Category: my favorites

I’ve spent the afternoon down something of a rabbit hole – learning a little about the Catawba Tribe of north-central South Carolina and how they are remembered. I dove in chasing a Private in the 12th South Carolina Infantry listed as John Harris (Indian) in the State Roll. So now I know of 4 Catawbas…

A descendant of Harry Stewart sent me his portrait today. Stewart was First Sergeant, Company A, 2nd Maryland Infantry when he was killed in action near the Lower Bridge over the Antietam on 17 September 1862. Back in October 1861, after his first 3 months in the Army, he had written home from Camp Carroll…

This is Captain Samuel H. Sims, who led Company G of the 51st New York Infantry across the Lower Bridge at Antietam. Among the many of his Company killed there was Private Thomas Stockwell. A few days later Captain Sims wrote to Thomas’s widow Caroline. It is one of the finest such letters I’ve ever…

This uniquely posed photograph is of Corporal Ignatz Gresser of the 128th Pennsylvania Infantry. From the Lehigh County Historical Society, it was published in Mahlon H. Hellerich’s Allentown, 1762-1987: a 225-year History (1987). Gresser came to America from his native Germany at age 16, and was a cobbler in Allentown, PA before the war. He…

In 1860 physician Socrates Norton Sherman was elected to Congress to serve from 4 March 1861 to 3 March 1863, but was soon after also commissioned Surgeon of the 34th New York Infantry. Although attached to the 34th, he was “away a good deal in Washington.” He joined his regiment at Antietam and treated wounded…