behind AotW

This cheerful-looking young man is George Pierce Dozier, son of Augustus, of Lexington in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. He enlisted in Company K, 6th Georgia Infantry in December 1861 but his military record ends with the roll of 31 August 1862, when he was marked present.

“No further record” can mean any number of things, but in this case, it meant the worst. George, then 19 years old, was killed in action in the Miller Cornfield at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

Private Fleming Powers, Company K, 6th Georgia Infantry was mortally wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. He died in a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 29 January 1863.

Details of his medical treatment are seen in this extract from the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870).

Private John L McMurria of the 6th Georgia Infantry survived a wound at Sharpsburg in September 1862 and the rest of the war, rising to 2nd Lieutenant by the end of 1864. Afterward he “tried farming” but was probably not very successful, as he was dependent on his wife by the 1890s. He was infirm and his wife and two children were dead by 1901 and he began receiving a Confederate pension in 1903.

Here’s the cover of his 1904 pension application, from the Georgia Archives Virtual Vault.

Captain Harrison Gray Otis Weymouth commanded the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry at Antietam in September 1862 after Colonel Hinks and Lieutenant Colonel Devereaux were wounded, and was himself severely wounded at Fredericksburg, VA in December and lost his leg. In May 1864 he was commissioned Major, First US Volunteer Infantry, and served on guard duty with “a cork leg” at Point Lookout, MD. He mustered out in November 1865.

He’s among the officers of the regiment in this 1861 photograph (arm crossed, in front of the taller tent), in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

Former Harvard student and West Point Cadet Arthur Forrester Devereux was in business in Chicago by 1854 with partner Elmer Ellsworth. He became an expert in the new Zouave infantry drill, and taught Ellsworth’s Chicago (later United States) Zouave Cadets. By September 1862 he was Lieutenant Colonel, and he commanded the 19th Massachusetts Infantry briefly at Antietam after Colonel Hinks was wounded and until he was himself wounded. He was promoted to Colonel in May 1863 and resigned in February 1864.

The colorful illustration above is on the cover of a piece of sheet music published in Chicago in 1860. The officer with crossed arms is pretty clearly meant to be Elmer Ellsworth, killed in Alexandria, VA in May 1861 – the first Union officer to die in the war. That’s him below, in a portrait after a Brady photograph, now in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, photographed by Billy Hathorn.

There’s not much in the record for poor Private James W. Glover of the 6th Georgia Infantry, but some considerable effort has gone into finding and marking his burial place.

He enlisted at age 25 in early 1862, was listed as missing at Sharpsburg in September, and as absent without leave in April 1864. He returned to duty, though, only to be mortally wounded at Bentonville, NC in March 1865.

He died at the Harper House hospital near the battlefield and was initially buried there, but was moved to near the Confederate Memorial on the battlefield with 19 other soldiers when that monument was dedicated in 1895. Later lost, those burial spots were again located and marked by archaeologists in 2006-2010.

This is an 1898 photograph of the Memorial at Bentonville, found on page 71 of the journal North Carolina Archaeology (October 2011) in a piece about the 2006-2010 re-discovery of Glover and 19 other Confederate soldiers buried there.

That’s Daniel Henry Harrison Arline in the big hat, front row, among some the 15 surviving of his 19 (!) children and their families in Sanderson, Florida in about 1915. The youngest, Sophronia Arline Williams (b. 1897), died in Tampa in 1985. The inset is of Daniel in about 1861. These photographs were provided to the Family Search database by Richard McBride.

In 1861 he was Private Arline, 6th Georgia Infantry, and he was captured at Sharpsburg in September 1862. He was with the 2nd Florida Cavalry by the end of the war and spent most of the rest of his long life in Florida. He was said to be skilled as a farmer, veterinarian, carpenter & coffin maker, butcher, and even extractor of teeth.

Sergeant Newton Cooper was promoted to Sergeant of Company F, 6th Georgia Infantry by September 1862, when he was captured in action at Sharpsburg. He was exchanged and back with his Company in November, but in August 1863 he took off without leave, possibly to get married. He stayed home in Georgia and served in the 29th Battalion George Cavalry until April 1864, when he returned to the 6th Infantry.

After the war he farmed in Warren County near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and became famous as “the Watermelon Man” for his seeds and for producing exceptionally large melons. This photograph is from the J. Mack Moore Collection, Old Court House Museum, Vicksburg.

Known as “Zeph”, Zephaniah Anson Fowler married Elizabeth Ann “Betsy” Glover (c.1822-1897) in June 1840, and they had at least 5 and as many as 9 children. Here they are in a pre-war photograph originally shared on a Glover family website [now gone].

He was First Lieutenant of Company E, 6th Georgia Infantry at Sharpsburg in September 1862, and was listed as missing in action there. He was back with his Company and promoted to Captain by March 1863, but was elected to the Georgia state legislature in 1863, 1864 and 1865, and may have been granted leave from his Company to attend legislative sessions. He resigned his commission sometime after April 1864.

This portrait of Colonel Dixon Barnes of the 12th South Carolina Infantry is in the SC Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, Columbia, hosted online by Ben Cwayna of the 12th South Carolina/4th Michigan Volunteers (reenacted) [now gone]. Thanks to Andy Cardinal for the point to it. In September 1862 …

… Barnes had been put under arrest by Jackson for allowing his hungry men to take apples from a tree against orders, and Gregg [his brigade commander] felt he could not release him from the arrest. Pale and stern faced, [A. P.] Hill said ‘General Gregg, I order you to give Colonel Barnes his sword and put him in command of his Regiment.’ Barnes was thus placed back in command of the 12th South Carolina. Barnes had been willing to serve in the ranks rather than miss the fight.

The Colonel was shot through both knees at Sharpsburg and died of his wounds 10 days later.