behind AotW

Another Sharpsburg veteran who was a post-war Texas state legislator, this is William Henry Burges, Jr. in about 1880, in a photograph shared online in several places by family genealogists.

He’s in this composite photograph of the Texas State Senate of 1881-83 (17th Legislature) from the Texas State Preservation Board, Austin, which is online among other references to Burges’s legislative history thanks to the Texas Legislative Reference Library. Senator Burges is at the bottom left.

Here’s Walter Moses Burton (c. 1829-1913), the man missing from that group photograph.

Here’s the top of a card for William C. Steele from his United States Mexican War Service Records, US National Archives (poke it to see the whole thing). Steele had later service as a Sergeant in the 4th Texas Infantry and was at Sharpsburg in September 1862. He lost a leg at Chickamauga, GA a year later, but went home to a farm in Grimes County.

Here’s newly elected Texas State Representative Burlington Wesley Rimes in 1873. His picture, probably from a collective composite of all the members of that legislature, is in the Lawrence T. Jones III Collection, Southern Methodist University.

Rimes was a Private in Maryland in 1862, and was left behind, sick, in Frederick – captured there on 12 September.

Lieutenant Middleton L. Livingston was in action with Company C, 4th Texas Infantry in Maryland in 1862.

He had been a physician in Milam County before the war and was a farmer there for most of the rest of his life. He was elected Sheriff in 1876 and this photograph was probably taken about that time. It’s online from the Milam County Historical Commission.

Courtland Lynn, Private, Company C, 4th New Jersey Infantry was wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He and the regiment had been engaged at Crampton’s Gap on South Mountain 3 days earlier, but he came safely out of that action. They were largely in reserve at Antietam, but that’s where Private Lynn was hit.

Just over 20 years later Lynn applied for a veteran’s pension – which is what triggered this correspondence from the War Department to the Commissioner of Pensions.

It’s an excellent summary of his service and helps nail down where he was wounded. It also hints at a casualty list for his Brigade: the First of the 1st Division, 6th Army Corps. Another project for me …

This letter and the initial pointer to Lynn are from his great grandson John Courtland Lynn. The very best kind of source.

Private Hugh Whitesides of the 4th Texas Infantry “gave himself up” to US troops at Cherry Run, VA (WV) on 19 July 1863 and was sent to Camp Chase, OH, where he swore the oath seen here, made his mark, and was released.

I’m guessing he left his regiment somewhere near Falling Waters on 14 or 15 July as the Army was returning/retreating from Gettysburg, PA.

I don’t know much about Hugh, except that he was probably born in Ireland, was a shepherd in Travis County, Texas before the war, and was 27 years old when he took that oath. I’ve found nothing on what became of him afterward.

Company B of the 4th Texas Infantry had a little white terrier as a mascot, given them by an Austin confectioner at the start of the war (said Ted Alexander).

Among the soldiers on his roster of the the Company, Val C. Giles listed the dog:

I don’t know of a picture of Candy, but here’s a famous white military terrier of a later generation – Willie – from Life magazine of 28 August 1944:

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Giles’ roster is in the Confederate Veteran magazine of January 1918, pages 20-23.

Sharpsburg veteran Joe E Jones of the 4th Texas Infantry was a Tennessee native and returned there after the war.

Here he is in later years in his United Confederate Veterans (UCV) jacket, from his obituary in the Confederate Veteran magazine of September 1899.

Private William F. Ford of the Tom Green Rifles, Company B, 4th Texas Infantry had an extraordinary war.

At Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 he and his regiment were part of Hood’s Division’s devastating charge into Miller’s cornfield early that morning. But that wasn’t enough for Ford.

He was captured at Gettysburg in July 1863 and sent to the US prison at Fort Delaware. From which he escaped in August or early September. Not an easy thing, as shown by the fate of Hoxey Whiteside, Company G of the 4th Texas, who attempted such an escape a couple of months after Ford, in November 1863, but drowned in the Delaware River.

Private Ford “passed through parts of Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland in the disguise of a citizen, arriving safely in Richmond” and, not a shy man, made a request for a furlough directly to the CSA’s Adjutant General, General Samuel Cooper – “hoping sir, that you will grant this favor.” Cooper did.

He was commissioned Junior 2nd Lieutenant of his Company on 1 April 1864 “for valor and skill” and distinguished himself in combat again, in the Wilderness of Virginia, where he was wounded in the leg on 6 May 1864. He was promoted to Senior 2nd Lieutenant on 16 June.

In addition to all this, his is the second case [first, here] I’ve found of a Confederate officer applying to raise and command a “negro regiment.”

He made that request on about 12 March 1865 through his military chain of command, and a week later wrote to John H Reagan, the Postmaster General of the Confederate States, asking for help in expediting it.

Reagan forward a positive recommendation to Secretary of War Breckenridge on 22 March. The reply came back the same day (cover below).

Word got to Lieutenant Ford on 30 March 1865. It was largely a moot point by then, anyway – Federal troops entered Richmond 4 days later.

He was surrendered and paroled at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865, and went home to Austin, Texas. He died there in 1875.

Colonel Isaac J Wistar commanded the California Regiment (designated the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry) at Antietam and was later commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers.

Here he is wearing some serious epaulettes.

To compare, here are two pictures of him as a much younger man.

He was halfway in age between the two lower views when he took off across the continent from Philadelphia to find gold in California in 1849. Quite an adventure. He only came back 12 years later because of the war …

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All three pictures are from his posthumously published Autobiography of Isaac Jones Wistar, 1827-1905 (1914). It’s online [Volume 1 | Volume 2] from the Internet Archives. It’s a pretty good read, actually, especially his diary entries from his 1849 trip to California.

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The interesting Wistar artifact below was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2008. The accompanying photograph is very similar to the one at the top of this post, and was probably taken in the same session

[Bullet that Grazed the Head of Brigadier General Isaac J. Wistar]

From the seller: A mushroomed Confederate minié ball is preserved in a inlaid period frame with a CDV of the general and a 5″ x 2″ Autograph Note Signed, reading as follows: