Peter and Clarinda Dumont

This week's meeting of Da Buffs, a Civil War dinner club that gets together every couple of months at the Shaker Road Loudonville Fire Department in Albany County, NY, hosted a presentation by Diana McCarthy about her ancestors Peter and Clarinda Dumont. Diana, portraying Clarinda, is at center of photo above. (A couple of Da Buffs are in Zouave uniforms, because Peter's regiment, the 146th New York Infantry, in 1863 took in those surviving members of the former 5th NY Infantry, a mustered-out Zouave regiment, who were remaining in the Army.)

Listening to a typical Civil War talk, we buffs already know the main outline of the story. But I didn't know what happened to Peter Dumont in the war years, and a lot did. He was, for example, captured at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and imprisoned at Libby Prison in Richmond. Sent back for exchange, he was then, as I discovered from Diana's talk based on Peter's letters, held in Maryland under the disgraceful terms and conditions imposed by War Department-operated "parole camps" which confined Union soldiers who were waiting for exchange.

It was a moving and informative presentation. Diana McCarthy can be contacted at civilwar@dynasysweb.com.