behind AotW

Another excellent photograph from Jim Silliman’s album.

He’s Roland LeVaughn, a mechanic from Rocky Hill, CT. He enlisted in Company C of the 16th Connecticut as a Private, was promoted to Corporal in Maryland in September 1862, and was appointed First Sergeant of Company A in December 1863, which must have been about when this picture was taken.

Roland and his brother William (First Sergeant, Company C) were both prisoners of war at Andersonville, GA. William died there on 7 September 1864 and Roland died in a prison in Charleston, SC about two weeks later.

Here’s another soldier of the 16th Connecticut from the collection of Jim Silliman: Ezra Thomas Burgess of Company E. He was promoted to First Sergeant on the field at Antietam – his new stripes seen here – and survived imprisonment at Andersonville.

A poke in January from James Silliman set me on the path to greatly improve my collection of information about the soldiers of the ill-fated 16th Connecticut Infantry on the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Among several fine photographs he sent me from his collection is this one of Robert Hale Kellogg.

He was an 18 year old Private at Antietam and was promoted to Sergeant of Company A, then Sergeant Major of the regiment in 1863.

After his experience as a prisoner of war in 1864 he wrote Life and Death in Rebel Prisons: Giving a Complete History of the Inhuman and Barbarous Treatment of Our Brave Soldiers by Rebel Authorities, Inflicting Terrible Suffering and Frightful Mortality, Principally at Andersonville, Ga., and Florence, S.C. (1867) – GoogleBooks offers a copy online.