behind AotW

Sergeant Alexander Hamilton Keyser, Company F, 33rd Virginia Infantry was wounded at Sharpsburg, probably carried his regiment’s colors at Gettysburg, and was appointed Ensign in April 1864, but was captured at Spotsylvania Court House, VA the next month and spent the rest of the war a prisoner at Fort Delaware.

Here he is, probably as a new enlistee in June 1861, in a photograph contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by user csareb.

John Pendleton Hite of the 33rd Virginia Infantry was never officially appointed Sergeant, but did serve as such in November and December 1862, which helps date this photograph, contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by Bryan Watson.

John sent a letter home shortly after the great battle at Sharpsburg of 17 September 1862 in which he describes his experience in Maryland:

Sept 21st
Camp near Martinsburgh [VA]

Dear Bettie:

As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter I embrace it. We are now about 6 miles below Martinsburgh on the road that leads to Williamsport. Since I last wrote I have been in Maryland 4 days, not there long enough to form an opinion about it. On Wednesday last there was a hard battle fought near Sharpsburgh MD. Some parts of the battle field we repulsed the yankees, whilst in others they repulsed us, neither party can claim much of a victory to my opinion. We captured a good many prisoners they also done the same. The next day after the battle I went over a good deal of the battle field; found the dead yankees at least twice as thick as ours. We were taken in the evening before the general engagement. I went in with them but as I have not been exchanged yet to a certainty the Capt. sent me to the rear. I went out under a strong cannonading, had many shells to burst all around me, one solid cannon ball rolled between my legs; supposed it would have broken my leg if it had struck it. The ball passed on some distance struck a solid fence rail which stoped it I then went to it. Capt. Walton will make out a report of my being captured, will send it to Jackson, then if I have not been exchanged I will be released immediately. I have not taken a gun yet, of course the officers will not let me until they know I have been exchanged.

John T. Johnston, George Griffith, A.H. Keyser are the wounded my company. G. B. Long missing supposed to be killed or badly wounded & captured. The Capt. told me this morning, that he expected I would be appointed Serg. Major of the Regt. you need not let the news get out of the family for the present. We captured the whole yankee force at Harpers Ferry about 13000 strong with every thing that is necessary to equip such an army which of course is a great deal.

I don’t know if the Dixie Artillery was in the recent engagement. Col. Buswell & son got to us this morning. If you see B. F. Coffman or any one that is coming to our company tell them to enquire at Winchester Post Office for a letter or letters for me individually. If you answer this send it by some one for I cannot tell where we will be soon.
John

I’m not sure who Bettie was, though his sister Sarah Elizabeth (1843-1863) is a good candidate – especially as he requested the news of his possible promotion “not … get out of the family for the present.” John was not married, though he may have had a sweetheart before he left home in 1861.

The Dixie Artillery, also formed in Page County, was indeed on the Maryland Campaign, under the command of Captain William H Chapman, though largely in reserve at Sharpsburg.

The letter quoted above is from Harlan R. Jessup’s The Painful News I Have to Write, Letters and Diaries of Four Hite Brothers of Page County in the Service of the Confederacy (1998). Thanks to the reenactors of The Stonewall Brigade for the transcription, shared via Facebook.

While looking into Private David Brinson (previous blog post) of the 13th Georgia Infantry, or more specifically, his wife Martha, I bumped back into her older brother James Dunbar Van Valkenburgh.

Captain Van Valkenburgh was briefly in command of his regiment, the 61st Georgia Infantry at Sharpsburg before being wounded in combat there. He was promoted to Major on the field at Gettysburg in July 1863 and was Lieutenant Colonel when he was killed on the Monocacy in July 1864.

Here are James, wearing very large Major’s stars, and his wife Mary E. K. Morgan. She was about 16 year old when they married in 1852 – this picture of her may have been taken about that time.

Both photographs are in the collection of The Cannonball House in Macon, GA, and were published in the Howling Dawg (August 2018) – the newsletter of the reenactors of the 16th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company G.

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.