The Gettysburg Star (and Colonel Ira Wildman)

I found this article in the July 9, 1938 edition of the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel (published during the 75th reunion of the Blue and Gray):

I suppose it still doesn’t answer the question of whether or not the star was actually from the National flag carried at Gettysburg by the 17th Connecticut, but it still makes for an interesting story.

Also interesting? Colonel Ira Wildman was Danbury, Connecticut’s last surviving soldier from the Civil War. He had served with the 5th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, joining that regiment in 1865 as a substitute for another man and serving one year with the 5th and 7th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry. It would seem as if young Ira Wildman was in fact quite young – listing his age as 18 when in fact he was only 15 years old. After his discharge in Utah in 1866, he appears to have enlisted in the US Army for 3 years, re-enlisting in 1870 as a cavalry trooper. If in fact it is the same Ira Wildman, he  deserted his regiment, was caught and confined at Fort Douglas in Utah in 1874 before being dishonorably discharged. While Ira Wildman may not have been a colonel in the army, he was a major player in the national reconciliation between veterans North and South.

Ira Wildman made national news when he married in 1935 to a much younger woman (age 58, so not so young as others had married!), even earning a mention in the December 9th issue of Time Magazine as well as  local papers across the country. This is from “The Mansfield News-Journal,” Mansfield, Ohio, on November 29, 1935: