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Lieutenant Colonel William R. Holmes was killed in dramatic fashion at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 while in command of the 2nd Georgia Infantry. As the Georgian’s defense of the Lower Bridge over the Antietam began to collapse that afternoon, he ran down to the stream bank “and with a cry of defiance shook his sword in the faces of our men [Union troops across the creek] for a moment, and then fell pierced by a dozen bullets.”

The story below, from June 1860, suggests that “fire-breathing” spirit wasn’t a recent development.

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The quote at the top about Holmes’ death is from Charles F. Walcott’s History of the Twenty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers … (1882). Walcott was Captain of Company B at Antietam, and he’s the narrator of the event.

The news piece about the duel is from the Planters’ Weekly (Greenesboro, GA) of 13 June 1860, and it’s online thanks to the Georgia Historic Newspapers database, a project of the Digital Library of Georgia. My transcription, with breaks for ease of reading, follows:

The Late Duel.

We clip this account of it from the Savannah correspondent of the Charleston Mercury.

“Screven’s Ferry, on the Carolina side of the river, is fast becoming famous as a dueling ground. Only a few days ago, as you have been already advised, an affair of honor was amicably settled there, after an exchange of harmless shots.

This morning tho Ferry was the scene of another duel, between Dr. William R. Holmes, of Waynesboro, and Llewellan A. Nelms, of Warrenton, both of this State. The weapons were double-barrelled shot guns; distance, forty paces. At the first fire, Mr. Nelms received a portion of the discharge of his opponent’s gun in the body, which terminated tho affair for the present, though we understand that Mr. Nelms, in his wounded condition, insisted on having a second shot, which his friends, of course, would not allow. The wounded gentleman was conveyed to the Pulaski Hotel, where the extent of his injury was more definitely ascertained. Four grains of buckshot had made as many flesh-wounds in his body and left arm, neither of which, however, is considered serious.

The difficulty originated in some proceedings which took place in Burke county immediately after the adjournment of the Charleston Convention. It appears that the citizens of that county were not satisfied with merely endorsing the course of the seceding delegates, but they had determined to express their dissatisfaction with the members of the Georgia delegation who remained in the Convention. With this view, they burned in effigy the non-seceding delegates, among whom was Mr Nelms. Dr. Holmes was one of the principal actors in this demonstration, and hence the cause. Both gentlemen are considered excellent shots, and exhibited much firmness and bravery on the field. Dr. H. escaped unhurt.”

Private Preston Warren, a 39 year old carpenter from Fitchburg, MA was slightly wounded in the head at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and was in hospitals in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and finally, Boston well into 1863. Not so much because of the head wound, but because he was found to be insane – with “paroxysmal mania.”

His diagnosis from Doctor W.W. Godding supported his discharge from the Army for disability on 13 May 1863.

On 8 June 1863, however, he was arrested in his hometown of Fitchburg and taken to Fort Independence in Boston as a deserter. A number of people tried to convince the Provost Marshal that Private Warren had previously been found insane and discharged. Captain J.B. Collins, 4th US Infantry, in whose charge he was, was having none of it:

It was eventually straightened out and Preston was allowed to go home.

Surprisingly, that was not the end of his service. He enlisted again and served with the Veteran Reserve Corps from August 1864 to August 1865 when he was honorably discharged.

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Both documents pictured above are from Private Warren’s Compiled Service Record jacket at the US National Archives, Washington, DC; online via fold3.

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William Whitney Godding (1831-1899) was born, like Preston, in Winchedon, MA. Dartmouth ’54, he graduated Castleton (VT) Medical College in 1857. He was a physician specializing in mental illness. He practiced in New Hampshire and Massachusetts before and during the War and was later the superintendent of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC (1877-1899). He was president of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII) from 1889- 1890. He testified as an expert witness in the trial of Charles J. Guiteau, assassin of President Garfield (1881).

His 1860 picture above is from the Thanatos Archive, contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial. Here he is in about 1877 from the Library of Congress:

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Washington, DC-born Captain Joseph Benson Collins (1824-1888) had enlisted in the US Mounted Rifles in 1847 for service in the Mexican War and lost the use of his left eye from a wound at Cerro Gordo. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th US Infantry in 1848, was a Captain by 1861, and was later commended by brevets for his service in 1862 at Gaines’ Mill and 2nd Bull Run, where he was seriously wounded. In 1863 he was stationed in Boston and was a mustering officer and Military Commandant there. He was promoted to Major in the Second US Infantry in 1865 and retired from US Army service in 1871. See much more about him in 1879 Congressional testimony about his retirement.

A certification by Dr Charles L Duffell in support of a 30 day furlough for Private Eugene A Puffer of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry. Written on 29 September 1862 at the Big Spring field hospital on the Russell/Geeting Farm not far from the Antietam battlefield in Keedysville, MD. It was also known as the Crystal Spring or Locust Spring hospital.

This document is from Private Puffer’s Compiled Service Record jacket at the US National Archives.

Lieutenant Henry Sparhawk Hitchcock here in a photograph from his great-great-granddaughter Martha Hitchcock Price, as published in the 2014 edition of his brother George’s diary.

Here he is again, in a seated portrait, which was among a large collection of his personal items sold by J. Mountain Antiques.

This is photograph of George A Hitchcock, late Private, 21st Massachusetts Infantry, Antietam veteran and Andersonville survivor. Probably taken about 1868, it was contributed to the Family Search genealogical database by Julie Munsterman [free membership required for access].

Here he is in an earlier photograph probably taken at his initial enlistment in August 1861, on the cover of the 2014 publication of his wartime diary:

This painting by Antietam veteran James Madison Stone, late Corporal, 21st Massachusetts, was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

In 2010 it was sold at auction by Skinner for $4148. It’s asking price in 1893 was $800.

Here’s Stone on the frontpiece of his memoir, which is online from the Internet Archives.

Sergeant John Kelt was wounded at Antietam in September 1862 and commissioned a Lieutenant later that year, but was court-martialled and dismissed from the service in mid-1863. He was one of at least two officers of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry cashiered that year (Lt Gibson, the other).

This picture of him is from page 5356, of Volume 104 in the MOLLUS-Massachusetts photograph collection, now at the US Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Here are notes about his August 1863 General Court Martial, from his Compiled Military Service Records, US National Archives, via fold3:

The Memorandum from Prisoner of War Records form was used by US War Department clerks to compile information from various records relating to a soldier’s time as a prisoner during the Civil War.

This one is for Private Thomas Farrell of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry. It’s stored among other papers in his Compiled Military Service Records jacket at the US National Archives; they’re online from fold3.

Thomas was wounded at Antietam in September 1862 and was captured at Spotsylvania Court House, VA in May 1864, afterward a prisoner at the infamous Camp Sumter at Andersonville, GA.

He left the camp by exchange on 14 November 1864, having spent his last two weeks there in the prison hospital – more often the place soldiers were sent to die. Here are the cover and his page from a logbook of Andersonville departures, online from FamilySearch [free membership required].

This young officer is Jonas R. Davis, First Lieutenant, Company B, 21st Massachusetts Infantry in a photograph probably taken in early 1864. He was Company A’s 3rd Sergeant when he was wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

An interesting side note: Davis was mustered as First Lieutenant of the 21st Massachusetts in February 1864 by Captain H.R. Rathbone, 12th United States Infantry. On 14 April 1865 Major Rathbone and his fiancé were with the President and First Lady in the President’s box at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC.

Here’s Jonas’ wife Clara. They wed in Templeton, MA in January 1866 and had two daughters together. These photographs were kindly contributed to their respective Findagrave memorials by Barbara Worthley.

Here, in a pair of photographs from Vol. 95, page 4876 of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS-Mass) photograph collection, is James Oliver, June 1862 graduate of the Harvard Medical School and newly appointed Assistant Surgeon of the 31st Massachusetts Infantry (left, 1862) and Surgeon of the 61st Massachusetts (right, 1864-65).

He treated wounded soldiers in a barn near the Burnside Bridge during the battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862, and for some three months after the battle at the Locust Spring Farm hospital near Keedysville, MD.