Amos Humiston

Who was Amos Humiston?

Amos Humiston was killed in action during the American Civil War on the Gettysburg Battlefield, dying with his children's image that his wife had mailed to him months earlier. A local girl found the image, and Dr. J. Francis Bournes saw it at her father's tavern and subsequently publicized the image: "wounded, he had laid himself down to die. In his hands … was an ambrotype containing the portraits of three small children. … [It is] desired that all papers in the country will draw attention [so] the family … may come into possession of it".

Humiston's wife in Portville, New York—who hadn't received a letter from her husband since the Battle of Gettysburg—responded to the photograph's description in the American Presbyterian of October 29. She subsequently confirmed the image after Bourns sent her a carte de visite copy of the image. Bourns took the original to her; and the image identification, as well as Bourns' project for an orphans' home at Gettysburg, were publicized.

The family subsequently resided at the "National Homestead at Gettysburg" for 3 years until the widow remarried, when they relocated to Massachusetts.