As part of the ongoing Civil War-150 commemorative activities,  the National Park Service is sponsoring a series of collectable Civil War Trade Cards – much like those favorite collectables – baseball cards. Five of the series cards will be Lowell-related – thanks to the input of Jack Herilhy of the Lowell National Historical Park and Martha Mayo Director of the UMASS Lowell/Center for Lowell History. Here are the choices:

Benjamin Franklin Butler

               Born: November 5, 1818, Deerfield, NH

               Died: January 11, 1893, Washington, DC

 Benjamin Butler moved with his widowed mother to Lowell in 1828. He formed the Lowell City Guards and on April 17, 1861 was the first to respond to President Lincoln’s call for troops. To honor the courage of the African American soldiers during the 1864 Battle of New Market Heights, he created the Army of the James Medal inscribed “Ferro iis libertas perveniet” (Freedom will be theirs by the sword.)

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore

               Born: December 25, 1829, Ballygar, Ireland

               Died: September 24, 1892, St. Louis, Missouri

Patrick Gilmore moved to Massachusetts in 1848 and formed Gilmore’s Band. In 1858, he married Nellie J. O’Neil in Lowell. Gilmore’s Band enlisted in the Twenty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry and under Benjamin F. Butler’s command played for the troops in New Orleans. During the war, Gilmore wrote When Johnny Comes Marching Home and is often considered the “Father of the American band.”

Abba Ann Goddard

               Born: July 20, 1819, Mansfield, Connecticut

               Died: November 26, 1873, Charlestown, MA

Abba Goddard moved with her family to Lowell in 1834. She wrote for the Lowell Offering in the 1840s under the pen names A.G.A and A.A.G. In October 1861, Goddard left Portland, Maine with five other women to accompany the Tenth Maine Infantry as a nurse. “Miss Goddard will receive the blessings of our sick boys to the end of life,” stated John M. Gould, a veteran of the Tenth Maine.

Luther Ladd

               Born: December 22, 1843, Alexandria, NH    

               Died: April 19, 1861, Baltimore, Maryland

In 1861, Luther Ladd moved to Lowell, where he entered the Lowell Machine Shop and subsequently enlisted in the Lowell City Guards (Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers.) While marching through Baltimore on the way to Washington, they were attacked by southern sympathizers on April 19, 1861. Among the first to fall, Ladd exclaimed with his dying breath, “All hail to the stars and stripes.”

Lucy Larcom

               Born: March 5, 1824, Beverly, Massachusetts

               Died: April 17, 1893, Boston, Massachusetts

Lucy Larcom moved to Lowell in 1835 and worked in Lowell’s textile mills before becoming a teacher and a poet. A strong abolitionist, when war broke-out in 1861 she wrote, “It was the only time in my life that I ever thought I would rather be a man than a woman that I might go and fight and perhaps die for my country and freedom. I had to content myself with knitting army blue socks and writing verses.”