behind AotW

Big thanks to intrepid researcher Laura Elliott for finding and sharing the following clipping from the Augusta, GA Weekly Constitutionalist of 3 December 1862. She also posted it (and a transcription) to the Civil War Talk discussion group.

The primary subject of the letter quoted here was First Lieutenant John L. Claiborne, who was in command of Company E, 2nd Georgia Infantry when he was mortally wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. He died sometime during the night after the battle.

Here’s what I’ve found about the other named individuals:

The letter’s author, William A Campbell, was born about 1830 in North Carolina and in 1860 was a married 30 year old attorney of modest means with 3 children living in Morganton, GA. He enrolled on 26 April 1861 as the original Captain of the “Joe Browns” – Company E of the 2nd Georgia Infantry. He was ill in the first months of 1862 and retired or was dropped on 28 April 1862 during the Army reorganization, perhaps then on sick furlough, and probably because he was not reelected Captain. He requested duty in Georgia as an enrolling officer in May 1862, but does not appear to have been appointed. He died in Morganton in 1864.

Battle witness Robert F Murray (wounded and captured at Sharpsburg) was wounded again and disabled for further field service in the Wilderness in 1864 but survived to be paroled in North Carolina in May 1865. I found no further information about him.

Corporal P.K. (or D.K.) Williams died of his wounds in a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 21 April 1863. He was then 28 years old. The only available military records for him are from US Army medical files created after Antietam.

Private George W. Gosnell [Gaswell] died of wounds at the Locust Spring field hospital on the Geeting farm near Keedysville, MD on 6 October 1862.

Private William M. Cole survived the war to be surrendered at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865. I found no further information about him.

Going by Hervey, and sometimes seen as Junior, probably after his grandfather, James Hervey Dingle of the Clarendon District of South Carolina was the 38 year old Major of the Hampton Legion when he was killed at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. The Legion was part of General John Bell Hood’s Division and was engaged in ferocious combat in and near Miller’s Cornfield that morning [map].

The shoulder bars on his coat are a bit unusual, but probably represent the rank of First Lieutenant, which he held from 25 April to 20 June 1862, before his appointment to Major.

These photographs were graciously shared by descendant Jeff Dingle, who owns the originals.

As a member of Florida’s Secession Convention of January 1861, wealthy planter William Thomas Gregory voted against leaving the Union, but about a year later he enrolled as a Captain in the 5th Florida Infantry for Confederate Service. He gave his life to that cause, being mortally wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

Great-great-great-grandson Russell Suber kindly sent me a copy of his fine photograph of a fierce looking Captain Gregory.