Thank your your comments. I do not wish to impugn the character of anyone who is honorable. I appreciate that you are "standing up" for Hilary Hebert, as his being one of those. I do not know much about him, but I will now endeavor to learn more.
I have read, as have you, for many years, volumes upon volumes about the Civil War and the people who were in it. Not the least of these is the record that Hebert wrote after the war. I cannot recall a tenth of what I once could easily recall, due mainly to age, but also due that unwelcome phenomenon made memorable by the expression of an old sage "much learning hath made thee mad".
I can remember only that Josiah Spikes was mentioned by Hebert as AWOL on those two particular occasions. I do know what "Absent Without Leave" means.
Record-keeping, especially in times of war, is hectic, abbreviated and arbitrary at best. There is another kind of memory besides record-keeping. Your kinsman and mine knew, and were known, by Hebert, during the war. They talked with each other. He certainly had to know that Josiah had been exchanged and returned to the regiment, after he was captured and made a POW at Gettysburg, but Hebert did not mention that. He saw Josiah at the Battle of the Wilderness, in which both were wounded, yet he does not mention that either. He had to know that many of the wounded were transported to Danville.
I am replying to you only because your note bespeaks a man of some idealism, who deserves a gentlemanly response. I would like to think that I belong in that category. I have come by a few genuine artifacts and letters from soldiers on both sides. I do not sell them. I think that the original owners would want their descendants to have them. Consequently, whenever I can trace a direct descendant who appreciates and wants the souvenir, I give it to them. I do not give things to museums, for they often put them in a closet and forget them.
I would like to relate to you a personal experience that you may like to hear, in the realm of conflicting accounts.
I once read, in a cheap older book, in a nondescript antique shop in Navasota, Texas, that Pat Cleburne's mother had moved to Navasota after the war. A passage by the author read that she donated his saddle to Strecker Museum in Waco, and his sword and pistol to two of his ex-soldiers who lived in that area. I couldn't afford to buy the book, but I remembered that passage.
Years later, when my daughters were attending Baylor University, I stopped by Strecker and asked to see the saddle. The curator and his assistant told me that they did not know of any such thing, and that I must be mistaken. I asked them to humor me, and asked them if I could speak with the oldest employee of the museum.
He went away, and came back with a sweet lady who had worked there for 50 years. When I told her that I wanted to see Pat Cleburne's saddle, she exclaimed "Why no one has ever asked to see that saddle! You are the first!" The director asked her whether or not she knew where it was. She relied, "Sure, I know right where it is! I put it there myself, many years ago! It's in the basement." She left, and returned with the saddle on a gurney-like table with wheels. She said that it was reported to be the saddle he was using when he was killed at the Battle of Franklin.
Since then, an author of Cleburne's biography told me that the story of Mr's Cleburne arrival in Navasota could not be true. He said that Cleburne's mother had never left Ireland. I told him that I had seen the saddle in the museum, and he said that he had seen it there, too. The conversation was interrupted, and was never finished.
I returned to Navasota later, and tried to find her grave. Two long-time residents told me that they remembered a story that she had moved there, and had died there. Neither had ever seen it, but they recalled that her grave used to draw lots of visitors. They did not know which cemetery she was in. County records show her death, but not the location of a grave.
Now, knowing all that, who should I believe...the cheap book, the lady at the museum, the saddle itself, the author of cleburne's biography, the elderly residents of Navasota, or the county records.........?
By the way, what was the name of your ancestor who was in the 8th??