behind AotW

I should be doing something else, but got pulled off track by a trooper of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry, James Williamson, who was killed in a little-known cavalry skirmish at the Quebec Schoolhouse near Middletown, MD on 13 September 1862.

His regiment’s historian, former Corporal William N. Pickerill wrote a fascinating account of that ‘desperate little cavalry battle’ for a newspaper in 1897, and put it in his regimental History in 1906. Because of him, I’ve spent the last couple of days putting names and faces with some of the men who were there.

The Antietam Cemetery History has him as Daniel Mibbon, 18th New York Infantry (thanks Western Maryland’s Historical Library/WHILBR!). It’s Dan’l Mibbon, N.Y. on his stone.

Frederick hospital records list him as Daniel S. Milborne, 13th New York (thanks National Museum of Civil War Medicine!).

He doesn’t appear in the rosters for either of those regiments or any other New York unit, for that matter (thanks New York State Military Museum!). Nothing close.

A little more digging, though, and voilà !!

Under or near this stone in the Antietam National Cemetery lies David Spencer Milburn, late Private, Company D, 13th New Jersey Infantry. A 26 year old farmer, he was mortally wounded on 17 September 1862 just over a month after enlisting. He died in a hospital in Frederick on 2 October.

I hope his descendants can still find him!

James McVay was an “old man” in the 14th Connecticut Infantry. He had enlisted as a Private in Company K with his sons Michael and Francis in July 1862.  He died of “exhaustion” at the end of the regiment’s first day’s march on what became the Maryland Campaign.

His was the first death in that brand new regiment.

His name’s on a familiar looking monument in Norwich, CT.

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Notes

The clip above is from Charles D. Page’s History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Infantry (1906).

The picture of the Soldiers’ Monument in Norwich, CT is online from Waymarking.  You’ll notice the statue’s similarity to “Old Simon” in the Antietam National Cemetery.