behind AotW

The picture of Phelan at left, First Lieutenant’s bars on his collar, was taken in 1861. He’s in a Captain’s uniform on the right, in a photograph taken sometime between his promotion in October 1862 and his death at Petersburg in 1865; he looks older by more than just a couple of years, perhaps because he had a hard war. Both photographs are from the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Watkins Phelan was First Lieutenant and commanded Company F of the 3rd Alabama Infantry in action at Turner’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.