behind AotW

Here’s 2nd Lieutenant Maximilian Wimpfheimer of Company G, 2nd Pennsylvania Reserves, who was killed at Antietam on 17 September 1862, just about 2 months after this picture was taken.

He was born in Germany and was about 21 years old at his death. His father David brought his family to America between 1852 and 1860, and was a vinegar manufacturer in Philadelphia before the war.

This photograph was contributed by Susan Johnson and hosted online by the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, part of an exhibit on Jewish soldiers killed in the Civil War – two of whom were identified as being buried in Antietam National Cemetery: Wimpfheimer and Adolph Brinkmann, a Private in the 2nd Delaware Infantry, also killed at Antietam.