Category: biography
-
Walcott’s 21st Massachusetts
Captain Charles F Walcott is a hero to those who study Massachusetts soldiers in the Civil War (or at least to me) because he wrote the Regimental History of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry (1882). In the preface he apologized for taking more than 15 years to complete the book while raising children and running a…
-
Antietam faces, artillery edition
Lieutenant Evan Thomas commanded the consolidated Batteries A and C of the 4th United States Artillery on the Maryland Campaign. He was the 3rd son of US Army Colonel and Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas (USMA 1823), and at the start of the War in April 1861 received a commission as 2nd Lieutenant, 4th United States…
-
J.F. Downey with HQ, AEF in France, 1918
At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year 1918, the Great War ended under the terms of an armistice, a cease-fire agreement, signed at 5 o’clock that morning. The most immediate requirement of the Armistice was the withdrawal of all German forces to the line of the Rhine…
-
From Antietam to the Arctic: A.W. Greely
Adolphus Greely was only 18 years old but already a veteran of more than a year’s Army service by the time he was wounded in the face in combat in or near the West Woods at Antietam on the morning of 17 September 1862. He was a Corporal in Company B, 19th Massachusetts Infantry. Before…
-
Saved by his steel vest
Lieutenant Nathaniel Wales’ story at Antietam may be unique. It is certainly startling: he was saved from a fatal wound by wearing armor at the battle. I’ve not previously found anything else like this associated with Antietam. Having little experience with the subject, then, I went off to find out something about body armor of…
-
Hood’s couriers at Sharpsburg
Lone Star by Don Troiani (The 1st Texas Infantry in the Cornfield at Sharpsburg) I’ve recently been catching up on Confederate staff officers who were at Sharpsburg, those serving Division and Brigade commanders. One of the ways I find them by is rummaging through after-action reports. Over the last couple of days I’ve been sorting through…
