In response, the doctor rushed a carte de visite to Philinda Humiston in Portville. When the picture arrived, she stared at the three familiar faces and realized that she was now a widow, and that little Frank, Alice, and Fred were fatherless. And so Gettysburg's mysterious, unknown soldier could now be identified as Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The American Presbyterian broke the news on November 19, 1863–the same day that President Abraham Lincoln delivered his immortal address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg.

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Soon after news of Sergeant Humiston's identification passed from newspaper to newspaper across the North, it was announced that Dr. Bourns would travel to Portville to return the ambrotype to the Humiston family and to present them with the proceeds from the sale of hundreds of copies of the carte de visite.

On January 2, 1864, Bourns, accompanied by the Reverend Isaac G. Ogden of the Portville Presbyterian Church and a small group from the town, visited the Humiston home. When the doctor handed the bloodstained ambrotype to Philinda, Ogden noted, 'her hands shook like an aspen leaf, but by a strong effort she retained her composure.' After giving the children some presents and visiting with their mother for a while, the visitors knelt with the family in prayer, little Fred next to his new friend, the doctor. Before leaving, Bourns presented Philinda with the profits from the sale of copies of the picture.

The following day, at a meeting held at the Portville Presbyterian Church, Reverend Ogden and Dr. Bourns were among those who addressed a packed house. The doctor read a poem titled, 'The Unknown Soldier! Who Is He?' by William H. Hayward, the first of many versions of the story that would be told in verse. Before the meeting closed, Dr. Bourns sold additional copies of the famous photograph and presented the resulting purse to Mrs. Humiston.

The Portville events received a great deal of coverage in the press. Yet, despite all the newspaper and magazine publicity, the late Amos Humiston remained somewhat of an unknown. Reverend Ogden recorded a few biographical details–no doubt provided by Philinda Humiston–which were published in the American Presbyterian and reprinted elsewhere. A brief sketch of Amos's life, published in the New York State Bureau of Military Statistics' Annual Report, also found its way into the newspapers. But most accounts ignored Amos's earlier life, choosing instead to present him only as a corpse on the Gettysburg battlefield. In its January 2, 1864, edition, for example, the popular Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper ran a fanciful woodcut, complete with dead horses and circling vultures, which was entitled, 'The Last Thought of a Dying Father.' The brief, accompanying article described what the paper called 'one of the most touching scenes of the battlefield of Gettysburg,' but it neglected to name the devoted father, referring to him simply as 'a volunteer from New York.'

Throughout the subsequent decades, as his touching tale was told and retold, Humiston remained only a dead soldier, locked by time and rigor mortis on a Pennsylvania battlefield, an ambrotype of his children in his hand. Only in recent years have details of his life emerged. While Amos Humiston will always be remembered for the way he died, today we can also remember the life of the man who was destined to personify familial love and devotion.

Born in Owego, Tioga County, New York, on April 26, 1830, Amos spent his boyhood in that Susquehanna River town. Like his own children, he and his older brother and sisters lost their father while very young, Ambrose Humiston having died in 1837. Their mother Mary rewed, and the children grew up in the home of Philander Boice. Tragedy struck Amos again when his sister Maria drowned in a mill pond.

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