behind AotW

This is John J Creech, late 3rd Lieutenant of Company H, 17th South Carolina Infantry, a veteran of the Maryland Campaign of 1862. He was one of 6 brothers with War service, and all of them survived it.

Starling Jeter Creech (1827-1912) – Corporal, Co. B, 2nd SC Reserve Infantry; Private, Battery G, 2nd South Carolina Light Artillery
John Jackson “Jack” Creech (1832-1883) – 3rd Lieutenant, Co. H, 17th South Carolina Infantry
George William “Billy” Creech (1836-1909) – Private, Co. H, 17th South Carolina Infantry
Richard C Creech (1837-1913) – Private, Co. H, 17th South Carolina Infantry; Private, Battery G, 2nd South Carolina Light Artillery
James Stafford “Jimmy” Creech (1838-1926) – Private, Co. H, 17th South Carolina Infantry
Lewis Barnwell Creech (1843-1919) – Private, Co. H, 17th South Carolina Infantry

Thanks to descendant Larry Hutto for the pointer to the Creech family and for John’s photograph.

26 year old Corporal John Yates was killed at Antietam on 17 September 1862. This (slightly damaged) photograph was probably taken in the Spring of 1861 soon after he enlisted in the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry in Racine.

I found this copy in a goldmine of a book called Racine County Militant: An Illustrated Narrative of War Times, and a Soldiers’ Roster (1915). It’s online from the Internet Archives (and others) and includes some 200 mostly war-era portrait photographs of Racine soldiers, most far nicer than this one of Corporal Yates. I’ll be going back to it again in the future.

Thanks to John Banks for starting me down the path to this photograph and to Shannon Cheney and Gina Radandt at the Kenosha Civil War Museum for sharing a version of this photo from their collection that led to Racine Militant.

Private Jasper Stanford Harris of the 16th Connecticut Infantry survived combat at Antietam in 1862 and imprisonment at Andersonville in 1864 and went on to have a long, ordinary, and one hopes peaceful life. He lived 87 years and was still working his small home farm and painting the neighbor’s houses at 77 in 1920.

Here he is in a photograph probably taken shortly after he enlisted in the 16th Connecticut Infantry in late July 1862. It was contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by Micki Dischinger.

Private Jason Ebenezer Twiss, Company I, 16th Connecticut Infantry was 30 years old when he was killed at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He left a widow, Augusta, and 5 year old son Frederick. His second son Robert was born about two months after the battle.

This photograph was likely taken about the time of his enlistment in August 1862 and is from the FamilySearch database.

As you probably know, nearly all 1890 United States Census records were destroyed in a fire in 1921 leaving a permanent information gap familiar to historians and genealogists. Not so familiar, I expect, are a set of special veteran’s schedules the Bureau collected during the 1890 Census, most of which survived.

This Special Schedule was particularly valuable to me in learning about a mystery soldier of the 16th Connecticut Infantry.

He enlisted as Lewis Bulgick, a Private in Company H in August 1862, was wounded at Antietam on 17 September, and was discharged from the service for disability in February 1863.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to learn more about Private Bulgick, with little luck. Other regimental researchers before me have had this same problem – all the way back to his fellow veterans in the 1890s. I found a little for him in Massachusetts records of the 1860s and 70s, but nothing about his ancestry, birth, or death.

Then I stumbled upon a page of the 1890 Special Schedule for Southbridge, MA. Here it is (click to enlarge):

There on row 35 is the key: he also used the alias Louis Bolduc, his birth name, it turns out. With that I was easily able to find his Québécois parents and 17 (!) siblings, birth and death information, the works. Very satisfying.

I do not know why he used the Bulgick name instead of the one he was born with – but I believe he consciously chose it, it’s not just a phonetic mis-transcription: in addition to enlisting as Bulgick, he also gave that name to the 1860 and 1870 census enumerators and the Massachusetts towns where some of his 8 or more babies were born. Some of his children seem to have later used Bulgick (or variations) and some Bolduc.

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For much more detail about the history of the 1890 Special Schedule, see First in the Path of the Firemen by Kelee Blake in the National Archives’ journal Prologue for Spring 1996.

I got my copy of this particular page from Ancestry.com.

This fine photograph was contributed to John Henry Burnham‘s memorial by Chris Van Blargan. It was taken in Hartford, CT by Bartlett & Webster, probably soon after he was commissioned in August 1862.

Burnham was Adjutant of the 16th Connecticut Infantry at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and had the sad task of accounting for the field burials of the soldiers of the regiment who were killed there.

While researching her 2014 book about the regiment, Dr Lesley Gordon compiled a roster after my own heart, including pre- and post-war details not usually found in military records. She shared a spreadsheet containing her data on her book’s page. I’ve posted a copy here in the event that page ever goes away.

Here’s how she describes it:

This database of men who served in the regiment originated with the state of Connecticut’s Adjutant Generals Office Reports from 1862, 1869, and 1889. As I accumulated more (and sometimes conflicting) information, I filled in gaps and made corrections (especially birth and death dates, and postwar occupations) from the biographical materials collected [by] Ira Forbes and George Whitney … Death and birth dates seemed to have had the greatest inconsistencies in the various sources, and I tried to confirm these by cross-checking the U.S. census, bound regimental records, pension records, obituaries, local histories, as well as a comprehensive unit roster compiled by Scott Holmes. Thus, readers should be alerted that some discrepancies still remain here …

There may be discrepancies or minor issues, but it’s fantastic that she posted this online for anyone to use; it’s a rare and beautiful thing. Huzzah, Dr Gordon!

And I wish I’d found this earlier. It would have saved me untold hours with its clues to some of the more elusive men of the 16th at Antietam.

Orators at many alumni gatherings have spoken of the gallantry of Lieutenant Samuel Hopkins Thompson, the young Civil War hero, who led his men to the charge at Antietam and died crying, “Form on me, boys, form on me.”

— Claude Moore Fuess in Phillips Academy, Andover in the Great War, a talk at Yale, New Haven, CT in 1919 [online]

Well, no, it probably didn’t happen that way.

A former Phillips Academy student, Samuel H Thompson, the First Lieutenant of Company H, 16th Connecticut Infantry died at home in Connecticut on 22 October 1862. He was 19 years old.

It’s not clear what killed him, though lots of literary and genealogical references – even his grave marker – attribute it directly to the battle of Antietam. His military record does not mention his being wounded in the combat there and he’s not on the usual hospital lists. An undocumented wound? An illness he caught on the Campaign?

Something of a mystery.

See also: his good friend and possibly romantic interest, best selling author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.

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This photograph of his grave marker was contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by Jim Bancroft.

This fine image is from the collection of John Claudius Buchanan‘s great-great-great-granddaughter Sarah Boye. Buchanan enrolled as First Lieutenant in 1861 and was promoted to Captain of Company D of the 8th Michigan Infantry on 1 September 1862.

20 years later he very succinctly described his part and that of his Company in the 1862 Maryland Campaign to his son Claude:

This is from Claude Robinson Buchanan’s 1882 diary, in which he recorded his father’s War Records. Transcription thanks to Sarah Boye. The original is in the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

There are several stones in the Antietam National Cemetery for men who were actually buried elsewhere.

Readers occasionally ask about this, and I can never find them when I want them, hence this list.  It will evolve as I learn more.

 
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The photo of Henry Struble’s marker is from his Find-a-grave memorial, and was contributed by user John in Maryland.