Stones of the 22nd Massachusetts
16 May 2019
The 22nd Massachusetts Infantry was in reserve with General Porter’s Fifth Army Corps at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and saw relatively light combat on the campaign, but three of their number died and were left in Maryland.
Milton Ingalls was a 20 year old shoemaker in Boston when he enlisted in August 1862. As a new recruit for Company H, he joined the regiment in Washington DC just in time for the march into Maryland. He was wounded by gunshot about 14 September, just a month after enlisting, and was treated at a hospital in Frederick, MD. He recovered enough to rejoin his Company two weeks after the battle of Antietam, in camp in Pleasant Valley, near Brownsville, MD, but he …
... suddenly died October 24 after a few days illness. We performed our first burial service, stood guard over his remains at the hospital tent, made his rude coffin of cracker boxes, and late one afternoon marched to the hillside to bury him, the chaplain of the Second Maine officiating.
Chauncey Knowlton, a 21 year old blacksmith in Brunswick, Maine and George Davis, age 44, a mechanic in Lawrence, Massachusetts both enlisted in the fall of 1861 as the 22nd was first organized. They were not engaged at Antietam but crossed the Potomac River near Shepherdstown, VA with their regiment and others of the 5th Corps on 20 September in pursuit of Lee’s army. Both men were horribly wounded that morning – accidentally, by their own artillery fire from the Maryland side of the river.
Chauncey’s leg was shattered and amputated, but his wound was unfortunately neglected at a Sharpsburg area field hospital. After about two weeks he was sent to the hospital in the German Reformed Church in Sharpsburg, but the infection was too far advanced and doctors there couldn’t save him. He died on 13 October.
George, whose lower jaw was entirely torn off by a piece of shell, was treated at a field hospital near the hamlet of Porterstown, MD, where he had to be fed by syringe. He was admitted to an Army hospital in Frederick, MD, just over a week later, but died of his wound on 4 October.
All three of these men rest under ordinary Government stones in Antietam National Cemetery. Where I hope they will never be forgotten.
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