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Historian writes book on Gettysburg commander

Photo by Jess Mancini Local author and historian Brian Kesterson with several artifacts about Capt. Bennett Munger.

PARKERSBURG — A local Civil War historian who has been fascinated since childhood by the commander of a New York infantry unit at Gettysburg has written a book about him.

Brian Kesterson was 11-years old when his parents took him and his brother to Gettysburg where he was drawn to the monument in honor of the 44th New York Infantry on Little Round Top. Inside in the Hallway of Honor was a list of the soldiers and its commanding officer, Capt. Bennett Munger.

“I don’t know what it was, but that name stuck with me for years and years,” said Kesterson, a Parkersburg High School history teacher and Civil War re-enactor who has been recognized for his writings about the war.

Kesterson makes a pilgrimage to Gettysburg nearly every year, every time going to the 44th New York monument from where much of the battlefield where 10s of thousands Union and Confederate troops died can be seen. Bennett was wounded at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

“I must have been there more than 30 times, each time going to the monument, reading the names and being drawn to Capt. Munger,” he said.

Capt. Bennett Munger

A series of coincidences and unexplained urgings led to the creation of the book, “Soldier of Courage, Soldier of Compassion,” Kesterson said.

In 2009, John Haddox of St. Marys, commander of the Kanawha Light Artillery Confederate re-enactment unit told him of a man in Marietta who cleaned out the attic of a business and discovered letters and diaries written from Civil War Soldiers. Kesterson purchased the documents.

“I didn’t pay much attention to who wrote them,” Kesterson said. “I took them home and was looking through them and came upon a unit from New York.”

Further investigation found references to Munger.

“I was thunderstruck,” he said.

Things started to come together, Kesterson said. A week before the discovery, the History Channel had a program about the Elmira Prison in New York for confederate soldiers, he said. On average more men died at Elmira than at Andersonville, Kesterson said.

“They called it Hell-mira,” Kesterson said. “More people died there than at Andersonville.”

After Gettysburg, Munger was assigned as chief of prisoners at Elmira Prison,.

Kesterson began his research for a book.

The 44th New York was nicknamed Ellsworth’s Avengers after the death of Elmer Ellsworth, the first Civil War officer killed in the war while attempting to remove a Confederate flag from a building in sight of the White House and President Abraham Lincoln.

Ellsworth and Lincoln were close personal friends, Kesterson said.

“His death was deeply felt by Lincoln,” Kesterson said.

Company C joined the regiment the day after the battle at Antietam and the regiment was eventually absorbed by the 140th New York in late 1864.

In 2011 Kesterson and his girlfriend were at a Civil War show where he kept passing man that intuition told him he needed to meet. He didn’t speak to the man until just before leaving the show.

“Something kept telling me to go talk to this man,” Kesterson said.

“I went up to him and introduced myself and told him I was researching a book about the 44th New York and his face and eyes took on this blank, far off look and he says ‘Capt. Bennett Munger.'”

The man, Bill Acree of Pigeon Forge, Tenn., said he had a photo of Munger and his sword.

In 2016, Kesterson completed the research and finished the book. Kesterson was getting ready to send it to the publisher, but out of the blue decides to check his email.

It was a good thing he did. He received a message from Shelly Case in Pennsylvania who said she was Munger’s great-great-granddaughter and had his personal diaries and letters.

She mailed him the originals and he copied the materials. The documents were later donated by Case to the New York State Military Archives.

The book had to be rewritten to reflect the latest first-hand information from Munger, Kesterson said.

“The whole book has come full-circle,” Kesterson said. “It seems like it was almost planned to be that way, like there was a greater power to get this story told.”

The book will be published in about a month by the Lulu Press, Kesterson said. It will be available on amazon.com and locally at J&M Bookstore, he said.

Kesterson has written six books, five of which have been about the Civil War including a book about the West Virginia National Guard in Arcadia’s Images of America Series, with his latest book about Stovepipe Johnson’s retreat through West Virginia after the Battle of Buffington Island on July 19, 1863. Kesterson said the book about Munger is his first about the Union side of the war.

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