The McAdoo (c. 1912)
13 February 2025
Walter David McAdoo came from a long line of successful merchants and entrepreneurs in Greensboro, Guilford County, NC. He left Dickinson College in Pennsylvania at the start of the Civil War and enlisted as a Private soldier in the Guilford Greys – soon afterward Company B of the 27th North Carolina Infantry.
He was wounded in the battle at Sharpsburg in September 1862 and while home in Greensboro on a wounded furlough, in February 1863, transferred to the 57th North Carolina Infantry. He was seriously wounded in action with them at Gettysburg in July and did not recover enough to serve again in the field.
After the war he was a merchant, banker, and real estate developer – and he made a packet – but his most enduring legacy was that of hotel proprietor. This postcard shows his block-long grand hotel, “The McAdoo,” on South Elm Street in Greensboro in about 1912.
He built it in 1871 and ran it until about 1891, and it continued to be a local landmark and luxury destination until it was destroyed by fire in 1916, 8 years after W.D. McAdoo’s death.
Notes
This postcard is online from the North Carolina Postcards collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Shell fragment extracted from the sacrum
9 February 2025
22 year old Private Charles A Trask of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry was mortally wounded in the lower abdomen by this chunk of iron at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and died about two weeks later in a hospital in Chambersburg, PA.
His record in the The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion [Volume 2, Part 2, p. 250] identifies this as from a spherical case shot, and notes
The missile (Fig. 211), showing a section of the orifice for the fuze, and weighing two and two-thirds ounces, was contributed to the Museum by Surgeon E. McDonnell, U.S.V.
The original piece of shell taken from Private Trask and many other artifacts of Civil War medicine are now in the Anatomical Collections at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, MD.
Lt. Henry G Bigelow (1863)
8 February 2025
Henry Grove Bigelow was the 20 year old Sergeant Major of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry when he was seriously wounded at Antietam in September 1862, by a gunshot through his hip which shattered part of his pelvis.
He was at home recovering when he was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in October 1862 and still there when he was promoted to First Lieutenant in March 1863. He resigned his commission in August 1863, not yet able to walk well enough to keep up with his men.
This photograph is one of the thousands of images in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), Massachusetts Commandery photo albums. These are now at the US Army Heritage & Education Center in Carlisle, PA. This picture is from page 4930 of album 96.
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