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In Taylor’s final service letter of July 9, 1865, he wrote, “Well Sis I rather think that this is the last time that I shell write to you, for we expect to be in Madison the last of this week.” What a joyous reunion it must have been for the young family. Throughout the war, Guy and Sarah Taylor o¤ered each other their love and support. Each faced a diªcult task, Guy as a soldier and Sarah as a single parent left alone to raise their son Charley. Their separation created a painful physical and emotional strain as was indicated in the following passage from Taylor’s June 16, 1864, letter: “I wish that I cood see you and little Charley. When I get losome I go out under a tree and set and read in the testerment, and once and a while look at yours & Charleys picture, and it seams as so you was rite with me.” Responding to one of Sarah’s letters, Guy wrote in his June 22, 1864, letter: “You said in your last letter that you did not know as you ever would see me again, that may be the case, but I hope not. [ . . . ] If it shood be the case I am in hopes that we may meat hearafter wheir their is no war.” Fortunately, Guy and Sarah Taylor did not have to wait for the hereafter to celebrate their reunion. Many other war couples were not so lucky. For example, losses for Taylor’s unit, the Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin, included 157 who were killed or died of wounds and 185 who died from disease with 102 of those dying in Rebel prisons. All in all, the Thirty-Sixth had 578 casualties out of 1,014 men enrolled.1 The percentage of those killed in battle ranked sixteenth of all the regiments in the Union armies.2 In less than a year at the front, the Thirty-Sixth had been involved to some degree in eighteen battles. 289 Epilogue Soon after returning from the war in July of 1865, Guy, Sarah, and Charley moved to the town of Clinton, Vernon County, Wisconsin. Guy’s brother George, along with his wife and family, had settled there in 1864. Guy established a farm, which neighbored the one George owned. According to a warranty deed dated November 25, 1865, Guy C. Taylor purchased 40 acres of land in the town of Clinton in Vernon County, Wisconsin, from Moses Mossey and Lydia Mossey.3 Perhaps the Mossey mentioned in Taylor’s June 16, 1864, letter, and Lydia, whose surname was never given in the letters, were husband and wife. In 1866, Sarah gave birth to her second son, who they named John. Two years later their third son George was born and was followed by daughters Jane in 1870 and Elizabeth in 1873 and by son Marshall in 1876. On March 19, 1884, their son John died at the age of seventeen. Sarah passed away August 17, 1888. She had lived to be only forty-four. At the time of her death, her oldest child Charley was twenty-two, and her youngest was eight-year-old Marshall. On December 12, 1889, Guy Taylor married Electa L. Hurd. In 1893 Guy, Electa, and family moved from the farm into the nearby village of Cashton. There Guy became an insurance agent. In that same year, he also became justice of the peace. From a document I found in the archives of the Cashton Village oªce, I discovered Guy Taylor and C. M. Culver each received thirty-seven votes in the election. The result was then determined by candidates drawing lots, which resulted in the selection of G. C. Taylor. Taylor held the oªce of justice of the peace continually until the spring of 1902 at which time he felt he could no longer attend to the duties of the oªce. Taylor was also elected four times to represent the village of Cashton on the Monroe County Board of Supervisors.4 On December 7, 1902, at the age of sixty-two, Guy Taylor died in his home in Cashton. He had taken ill six weeks previously, and after failing considerably, he succumbed to pneumonia. From his obituary, which I located at the Monroe County Historical Museum, I quote, He had endeared himself to the people of this village and to all he became acquainted. . . . As a man he was above reproach, always kind to all...

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