Annie (Burchmore) Bean (1844-1933) was sixteen years old when the War started in 1861. She was born in the north parish of Andover (now the town of North Andover) and lived as a young girl in Andover, where her father John Burchmore worked as a laborer and a tailor. The family moved during the War to Chelsea, Massachusetts where John Burchmore was a watchman at the city’s federal ammunition magazine.
Annie was married at Chelsea in September 1864 at the age of eighteen to twenty-one year old George H. Bean of Andover. George was the son of Andover hotel keeper and livery man Samuel G. Bean, and served from August 1861 until August 1864 in Company H of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry. The young couple made their home with the older Beans in Andover’s Elm Square and welcomed daughter Mary Frances in April 1865.