behind AotW

Here are DeWitt Clinton Smith and his family in an ambrotype photograph probably taken as he prepared to leave his home in Minnesota for the war in the east.

He’d married Melissa R. Shepard (1827-1905) in Michigan in 1847 – they were both from his hometown of Barre, NY – and their son Eugene Adelbert Smith (1850-1914) was born in Somerset, MI, where DeWitt was a Daguerrean photographer. They moved to Hennepin County, MN in 1857 and by the time the war came in 1861 he had worked as a farmer, newspaperman, shoe salesman, county land registrar, and school teacher, and was concurrently a county commissioner and postmaster.

He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant of Company D, First Minnesota Infantry in April 1861, and was Captain of his Company when he was seriously wounded in the hip at Antietam in September 1862. The bullet lodged in his pelvis and was never removed. Disabled for further service in the field, he sought appointment as an army paymaster, a largely clerical, non-combat job. He had the support of nearly all the officers of his regiment, who sent an impressive petition to President Lincoln on his behalf in January 1863:

Nothing happened quickly, though, so in October 1863 Smith resigned his commission and returned to Minnesota.

Finally, in April 1864, an appointment as Additional Paymaster and Major, US Volunteers came through for Smith, and he went to St Louis, MO. Unfortunately, 6 months later he was killed by Confederate “guerrillas” while returning by steamboat from making Army payments in Memphis in October 1864:

The picture at the top, as Melissa R. Smith, Eugene Adelbert Smith and DeWitt Clinton Smith, family portrait, copyprint of ambrotype, may be found online from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Melissa re-married 20 years later in Minnesota – a dentist named Lent Bristol Bradley (1820-1900) who had 3 grown children of his own.

The Lincoln petition is among the Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1861-1870 at the National Archives, online from fold3. Among the signers was Captain William F. Russell of Company L, who commanded the 2nd Company of Minnesota Sharpshooters at Antietam.

The story about his death on the Mississippi is from the St. Paul Daily Press of 10 December 1864, also online from the Minnesota Historical Society.

The other officer with Smith on the Belle was Abraham Beeler (born MD, 1822) of Illinois. He’d been First Lieutenant and Quartermaster of the 38th Illinois Infantry from August 1861 to March 1863 and was appointed Additional Paymaster and Major, US Volunteers in March 1864. There’s a fine photograph of him on his memorial; thanks to Tony Fazzini for the pointer to that.

Charles Jackson, a Private in the 8th Connecticut Infantry was not quite 18 years old when he was shot through the right wrist at Antietam on 17 September 1862 and captured there at the farthest advance of the Union Ninth Corps that day, nearly to the town of Sharpsburg.

[Charles Jackson, c. 1865]

The next day his hand was amputated at the forearm, probably by a Confederate surgeon. Two days later, left behind near the battlefield when the Confederate Army retired to Virginia, he was “recaptured” and put in the care of his own Army. He was sent home in February 1863 but returned that fall and served two more years, in the Veteran Reserve Corps, to October 1865.

Which is probably when he saw an announcement like this one:

On Christmas Day 1865 he wrote the organizer of the event, the Rev. W. Oland Bourne, describing his war experience, his wounding at Antietam, and his life at that moment and enclosing a sample of his best handwriting as his entry in the contest. He was the 221st of some 270 men to enter.

He did not win any prizes, but certainly made a respectable showing.

Just 21 years old at the time of the contest, Charles went on to a long and fruitful life, and was a letter carrier in Hartford for almost 50 years.

See much more about the penmanship contest and it’s sponsor, William Oland Bourne, in an exhaustive exhibit at the Library of Congress, source of the photograph and documents here; transcriptions below.

At least 13 other amputee survivors of the Maryland Campaign of 1862 also entered the 1865-66 contest (Series 1) or the one that followed in 1867 (Series 2); viz:

Capt. Charles A. Edmonds, Co. H, 7th Michigan Infantry, South Mountain, MD (9/14/1862); Ser. 1, #51 …

On 12 October 1862 the New York Times printed lists of soldiers who died at several field hospitals near the battlefield in the 2 weeks immediately after Antietam. They contain some excellent detail I’ve not seen elsewhere, and I’m saving them here [PDF] for current and future reference.