John Gregory Bourke was a captain in the United States Army and a prolific diarist and Reconstruction Era author; he wrote several books about the American Old West, including ethnologies of its indigenous peoples. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions while a cavalryman in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Based on his service during the war, his commander nominated him to West Point, where he graduated in 1869, leading to service as an Army officer until his death.
John Gregory Bourke
Portrait of Bourke that accompanied a eulogy published in American Anthropologist (July 1896)
Grave at Arlington National Cemetery
15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment
The 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, known as the Anderson Cavalry and the 160th Volunteers, was a three-year cavalry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was recruited and formed in the summer of 1862 by officers and men of the Anderson Troop, an independent company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers that had been mustered the previous November.
Private John E. Wildes of Co. B, 15th Pennsylvania, photographed by Oliver H. Willard
Union veteran Captain Wilmon Whilldin Blackmar of Co. K, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment and Co. H, 1st West Virginia Cavalry Regiment, standing next to the chair in which General Ulysses S. Grant sat during General Robert E. Lee's surrender, presented to Blackmar by his friend and comrade Major General Henry Capehart. From the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
