behind AotW

Given the moniker George Samuel Franklin David Worcester at birth, he dropped the Franklin and David as a young man to be afterward known as George Samuel Worcester. He was a Sergeant in the 13th Massachusetts Infantry when he was wounded at Antietam in September 1862. After recovering, he was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery and was successively promoted to Major by the end of the war.

He’s pictured here at that rank in an Alexander Gardner photograph in the MOLLUS Massachusetts Collection at the US Army Heritage and Education Center.

There’s another copy of this image, on a CDV, in the Boston Public Library.

This excellent CDV of Theodore Burr Gates is from the collection of descendant Piera Weiss who kindly provided us a scanned copy.

Then their Lieutenant Colonel, Gates commanded his regiment in battle on South Mountain on 14 September and at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He was promoted to Colonel soon afterward, and was brevetted Brigadier General of Volunteers in March 1865.

He returned to his law practice after his term expired in late 1864, but also continued in state service and was commissioned Major General in the New York Militia in 1867.

Corporal Addison A. Townsend of Company I, 3rd Wisconsin Infantry was wounded at Antietam in September 1862 and discharged as disabled for further military service in April 1863.

Here he is in about 1883 in a lovely photograph cared for by his great-great-granddaughter Nancy Faulkner Brooke and sent to us by Tony Townsend.

You’ll notice the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) pin on his tie – in 1883 he was a founding member of the Union G.A.R. Post 96 in Shullsburg, WI (later renamed for their first commander Thomas H. Oates). He was the last surviving member of the post at his death at age 87 in 1926.