behind AotW

John Benson Williams, US Military Academy Class of May 1861, was First Lieutenant, 3rd United States Infantry at Antietam in September 1862, and commanded Company G there.

Antietam was the peak of his young military career, however, as he was sentenced by a Court Martial to be dismissed from the service in February 1863, having “left his command on the battlefield and returned to Washington, without leave and in known violation of orders and of his duty.”

In this note of 18 March 1863, President Lincoln, famously soft-hearted in these matters, asked Army Judge-Advocate General Joseph Holt to see if there weren’t mitigating circumstances that would allow him to return Lieutenant Williams to duty. He was presumably referring to Williams having been ill since sometime in December 1862:

The answer came back in the negative, Holt reiterating that Williams “has shown himself disqualified for the profession of arms,” so on 11 April 1863 the President endorsed the sentence of the Court, writing “I decline to interfere in Behalf of Lieut. Williams.”

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Notes

Lieutenant Williams’ picture above is from a CDV sold on ebay, date unknown; it was captured and archived by Worthpoint.

The Lincoln letter was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in 2008. The image of it is from Sotheby’s, and details surrounding it are from Dr. James M. Cornelius, Curator, Lincoln Collection, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

The original of this letter is again up for sale (as of January 2023), by Houle Rare Books and Autographs, with an online listing through Abe Books.

The President’s endorsement of 11 April 1863 is found in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), Vol. 6, pg. 169.

This is the packet ship Saranak of the Cope Line entering port with a steam tug at Philadelphia, PA in a brilliant watercolor by David Johnson Kennedy of August 1851.

Irish-born Antietam veteran Colwell Carr of the First Pennsylvania Reserves was a passenger on that ship from Liverpool to Philadelphia in May 1849. He settled in Media just west of the city and was a wool dyer at the start of the Civil War.

The tenth of Colwell and Mary Waugh Carr’s eleven children was Richard Isaac Downey Carr (1876-1963). I’d love to hear from anyone who knows about his Downey namesake.

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The original of this painting is in the collection of the Historical Society of Philadelphia, and is online in their Digital Library.

See a little more about Thomas P Cope and his ships also online from the HSP.

Here’s a lovely photograph of 3 couples taken by Le Rue Lemer in Harrisburg, PA, probably in late 1866 or early 1867.

That’s Captain Marcus Albert Reno, First United States Cavalry, left front, and his wife Mary Hanna Ross (1843-1874; m. 1863), behind him. Reno commanded a detachment of the First Cavalry at Antietam at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, but is much better known for his role at Little Big Horn in 1874.

Back right is Edwin Vose Sumner, Jr. (1835-1912), also Captain in the First Cavalry. He was not at Antietam, though his father certainly was. That’s probably his wife Margaret Snodgrass Foster (1844-1910) to his right; they married in Harrisburg in January 1866.

The third man is identified as Harrisburg attorney Lyman DeHuff Gilbert (1845-1914, Yale ’65), who 13 years later, in 1879, successfully defended then-Major Reno before an Army court of inquiry into his actions at Little Big Horn. The third woman is not identified. Gilbert was unmarried and living with his wealthy parents at the 1870 US Census, so probably no wife in 1866.
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This photograph was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2007.

The Heritage cataloger identified Captain E.V. Sumner as son of Senator Charles Sumner, which is perhaps obviously incorrect. Not least because Senator Sumner didn’t marry until 1866, fathered no children, and was divorced in 1874.