Civil War ring comes full circle.
A soldier’s ring, lost 148 years ago in Virginia during the Civil War, came home to Reading on Tuesday with a touching ceremony in Charles Evans Cemetery.
Worn by Levi Schlegel, a Rockland Township native who served under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battle of Appomattox Court House, the ring is believed to have been lost at an encampment near Fredericksburg. Victorious Union troops made camp there as they returned to Washington for the Grand Review of the Armies at the war’s end.
John Blue, a hunter of Civil War relics, found the ring in 2005, and through a series of circumstances, he was able to return it to Ernie Schlegel of Reading, a distant cousin of Levi.