U.S. Army officer Elmer E. Ellsworth is virtually unknown nowadays, but he was very well known during the 1860s.
Why?
Because he was killed in May of 1861 while trying to confiscate a Confederate flag. This made him the very first Union officer to die in the Civil War.
Here’s how the New York Times concluded Ellsworth’s obituary:
He has been assassinated! His murder was fearfully and speedily revenged. He has lived a brief but an eventful, a public and an honorable life. His memory will be revered, his name respected, and long after the rebellion shall have become a matter of history, his death will be regarded as a martyrdom, and his name will be enrolled upon the list of our country’s patriots.
Ellsworth’s death was the first conspicuous casualty of the War, and it inspired thousands of men to enlist.
It also inspired thousands (yes, literally thousands) of Union-supporting families to name their newborns “Elmer Ellsworth.”
(This is one of those names that makes me wish the SSA data went back further than 1880. I would have loved to see the spike in Elmers in 1861-1862.)
Some of Elmer’s more famous namesakes include…
- baseball players Elmer Ellsworth Foster (b. 1861), Elmer Ellsworth Cleveland (b. 1862), Elmer Ellsworth “Sy” Sutcliffe (b. 1862), and Elmer Ellsworth “Mike” Smith (b. 1868),
- football player Elmer Ellsworth Beach (b. 1861),
- artist Elmer Ellsworth Garnsey (b. 1862),
- bishop Franklin Elmer Ellsworth Hamilton (b. 1866),
- politicians Elmer Ellsworth Adams (b. 1861), Elmer Ellsworth Warner (b. 1861), and Elmer Ellsworth Ferry (b. 1861), and
- U.S. Commissioner of Education Elmer Ellsworth Brown (b. 1861).
And less-famous namesakes include…
- Elmer Ellsworth Abbott (b. 1862, Ohio)
- Elmer Ellsworth Baker (b. 1862, Vermont)
- Elmer Ellsworth Cram (b. 1862, Minnesota)
- Elmer Ellsworth Haggett (b. 1861, Maine)
- Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Heg (b. 1861 in Wisconsin)
- Elmer Ellsworth Hoxie (b. 1861 in New York)
- Elmer Ellsworth Kuhn (b. 1861, Pennsylvania)
- Elmer Ellsworth Piper (b. 1862, Maryland)
- Elmer Ellsworth Sherman (b. 1861, Iowa) – nephew of Gen. William T. Sherman
- Elmer Ellsworth Talbott (b. 1861, Indiana)
- Elmer Ellsworth Taylor (b. 1861, Iowa)
Others got the names out of order (e.g., Ellsworth Elmer Lesher), and those already in Ellsworth families simply got some version of “Elmer E.” (e.g., Elmer Everett Ellsworth).
The massive number of Elmer Ellsworths born in the early 1860s was even referenced in this anecdote by newspaperman Fred C. Kelly eighty years later:
[A] friend of mine, named Osborn, doesn’t profess to be gifted in second sight, but he once mystified a stranger by telling him that he — the stranger — was born in April, May, or June, 1861; moreover, that he was born in a Union state, and that his father was an enthusiastic Northern sympathizer during the Civil War. He knew all this just by noting that the man’s first two initials were “E.E.” The whole thing was a matter of simple deduction. The man appeared to be the age of one born during the Civil War. Osborn happened to know that one of the great Northern heroes of the Civil War was one Elmer Ellsworth, the first man killed on the Union side. Thousands of babies born during the two or three months following Ellsworth’s death were named “Elmer Ellsworth.” Knowing these facts, the “E.E.” in the man’s name meant much.
Do you have anyone in your family tree named Elmer Ellsworth?
Sources:
- Elmer E. Ellsworth – Wikipedia
- Kelly, Fred C. “Do We Like to Be Fooled?” Cosmopolitan March 1921: 65-67, 149-152.
- “Obituary; Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth.” New York Times 25 May 1861.
P.S. Did you know that today, April 12th, is the anniversary of the start of the Civil War? It’s also is the anniversary of the first manned space flight. These events occurred exactly 100 years apart, weirdly.