In 1861, a young colonel became the first Union officer killed in the Civil War
The death of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth in 1861 shocked a young Abraham Lincoln and turned a personal friend of the President into the Union's first fallen hero.
As Union troops moved to occupy Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24, 1861, young Colonel Elmer Ellsworth spotted a large Confederate flag flying atop the Marshall House hotel. Determined to remove it, he climbed to the roof, only to be shot by the hotel's owner as he descended.
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