behind AotW

This is Private David Kellum Brinson, from Plains, GA, probably taken shortly after he enlisted in Company H of the 13th Georgia in July 1861. I’m guessing the small card in his hand is a photograph or other memento his his soon-to-be wife Martha Gilbert Van Valkenburg.

He was promoted on the field at Sharpsburg to Sergeant in September 1862, but seriously wounded in the groin/bladder and disabled at Gettysburg in July 1863.

His Gettysburg wound was still troubling him 25 years later, and probably continued to do so to his death at age 57 in 1899.

This photograph was shared on ancestry.com by family genealogist W R B Whittier in 2010.

Private Joseph Andrew Roe of Company G, 13th Georgia Infantry was wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. Several later muster roll records say he enlisted in Frederick, MD only days before, on either 5 or 15 September:

Although fun to imagine he was wounded as few as two days after joining his Company, I think it unlikely.

First, because neither 5 nor 15 September were dates on which a man could have enlisted in the Confederate Army in Frederick, MD. Confederate troops first arrived in that city on the 6th and the last units departed on the 13th.

More definitively, there’s this pay record for him dated 24 September 1862 – when he was in Richmond recovering – that suggests he probably enlisted on 16 May 1862 with other recruits for the Company, at Causton’s Bluff near Savannah, GA.

The muster roll card and pay voucher above are from Roe’s Compiled Military Service Record jacket at the US National Archives, online from fold3.

Falton K Lewis was about 20 years old when he was hit by a gunshot to his thigh at Sharpsburg, MD on 17 September 1862. He died of his wound in a hospital in Richmond, VA on the last day of 1862 and someone there took an inventory of his possessions.

Money in Confederate notes $120.00
In shinplasters 1.00
” Postage Stamps 20
” Greensboro note 50

An example of an 1862 Confederate note:

The annotation on the Inventory “$120.75 good” probably deducts the dollar in “shinplasters” – privately issued notes of less than one dollar value, generally reviled – thought not worth their face value. Here’s just such a shinplaster issued by a New Orleans coffeehouse owner in 1862:

A typical 1862 Confederate postage stamp:

The Greensboro note probably looked something like this:

Private Lewis’ Inventory of Effects is from his Compiled Service Record jacket at he US National Archives, this copy online from fold3.