William Henry Bush : The Civil War's Youngest Person in Uniform?

Last Oct. 20 I gave a presentation to the Washington State Historical Society on the life of Indiana-born Willie Bush, who is possibly the youngest person to wear a military uniform during the Civil War. Born in 1857, he served as a valet for his father, who was a guard at the CSA POW camp in Elmira, NY, also known as "Hellmira" by the unfortunate prisoners. Prior to that his father had served with distinction in many battles.

To make a long story short, Willie's journey led him to be part of the pioneer life out here in Oregon and SW Washington. He was a very active participant of building the Montesano, Washington community, including serving as Mayor. He became one of my heroes when I researched how, in his role as county Sheriff, he courageously defused the violent 1887 Grays Harbor Fishermen's War without firing a single shot.

I'm submitting my findings for publication, but in the meantime I prepared a handout for those folks who attended my presentation. I intended to produce just a one-sheet flier to accompany my talk, but I got carried away and it is 20 leaves with photos. PowerPoint turns me off. I want my audience to leave with something they can read later. I'm better at writing than speaking anyway.

Those of you who are Morty the Blog Patrons will be getting a copy of the handout. I know, it isn't comix, but this is where my creative energy went the last few months. I only printed 50 copies, and most of them are gone. But the Patrons can have this physical manifestation of my interests outside of comix.

This was a very wonderful and life-affirming project. Not only in admiring some of the choices made by my subject, but also with all the people I met in person or online who helped me along the way in gathering data.

The above image is courtesy of Mark Weldon.