Old report of the St. Albans Raid and the Picture in Question

[L Verge]

(05-28-2017 02:05 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-28-2017 11:59 AM)L Verge Wrote:  I feel a letter to the Kentucky State Archives and/or Historian coming on...

This could be a problem. On May 17 John posted the following:

"Someone in Kentucky verified - for me - that there was a session where the Lady was honored for her services to the Raiders, at the time stated. I wrote again for her name. Their reply was that the Legislature met during a short recess called for this purpose and that the their activity is classified and not available for publication.

Thus a lady was honored - but WHO?"

I read that previously, but I'm hoping that a request from a museum owned by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which was chartered by The State of Maryland in 1927 (90th anniversary this year) will have more clout when written on Commission letterhead.

I will definitely stress also that our museum has a well-recognized research center. And, John, was your request made to the Kentucky State Archives? I am a persistent cuss...

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Some other sidebars on the Raid that fit into our search:

There were strong, but unsubstantiated, suspicions that Higbee, who was entrusted by the other raiders to keep charge of $75,000 of the loot, kept it for himself. Having been shot “through and through” from shoulder-to-shoulder during the raid he, too, hid out in Canada and later opened a bank in Texas.

The fact that planning for the St. Albans Raid had taken place in Canada became an embarrassment to the British government during and after the raiders’ trials.

The Canadian Parliament eventually passed laws that, had been they enacted before the Civil War, would have banned all Confederate officials and soldiers from the country.

Visit With A Raider

The St. Albans Raid received considerable international coverage during its day. Since then, there have been four noteworthy anniversary celebrations and a remarkable meeting of local residents in Montreal with Young in 1911.

Veterans' organizations had opposed a meeting in St. Albans, but when learning of Young’s presence in Montreal, the city immediately sent a delegation to greet him. Among them was U.S. Rep. Frank L. Greene, a former Messenger editor; John Branch, who remembered the raid and published a book containing all of the Messenger’s reporting on the event; and Fuller C. Smith.

“I am quite determined to come back again 50 years hence to see if the rebel sentiment is as strong as it was 50 years ago, and as it is today,” Young was quoted as saying.

Branch reported that Young had called the raid “the reckless escapade of flaming youth.” Young, he added, also “wondered that he ever undertook it.”

Young, educated in Ireland and Scotland at the end of the war, went on to become a railroad owner, bridge builder, author, highly popular lecturer, collector of Native American artifacts, and founding member of the Filson Club Historical Society in his home city of Louisville, Ky. It was said that he rarely spoke about the St. Albans Raid. He died as a respected citizen of Louisville in 1919 and was buried with the epitaph: “I have kept the faith.” Sounds like Young was a Raider who remained popular in Kentucky, despite a claim that Kentucky was pro-Union.

In 1964, Young’s daughter, Elisa, was in St. Albans for the ceremonial unveiling of a commemorative plaque located in Taylor Park. It remains today, situated near the center of the momentous events of that day in October 1864, and still names the St. Albans Raid as the northernmost action of the American Civil War.