behind AotW

a companion to Antietam on the Web

Category: my favorites

  • McClure brothers, 24th Georgia Infantry

    McClure brothers, 24th Georgia Infantry

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    Here are the three Irish-born McClure brothers of White County, Georgia who served together in Company K of the 24th Georgia Infantry during the war: James Samuel (1828-1907), at left, may have been with his company in Maryland in September 1862, but departed, sick with typhoid, in October, and spent much of the rest of…

  • Totally useless as an officer

    Totally useless as an officer

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    Bold language is rare in military communications, so I thought I’d share this instance so both of my readers can enjoy it with me. It’s a clipping from the back of Captain Joseph E Knotts‘ letter of resignation of 14 November 1862. Knotts was Captain of Company K of the First (Hagood’s) South Carolina Infantry.…

  • Tom McBryde (c. 1930)

    Tom McBryde (c. 1930)

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    At 18 years old, in March 1862, Thomas Calvin McBryde left his parents’ small farm at Snow Hill in Wilcox County, AL to enlist in the Cedar Creek Guards, who soon after became Company C of the 44th Alabama Infantry. He survived a slight wound at Sharpsburg in September 1862 and a couple of serious…

  • Calvaria trephined in the left frontal region (1862)

    Calvaria trephined in the left frontal region (1862)

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    I’ve gone to Army Surgeon-General Joseph K Barnes’ Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870-1883) many times over the years chasing Antietam casualties, but never done a systematic scrub through it. I’m underway on that now. Among the first cases I found was that of Private Samuel Altman of the 50th…

  • Charles Jackson’s left-hand penmanship

    Charles Jackson’s left-hand penmanship

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    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…

  • Major Knipe Winging a Secessionist (1861)

    Major Knipe Winging a Secessionist (1861)

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    From Harper’s Weekly, 20 July 1861 Our special war correspondent and artist of General Patterson’s Division, now in Virginia, furnishes us this week with a sketch of an exciting incident which lately occurred at Williamsport…. Major [Joseph Farmer] Knipe, of General Williams’s staff, was one morning riding leisurely along the already historic Potomac banks, accompanied…