quite a good deal, and he sometimes complained of pain in the lower part of his back. Sometimes the flow of urine was a great deal and at other times it was so little. At some times it was of a dark red or bicky color, and a bricky sediment in the bottom of the vessel he used. Did not often speak of it. He occasionally had an attach of diarrhea, but it was only occasionally and not very severe. His hand and arm, rheumatic tremble and cough were the main things he complained of. This is as well as I can describe his condition at the time I became his wife. As to a history of his care after that up to the time of his death, he would have a spell of feeling quite well for a week or two and sometimes 2 or 3 weeks. Then he would sometimes have an attack of kidney trouble and at other times of rheumatism, but his rheumatism in his right hand and arm trembled him about all the time. He was at no times free from his cough so but that he coughed more or less every day. He did not have a coughing spell every morning, but a good deal of the time he did. He generally expectorated that yellow matter, but sometimes he would cough [---?---] hard but could not raise it. In June of July 1893 he was bed fast with rheumatism all over him two weeks. It seemed to affect both his joints and muscles. During these two weeks he suffered from sympathetic heart tremble. His heart palpitated so, and [---?---] so many beats. All I can say further by way of giving a history of his condition, is that it seemed to be just the same thing I have described, over and over. In the fall of 1895, he had a sudden attack of rheumatism which was so bad and went to his heart so I thought he would not live till the Dr. got there. I think that attack lasted as much as three weeks before he got so he could ride to the Dr. to get his medicine. During this attack his heart tremble was very bad, but the other trembles I have mentioned did not seem to be any worse than they had been.

After that attack he had these spells of his blood rush in to his head very often, and he got so dark in his face. He was never able to do manual labor after I married him. All the time his tremble with his lungs kept up and he had coughing spells and expectorated that yellow stuff. After he had that severe attack of rheumatism in 1895, he did not seem to have any use of his right lung. I would put my ear close to that lung, but could not detect any breathing there. He did not complain of much pain in it, but did in his right arm.

As to the way he was taken down with his last sickness, at first he complained of the rheumatism - such pains all over him. On Nov. 7, 1896 he was taken down bed fast with pneumonia. The weather was cold and [---?---] and we moved with the house where he died. He had taken some cold and about 11 o'clock of the night after we moved he was taken with his lungs filling up and he was short of breath. He was bed fast until about Christmas when he got so he could get up and around the home but he never left the house. He coughed a great deal and spit blood, which he was bed fast, and it seemed as though his whole right side was weakened. He also had those suffocating spells from his heart tremble. Well after he got so he could get around the house, he suffered very much with his right hand and arm and heart tremble and coughed a good deal and spit blood at times. The ciculation in his right hand and arm and all his right side seemed to stop, and we had to rub him to get up circulation. He [---?---] along in about that way until the morning of Jany 9, 1897, of a sudden the blood just rushed out of his mouth just like one vomiting, and the [---?---] and bled all of these quarts. The Dr. said it was from the breaking of a blood vessel in the lower part of his left lung. After that as the blood vessel healed, he improved a very little. He got so he could get up just a little. In bed he had to be propped up a good deal to breath. He in about that condition until Feby 9, 1897. When about 7 o'clock p.m. he had another hemorrhage, the blood gushing out the same as it did before and bleeding more if anything then he did the other time. The Dr. claimed that the tissues of the blood vessels would not heal so but that the pressure of the blood was so great they would burst. After that he sat up a little in bed but that was all. He got weaker and weaker and I had to rub him to keep up circulation; no change only growing weaker until the day he died he was taken with another coughing and bleeding spell, and said to me it is all over now, and bled to death in my arms. The blood this last time was so dark it was almost black.           

All the physicians who treated him [---?---] his discharge to 1880, are dead. Since then Dr. John H. Ryan Dr. A. P. Leatherman Dr. A. W. Vincent, all of Valparaiso, Ind. have treated him. Dr. Ryan was his attending physician in his last illness. As to who can testify as to his condition after his discharge besides the physicians, I refer you to Edward Gilson and Jacob Alyea both of Hebron, Ind. Geo. Bundy of Valparaiso, John Lepell, Geo. Culp, James Bell all of Valparaiso, Ind. James Bell was sent by the G. A. R. to assist in taking care of him in his last sickness. Hiram Miller of Valparaiso also helped take care of him in his last sickness.

Question [J. H. Barnard, special examiner]: Do you desire to be present in person or to be represented by an attorney, or both during the further special examination of your claim for pension either here or elsewhere?

Inventory Number: GET 222 / Sold