We hesitate to include this as fact because it seems so incredible and no corroborating evidence exists. Still, the story was reported in the Harrisburg Telegraph and from there found its way into Frank Moore’s remarkable collection of stories and songs connected with the Civil War.

William Henry Fon Rodd was a German living in the little town of Butztown, Pennsylvania. He lost nine sons in the war: eight were killed in battle, and the ninth died of starvation at the Confederate prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. The tenth and youngest son in the family was John Fon Rodd, who was also in the Confederate prison, and he was released at the war’s end.