War Experiences
Horace Rice was a soldier during the Civil War between the years 1861-1865. When he enlisted, he was assigned to the 44th New York Infantry. His unit fought in many different battles, including the Battle of Gettysburg. The picture to the left depicts a monument at Gettysburg dedicated to the 44th.
The document to the left, compiled by Blenheim House, details Horace's whereabouts and activities throughout the duration of the war
This visual shows a text-mined comparison of the frequencies of the words "soldier" and "hospital" within Blenheim House's primary source documents about Horace Rice. A side-by-side visual of the two words within the texts reveal an important reality of Horace's experience as a Civil War soldier: he spent much of the war in the hospital. The word "soldier" is used frequently in the first segment of the documents because that segment focuses mainly on his widow's applications for soldier's pension. The later segment, dedicated in large part to muster rolls and therefore more representative of the actual time Horace spent as a soldier, reveals a high frequency of the word "hospital."