Family receives copy of Civil War medal earned by ancestor

John Ferguson Pratt is buried at Green-Wood

July 26, 2018 Associated Press

Green-Wood Cemetery. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

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NEW CITY, N.Y.— A New York family has received a Civil War medal for their ancestor who died before the military decoration was created.

State Sen. David Carlucci presented Viola Silverman with a replica of the Civil War Campaign Medal on Wednesday at his office in Rockland County.

Silverman, of nearby Sparkill, says her great-grandfather, John Ferguson Pratt, served in the New York Volunteer 39th Infantry Regiment from November 1863 to July 1865. He suffered a gunshot wound during a battle in Virginia in May 1864.

Pratt died in 1892, several years before the campaign medal was established. The medal was awarded to Union veterans who served during the war.

Pratt is buried in an unmarked grave in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Carlucci is working to get a Civil War veteran’s headstone placed at his grave.