John Summerfield Staples (1845-1888)

In 1864, President Lincoln named this young Stroudsburg man as his "representative recruit" for the Union Army in the Civil War. The U.S. War Department had appealed to citizens ineligible for the draft to furnish recruits, and Lincoln chose to set an example. After a White House meeting with the President on October 1, 1864, Staples served at Arlington, Virginia-one of fewer than 1300 representative recruits enrolled.