behind AotW

Joseph S Hayden of Company E, 13th Georgia Infantry survived a slight wound at Sharpsburg in 1862 but was mortally wounded and captured at Gettysburg in 1863.

Here are the two pages of notes US Surgeon Newcombe kept about Hayden’s treatment in the hospital at Camp Letterman up to his death on 30 August 1863. I found these among his Compiled Service Records, National Archives, online from fold3. Touch to enlarge.

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Dr. James Newcombe was Acting Assistant Surgeon, US Army and in charge of a ward in the General Hospital at Camp Letterman near Gettysburg, PA by August 1863 and to at least October 1863. He was probably a contract physician with the Army and may have been the James Newcombe who graduated from medical school at Victoria College, Cobourg, Ontario, Canada in 1860.

Here’s an artifact concerning Sharpsburg veteran Lieutenant John Nimrod Ferguson, 13th Georgia Infantry, while he was a prisoner at Point Lookout, MD. He’d been wounded at Monocacy Junction and captured in July 1864 on Early’s raid.

Ferguson survived the war and was Constable of Shiloh in Union Parish, LA when he was murdered in 1887 at age 49.

This telegram form is among the papers which make up his Compiled Service Records at the National Archives, and is online thanks to fold3. It is a fascinating look into a corner of the late-war prisoner exchange system. My transcription below.

United States Military Telegraph.
By Telegraph from Washington DC
Dated Sept 29 3.48 P 1864
To Brig Genl Barnes

By authority of the Secy of War you will please send by this evenings Boat to Fort Monroe First Lieut J. N. Ferguson 13th Georgia to be delivered to the senior Naval Officer at Hampton Roads for exchange.

Send him under a guard. Reply [Respectfully?]

W. Hoffman
C.G.P.

Lt. Benj F Southwick
Co. C. 5th Mass

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Notes on the document

The commanding officer at Point Lookout was Brigadier General James Barnes. He was previously Colonel of the 18th Massachusetts and commanded a Brigade in the Fifth Army Corps at Antietam.

C.G.P = Office of Commissary General of Prisoners, Washington, DC

William Hoffman (1807-1884, USMA 1828), Colonel of the 3rd US Infantry, was Commissary General of Prisoners with charge of all US prisons, prison camps, and prison hospitals. His headquarters were in Washington, DC.

Here’s a lovely c. 1865 photograph of him (standing on steps at right) at that headquarters office from the Library of Congress.

Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Southwick (1835-1906), former Sergeant in the 9-month 5th Massachusetts of 1862-63, was 2nd Lieutenant of Company C for their 100-day stint from July to November 1864. The 5th Massachusetts were on garrison duty in and around Baltimore in that period. I do not know why Lieutenant Southwick’s name appears on this document.

After the war he was a successful wholesale fruit and produce dealer in Peabody and a state legislator (1888-92).

Henry Clay Reeves of Company I, 13th Georgia Infantry survived a wound at Sharpsburg in 1862 but lost his left arm above the elbow at Spotsylvania Court House in 1864.

He married Permelia Catherine Jones in 1866 and died at age 82, two months after she did, in their 60th anniversary year.

I’d guess this photograph was taken on their 50th in 1916 or similar occasion. It was shared online to the FamilySearch database by Henry Sikes.