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Two Tragic Veteran Deaths of 1924
Posted By Norman Gasbarro on April 27, 2016
Many veterans died tragic deaths. These two men, having lived nearly 60 years after the close of the Civil War, died in 1924, one as a result of an accident and one as a result of suicide.
From the Harrisburg Evening News, 20 May 1924:
Gas from an open house to which he had gone for the purpose of preparing it for occupancy, caused the death of James M. Gibson, of Sunbury, a Civil War veteran.
From the Harrisburg Evening News, 22 March 1924:
INVALID, CIVIL WAR VETERAN, KILLS HIMSELF
LEWISTOWN, 22 March 1924 — James Maden, 82 year-old veteran of the Civil War, an invalid for years, committed suicide late last night at his home here.
Maden guided his wheel chair to a bureau where he kept an old revolver, a relic he had picked up during the war. His daughter, Mrs. Beattie Chesney, saw him get out the revolver and she ran screaming to the street. As neighbors came rushing in response to her calls, the old man fire. The shot caused instant death.
He had been suffering from melancholia for months because of rapidly failing health. Maden lost a leg during the Gettysburg battle.
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News clippings from Newspapers.com.
We now call it PTSD. I have been thinking on this subject a lot. We found out recently through ancestry.com that our great great grandfather Amos Echoff (Amos Ecoff on roll) was in the vaunted 162nd regiment PA 17th cavalry company L from 1862 through the end of the war and fighting in many of the major battles. I can only begin to imagine the horror he was witness to. He survived all of that to be thrown from his carriage in 1891 April 21 and hit his head on a rock and killed. My brother has located his grave and we are in the process of having his headstone placed upright and the area cleaned up.