A Plea for the Drowned Soldiers
A survivor of a tragic drowning incident at Fort Townsend writes to defend the character of his fallen comrades against charges of intoxication.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
To the Editor: In an article in your paper of the 15th inst., under the heading 'Drunk and Drowned,' you do a grave injustice to four of my dead comrades. I wish you to state that none of them were drunk or intoxicated. They struggled hard to save each other, each one of them, regardless of his own life, and to say they were drunk wrongs the dead and gives pain to the living. Signed, Michael Keating, Company F, Fourteenth Infantry, the only survivor.
“They struggled hard to save each other, each one of them, regardless of his own life, and to say they were drunk wrongs the dead and gives pain to the living.”
Letters to the editor have served as the original social media, allowing marginalized or misrepresented individuals to reclaim the narrative from the press's sensationalism. This reflects the tension between official military reporting and the personal reality of enlisted soldiers.
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