(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
label levels:
Although the Civil War had ended over thirty years before, it loomed large in the imagination of these boys photographed acting out their idea of Union solders in battle. Civil War veterans commonly visited schools in this period to tell their experiences to a younger generation, much as the veterans of later wars did and still do today. Thomas Ashley of Deerfield holds the flag. He was a soldier in World War I, and was killed at Chateau-Thierry in 1918 at the age of 27.