Subject: James Gillespie (or Gellispie)
Unit: Company B, “Factoryville Infantry”, 12th Pennsylvania Reserves
Out of the Wet.
James Gellispie1 of this place who is the tallest boy in Co. B of the 12th Pa. Reserves, returned from the army on furlough a few days since in good health and fine spirits – having re-enlisted for another term of three years. “Jim” likes soldiering amazingly, and thinks that to return to civil life, he would be no better than a “fish out of war.” Since his return he went on a visit to some friends in Bradford County, shortly after which it was confidently asserted, and quite generally believed that he was drowned near Skinner’s Eddy, while passing down the river in a boat with two companions. The circumstances of the drowning were given with much minuteness by the two men who were said to have been rescued from the same fate, while clinging to the boat which was capsized. Whatever foundation there may have been for this story, we are authorized by “Jim,” himself, to contradict it most emphatically, so far as he is concerned. He hasn’t the slightest notion of deserting his brave companions on the banks of the Potomac, and taking up quarters with eels, in the mud of the Susquehanna. – Vivela Gillespia.2
