"The Times Leader"
Sunday, December 2, 1984.


120 YEAR OLD MEDAL IS FINALLY PRESENTED

     COLERAIN  (Ohio) - A Civil War medal awarded to David Myers by the 
state of West Virginia nearly 120 years ago finally was presented to his 
great-grandnephew, James Myers, of Colerain, by West Virginia Governor 
John Rockefeller in a Veterans Day ceremony last month at the state 
capitol in Charleston.
     In 1865, when the Civil War ended, the new state of West Virginia 
awarded medals to all its men who had served in the war, but some 5,000 
of the medals went unclaimed and remained forgotten in storage in a 
government building.
     Earlier this year when the medals were found, state officials began 
a search for descendants of the men who were to have received them.
     Myers learned of the discovery and contacted West Virginia state 
officials, documenting his great-granduncle's service with the 17th West 
Virginia Volunteer Infantry.  He was invited, along with other 
descendants of Civil War veterans, to Charleston to receive his great-
granduncle's medal in the governor's mansion on Veteran's Day and to 
attend a reception following.
     David Myers was one of four brothers who followed their father, 
John Myers, into the Union Army during the Civil War.
     John, a carpenter by trade, was 42 years of age when he enlisted in 
the 7th West Virginia Infantry, and in order, the four sons, Joseph, 
Martin Smith, Emery and David entered the Union Army.
     The father died during the battle of Fredricksburg, Va., in 
December of 1862, not in combat but from a typhoid fever epidemic.  Of 
the 600,000 casualties North and South in the four years of the Civil 
War, 400,000 died from diseases, twice as many as from wounds.
     Joseph, the first son, died from lung fever in 1863 while his unit 
was fighting around Winchester.
     Second son Martin Smith Myers rose from private to second 
lieutenant and was listed as a sharpshooter.  He survived the war and 
lived out the remainder of his life in Martins Ferry.
     Emery, the third son to enlist, was only 16 years old, and lied 
about his age to get into the 7th WVI.  He fought in the Wilderness when 
General U. S. Grant started in May of 1864 the long and bloody campaign 
which ended with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox 
Court House in April of 1865.
     David became of age in the final year of the war and promptly 
enlisted in the 17th West Virginia, the fifth in his immediate family to 
wear the Union blue.
     He was stationed at Harper's Ferry and had left there on a forced 
march to Bulltown, WV, to meet a Confederate thrust in which he was 
captured and taken to Libby Prison in Richmond.  Released from Libby 
when Lee surrendered, David had to walk most of the way back home, 
during which he suffered exposure.
     He died in 1887 at the age of 41, and his widow, who had eight 
children, was awarded a pension of $8 a month.
     The state medals were struck in 1867, two years after the war, and 
by that time many of the West Virginians who had fought for the Union 
had scattered, and the state was unable to contact all of them because 
of lack of addresses.  The remoteness of the Myers' log home on Birch 
Ridge in Marshall County may have been why David was never notified of 
his medal.
     When David died, his younger brother Ephraim Myers, himself twice-
widowed by that time, married David's wife, Adeline McIntire, and had 
four children, among them James' grandfather.
     The Myers family moved to Martins Ferry in 1891, and their 
descendants have resided in the Martins Ferry area since that time.  
Mrs. Ann Wilkins, 83, a granddaughter of David, still lives in Martins 
ferry and has been a great help to Jim in his research into the family's 
history.
     The four Myers brothers who served in the Civil War also had two 
cousins who had lived next door to them before they also entered the 
service.  One of the cousins, John Myers, was killed at the battle of 
Cold Harbor near Richmond during Grant's drive, and was among the first 
soldiers to be buried in Arlington Cemetery.  Before the Civil War the 
property belonged to Lee and his wife, who was a descendant of George 
Washington.
     The other cousin, Madison Myers, was captured by Mosby's Raiders on 
Allegheny Mountain.  He befriended his captors who relaxed their 
vigilance and he was able to sneak past his sleeping guards to rejoin 
his unit by the next morning.
     James, who is one of the charter members of the Ohio Valley Civil 
War Roundtable, said that he enquired concerning medals for his great-
great-grandfather John and the other three sons who fought for the 
Union, but the state has no records of those four, only of David, 
although there are medals for the two cousins.