MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A century and a half after he served in the Civil War as a member in the 37th Regiment of the Wisconsin Infantry, Lorenzo T. Adams has found a home in Lake County.

Pvt. Adams was welcomed into the Middletown Cemetery on Thursday by the Military Funeral Honors Team of Lake County, the Patriot Guard Riders, a small gathering of Middletown townspeople and his descendents – most notable among them Beverly Adams, his great-granddaughter, who came to attend the Middletown ceremony from Montana.

The honoring of L.T. Adams included a rifle salute by the Military Funeral Honors Team and presentation of an American flag to Beverly Adams by a California State Honor Guard representative.

Adams was actually interred at the Middletown Cemetery many years ago, following his death in January 1898 at the age of 49. However, his burial place was lost in 1912 due to a fire that burned up the cemetery's records.

Adams' descendents have Bob and Judy Kauffman to thank for relocating his marker under mounds of soil.

Meriel Medrano of Anderson Springs, the cemetery manager, said the Kauffmans dug up earth for the better part of three weeks before they found Adams' resting place.

It was actually outside a fence bordering the cemetery property that was erected some years after the original cemetery was created.

Adams is one of 17 Civil War soldiers buried at the Middletown Cemetery. One of the deceased interred there is a Confederate soldier.

According to the local VFW History Project, approximately 164 Civil War veterans are buried in Lake County.

To further honor Adams, some members of the Military Funeral Honors Team wore Civil War Union uniforms.

One of them, Mark R. Brown, said he wore the uniform of a Union chaplain because of the special significance he attaches to the soldiers who fought and died in the four-year-long Civil War.

“It was the turning point of our country. So many people died,” said Brown.

For years, the death toll among Union and Confederate soldiers was put at just over 618,000, although a new estimate offered by a scholar last year placed the number at 750,000.

Brown and his wife visited Gettysburg a year and a half ago. “What got me was Lincoln's Gettysburg address,” he said. “That's why we're here today. L.T. Adams gave his last ounce of devotion to his country. You couldn't honor at a better time, a better place or a better person.”

Beverly Adams said that her great-grandfather suffered a brain injury in the Civil War and had seizures for the rest of his life.

“It was in June of 1965, after he mustered in March of that year, his father was dead,” she explained. “He served a year and a half before the war ended.”

Adams was mustered out of the Wisconsin Volunteers on July 26, 1865, according to a regimental history. During his time in service, seven officers and 149 enlisted men were killed and mortally wounded. Two more officers and 89 enlisted men died as the result of disease. The total dead was 247.

Adams was involved in the siege and fall of Petersburg and the Appomattox campaign during his 18 months of warfare, based on military records.

“He sure did see action. The seizure he suffered was very bad,” said Beverly Adams, then added with a grin, “but it didn't stop him from having babies. He had six sons and a daughter.”

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