About

My name is Carol Swaine-Kuzel and I am the second great grand-niece of a Twentieth Massachusetts soldier, Private Oliver Stanton Bates of Company A.

I began this blog site on the one-hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff to honor the extraordinary military service of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment and to honor the service of my ancestor. The blog will follow the progress of the Twentieth Massachusetts during the Civil War, telling their heroic and poignant story by marking significant events on their sesquicentennial anniversary.

As a genealogist and family historian I am always on the search for new information pertaining to the regiment and to Oliver. Fortunately source material pertaining to the regiment is rich, and I have found a wealth of information about Oliver through his military service records, Civil War pension, census information, directories, and newspapers. I have yet to find information about Oliver through personal sources such as letters, diaries or photos. I invite other descendants of a Twentieth Massachusetts veteran or anyone who has information to share about the regiment and/or Oliver to add a comment or to contact me at cskuzel@yahoo.com.