behind AotW

This is Private David Kellum Brinson, from Plains, GA, probably taken shortly after he enlisted in Company H of the 13th Georgia in July 1861. I’m guessing the small card in his hand is a photograph or other memento his his soon-to-be wife Martha Gilbert Van Valkenburg.

He was promoted on the field at Sharpsburg to Sergeant in September 1862, but seriously wounded in the groin/bladder and disabled at Gettysburg in July 1863.

His Gettysburg wound was still troubling him 25 years later, and probably continued to do so to his death at age 57 in 1899.

This photograph was shared on ancestry.com by family genealogist W R B Whittier in 2010.

Private Joseph Andrew Roe of Company G, 13th Georgia Infantry was wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. Several later muster roll records say he enlisted in Frederick, MD only days before, on either 5 or 15 September:

Although fun to imagine he was wounded as few as two days after joining his Company, I think it unlikely.

First, because neither 5 nor 15 September were dates on which a man could have enlisted in the Confederate Army in Frederick, MD. Confederate troops first arrived in that city on the 6th and the last units departed on the 13th.

More definitively, there’s this pay record for him dated 24 September 1862 – when he was in Richmond recovering – that suggests he probably enlisted on 16 May 1862 with other recruits for the Company, at Causton’s Bluff near Savannah, GA.

The muster roll card and pay voucher above are from Roe’s Compiled Military Service Record jacket at the US National Archives, online from fold3.

Falton K Lewis was about 20 years old when he was hit by a gunshot to his thigh at Sharpsburg, MD on 17 September 1862. He died of his wound in a hospital in Richmond, VA on the last day of 1862 and someone there took an inventory of his possessions.

Money in Confederate notes $120.00
In shinplasters 1.00
” Postage Stamps 20
” Greensboro note 50

An example of an 1862 Confederate note:

The annotation on the Inventory “$120.75 good” probably deducts the dollar in “shinplasters” – privately issued notes of less than one dollar value, generally reviled – thought not worth their face value. Here’s just such a shinplaster issued by a New Orleans coffeehouse owner in 1862:

A typical 1862 Confederate postage stamp:

The Greensboro note probably looked something like this:

Private Lewis’ Inventory of Effects is from his Compiled Service Record jacket at he US National Archives, this copy online from fold3.

Company I’s First Sergeant John Marshall Hoyt was wounded at Turner’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and again in Wilderness, VA in May 1864, but survived the war, mustering out as Captain in June 1865.

His CDV here is from the collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and they’ve shared it online.

From a 50th anniversary tribute in the Buffalo Times of May 1911 to the First Company, Buffalo (NY) Volunteers – later Company A, 21st New York Infantry – comes the face of Levi Vallier. He was their First Lieutenant when he was wounded at Antietam in September 1862 and mustered out as Captain of the Company in May 1863.

An announcement in the Sacramento Daily Union of 3 January 1893.

And here’s a reproduction wanted poster seen recently in the American Hotel in Cerro Gordo, California.

This 2017 photo of the poster is from Dave’n’Kathy on their Vagabond Blog. Sadly, a fire destroyed the hotel, Billy Crapo’s cabin next door, and presumably that poster in June 2020.

Illinois-born William Crapo was an 18 year old farmer in Saratoga County, NY at the start of the Civil War and he enlisted as a Private in Company G of the 21st New York Infantry in October 1861. He was wounded in the thigh at Antietam in September 1862, spent 3 months in hospitals, and mustered out with the regiment in May 1863.

He was in California by 1867 and in the business of silver mining at Cerra Gordo soon after. 25 years later he shot two men in town, killing one of them, and disappeared, never heard from again.

Christian Ihde was mortally wounded in combat near Turner’s Gap on South Mountain in Maryland on 14 September 1862 and died the next day. He was a 37 year old Private in Company I of the 21st New York Infantry and the sole fatality in his regiment in that action.

He left a wife and two small children in Buffalo, NY.

In October 1862 his widow Louisa kicked off the lengthy process – it went through 1868 – to get an Army pension for herself and her kids. The documents which made up that application are at the US National Archives, and thankfully also online via fold3. Following are two tidbits from that pension file.

This is a certificate of her marriage on 9 July 1852 in the village of Uelitz in Mecklenburg, Germany.

It’s in German, of course, and features abysmal penmanship, so I was sure I’d get very little information from it. I was wrong. Two pages later is this English translation – complete with location of the town seal – supplied by Augustus Paul of Buffalo.

One of the best things about this document, now that I know what it says, is that it spells out Christian and Louisa’s full baptismal names, viz, Johann Peter Freidrich Christian Ihde and Louisa Maria Sophia Caroline Pentzien. Fabulous.

Christian, his new bride, and his sister left Germany on a ship for New York 3 weeks after the wedding and were living in Buffalo by 1855.

Here’s the gravestone in Antietam National Cemetery for Corporal Franklin Averill of Company H, 21st New York Cavalry. The photograph was shared on his Findagrave memorial by prolific contributor Birdman.

Franklin was wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862 while a Private in the 21st New York Infantry, but survived to enlist again, in the 21st Cavalry in 1863. That regiment was assigned to the Remount Camp at Cumberland, MD from late August through October 1864, and seem to have had a miserable time there. There were at least three deaths, two civil arrests, and 18 desertions among the men of the regiment during that period.

One of these was Franklin Averill, who was shot by the provost guard in Cumberland and died there on 23 September 1864. The town clerk in Colden, NY later wrote that he

was shot by a picket through carelessness or daring, have been unable to get any further particulars.

I, too, wish I knew more of that story.

Franklin’s remains were removed from Cumberland and reinterred in the new National Cemetery in Sharpsburg in about 1867.

This lovely carte-de-visite is of Horace W Jones, a 20 year old farmer in Wyoming County in Western New York State. About 2 years after he sat for that picture he was wounded in the leg at Antietam, then a Private in the 21st New York Infantry.

The photograph, an eBay find, was contributed to Horace’s Findagrave memorial by Ray Jackson.

This is the summary page from the pension file for 2 year old orphan William West Van Tine (1861-1928) of Clarence in Erie County, NY (touch the image to enlarge).

His mother Anna West Van Tine had died 5 months after his birth in 1861 and his father Private Wilder Van Tine of the 21st New York Infantry was mortally wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862, dying at home that November.

The remaining pages in the file include affidavits about the details of Wilder’s wounding and death, his marriage in 1860, his son’s birth, and Anna’s untimely death. They’re all online from fold3.

In 1865 young William was granted a pension of $8 per month to run until his 16th birthday in 1877, to be paid to his grandfather David Van Tine.