Friday, December 11, 2009

The Mysterious Early Years: What exactly was William James POORMAN doing during the War?

The facts about William James Purman's childhood are lost in the haze of history. He is listed as born on April 11, 1840, the son John Poorman, from Chester County, “an eminent and useful” Methodist minister (but listed in the 1850 census as a cabinetmaker), and Sarah Harter, daughter of a prosperous carriage and wagon maker. Purman’s birthplace is listed as his mother’s home town, Millheim, Pennsylvania, and he attended school at adjacent Aaronsburg [according to Wikipedia, Aaronsburg is significant in American Jewish history as the first town in Pennsylvania, and probably the U.S, "laid out and named after a Jew", i.e., Aaron Levy."] These villages are found in Pennsylvania's appropriately named Centre County. In the 1850 census, the Poorman family was listed as living in Haines Township, just to the east of Milheim (and including teh village of Aaronsburg). The Poorman family, however, must have moved at some point during William's youth, because Purman has also been described as the boyhood friend and neighbor of Charles M. Hamilton, whose family had lived for generations in the Jersey Shore – Avis area, more than thirty miles from Milheim, across the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Without this geographic propinquity, there is no explanation for the close bond between Charles Hamilton and William Purman, which pre-dated their army service. As Hamilton wrote in 1866, they had been "inseperably associated for the greater part of" their lives.

According to the earliest biographical sketches, Purman, “when quite young was successful as a school-teacher” but he soon commenced the study of law and completed his studies, but did not “enter actively upon the practice of law.” Another account states that he read law in Lock Haven, but he never claimed to have been admitted to the bar. Whatever his actual acadmic achievements, his writing, grammar and spelling indicate a high level learning.

The war began in the spring of 1861 and the haze surrounding the facts of Purman’s background then thickened. It is certain that about this time he changed his last name from Poorman to the more refined sounding Purman. One critical account accused him of choosing a more "aristocratic" name.

The Hamilton brothers enlisted almost immediately after Fort Sumter, entering the “Jersey Shore Rifles” [Co. A of the 5th PA Reserve Infantry] that fought through all the major battles of the Army of the Potomac. Charles Hamilton was wounded at Fredricksburg in Dec. 1862 where he was captured by the Confederate army. Alexander served throughout the War and youngest brother John was killed leading a unit of U.S. Colored Troops at Petersburg in the war's last week.

Despite Hamilton's statement that they had "enlisted together in 61," Purman did not join his boon-companions in the ranks as a brother-in-arms. Instead, Purman’s early biographies, most likely self-composed, state that he “entered the army of the United States as a private, and served on special duty in the War Department at Washington.” Barnes, William Horatio, Biographies of Members of the House of Representatives of the Forty-third Congress, (Nelson & Phillips, NY) 1874, 217. There is no record of a William Purman having served in the Union army. Some William Poormans from Pennsylvania are listed in the Civil War databases, but no information connecting any of them to “special duty” service at the War Department. Certainly Purman’s critics later seized on the ambiguities of his military record. Soon after Purman became prominent in post-war politics in Florida, a Democratic newspaper from Columbia, Pennsylvania, more than one hundred and thirty miles down the Susquehanna from the Jersey Shore region, launched a vicious attack against Purman's repututation. After noting the Poorman-Purman name change, the editor informed his readers that during the war, Purman “made a precarious living by peddling photographs and asafoetida in the Penna Reserves. He was too cowardly to enlist and afraid to stay at home on account of the draft.” Columbia [PA] Herald in Tallahassee Weekly Floridian, Sept. 1, 1868]. In the nineteenth century, asafoetida was used as an expectorant, but also widely prescribed for hysteria and symptoms associated with mood swings and depression, Phyllis Balch, “Understanding Herbal Healing” p. 25. I'm not sure if the accusation of being an asafoetida pusher carried some unseemly connations and what exactly is being insinuated by accusing Purman of peddling photographs.

At some point Purman did end up in Washington with some kind of position in the War Dept. Again, how he had the connections to pull this off and avoid a combat unit is inexplicable. In D.C., Purman most certainly encountered Lt. Charles Hamilton, who served out the last few years of the war on various guard duty posts around the capital as part of the Veterans Reserve Corps for disabled soldiers. Many, many years later, like thousands of others, Purman insisted that he was in the audience at Ford’s Theatre, with Hamilton, the night Booth murdered Lincoln. There is no other record of Purman – or Hamilton, making this claim.

At the end of the war, Purman, presumably, was mustered out of whatever form of the service he had entered. He immediately assented to an invitation from Charles Hamilton to join him in workinng for the Freedman's Bureau in Marianna, Florida. This might suggest that Purman was at loose ends, but Hamilton wrote that Purman had "resigned a good position in the War Department" to join him in Florida.

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