behind AotW

Here’s another excuse to show you Surgeon B. A. Vanderkieft‘s fabulous signature. In this case, on a certificate for Corporal Edmund Davis of the 35th Massachusetts Infantry, who suffered a terrible wound to his right thigh at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He recovered, in the sense that he didn’t die, but was afterward permanently disabled.

Davis returned to Massachusetts, studied the law, and began a lifelong career as a lawyer.

Sadly, nearly 35 years later, he killed himself – under threat of arrest for losing $30,000 of a client’s money in bad investments:

complete article: page 1 | page 2

Notes

His Certificate is among Corporal Davis’ Compiled Service Records at the National Archives; I got this copy from the fold3 collection.

The clipping and picture above are from a lengthy piece about Davis and his death published on the first two pages of the Boston Globe on 10 July 1897. These are online [page 1 | page 2] from newspapers.com

First Sergeant Oliver Peter Forbes was seriously wounded in the thigh at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and his surgeon thought he’d recovered by the end of the year, but he later faded and died of his wound in a field hospital at Keedysville. This notice is from the New York Times of 4 June 1863:

This item from the Frederick Examiner of 29 April 1863 is online thanks to Crossroads of War from the Catoctin Center for Regional Studies. My transcription:

About 3 o’clock on last Saturday afternoon, Mr. D Keplinger, living near the Battle field of Antietam, came to his death through the bursting of a conical shell. He was trying to remove the screw or cap of the shell found on the field, when it exploded, blowing off two of his fingers and driving the cap through his leg, severing the femoral artery. He lingered about eight hours, when death terminated his sufferings. He leaves a wife and children.

There were quite a number of Keplingers living in Sharpsburg and elsewhere in Washington County at the 1860 US Census, but I haven’t found a good match for this one.