During the course of my research on the Scott brothers for the Broken Union articles, I discovered a Find A Grave memorial for William Thomas Scott that had a great deal of information. Actually, I discovered two memorials. The first had all the family information about William and Elmina, their children, and how William “died in battle” and was “probably buried in an unmarked grave on the battlefield.” Folks always want to assign glory to their ancestors, don’t they? We now know William died from typhoid fever and never partook in battle.

The second memorial was for “W. F. Scott” who died at Charlottesville General Hospital and was buried in the Confederate Cemetery at the University of Virginia. It had no personal information at all.

A curious thing happened to these online memorials as a result of my research.

The second memorial had no photographs, so I requested one, figuring the Confederate Cemetery had grave markers. I later learned it does not. The cemetery is marked by a statue of a Confederate soldier. Affixed around the base of the statue are plaques displaying by state the names and units of the fallen. Someone filled my photo request by posting a picture of one of the plaques. The only problem was she posted the wrong plaque honoring a Graham from a different unit and a different state. I wrote to the memorial owner to get the picture corrected and instead he transferred ownership of the memorial to me.

Well, I thought, now I am the manager of one of the sources I cited in my article. That’s kind of odd. Might as well use it to correct the record.

I wrote to the person that submitted the wrong photograph and she submitted the correct one. I edited “Broken Unions, Part Two” into a short biography of William Scott and added it to the memorial alongside an image from Fold3 showing William’s cause and date of death. I wrote to Find A Grave requesting that the two memorials for William Scott be merged. The one that I owned had been created first, and under Find A Grave’s rules, the newer memorial would be merged into the older memorial. The sole memorial for William Thomas Scott is now managed by Graham Ancestry.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. – Abraham Lincoln

Errata

I’ve made a couple of additions to “Broken Unions, Part Two.” Additional research has revealed that William was posthumously promoted to corporal, and that Elmina’s brother John Little also served in Company I, and also died from typhoid fever.

Bibliography

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 17 June 2020), memorial page for CPL William Thomas Scott (1834–25 Jul 1862), Find a Grave Memorial no. 11395656, citing University of Virginia Confederate Cemetery, Charlottesville, Charlottesville City, Virginia, USA ; Maintained by Byron Graham (contributor 47256828).

Wikipedia contributors. (2020, June 17). Gettysburg Address. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:42, June 17, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gettysburg_Address&oldid=963057150