For Bud Brown of Port Charlotte, Fla. Wednesday, July 21st is the special day. That’s the day in 1861 when his great-uncle got his head blown off by a Confederate 12-pound cannonball during the first day of the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas) in Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C.
Frank Hochstetter’s grandfather shook Abraham Lincoln’s hand after the 1863 draft riots in New York City.
When Charles Bright, a 90-year-old Port Charlotte, Fla. World War II veteran was a child, his great-aunt gave him a “Valor Certificate” written, signed and presented to Capt. Herbert Thomas, his great-grandfather, by his battalion commander, Col. Jacob G. Frick after the Civil War.
