behind AotW

Alamance County farmer Solomon Moore, 27, was mortally wounded in action on 17 September 1862 at Sharpsburg and died on the 27th. His photograph here, kindly provided by Tom Rice, was probably taken shortly after he had enlisted as Private, Company K, 6th North Carolina Infantry in June 1861.

Here are the field and staff officers of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry – the “Harvard Regiment” – in 1861 in Boston. They are (L-R) Surgeon Henry Bryant, Lieutenant Colonel Francis W. Palfrey, Quartermaster Charles W. Folsom, Colonel William Raymond Lee, Major Paul J. Revere, Adjutant Charles L. Peirson, Assistant Surgeon Nathan Hayward (all identified by Peirson).

This Photograph was published in the Harvard Crimson in 2014, probably from a carte-de-visite in the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Surgeon Alexander Nelson Dougherty of New Jersey was acting 2nd Army Corps Medical Director in Maryland and was in charge of the Corps field hospital on the Susan Hoffman farm just north of Sharpsburg during and after the battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862. His carte-de-visite (CDV) in the New Jersey State Archives.

Enlisted in the 20th Regt. of Mass. Vol. July 12, 1861, was taken prisoner at the battle of Balls Bluff Oct. 21, and exchanged Feb. 19, 1862, was wounded again and taken prisoner at the battle of Malvern Hill July 1, 1862 and exchanged Aug. 28. Fought in the sanguinary battle of Antietam Sept. 17, was again wounded, from the effects of which he died Oct. 25, 1862. Aged 18 yrs, 7 months and 10 days.

A youth in years, but a veteran in deeds.

— The back of Corporal Frederick S. Allen‘s memorial stone in Linden Grove Cemetery, Westport, Massachusetts.

Captain William W. Dudley turned 20 years old about two weeks before the great and terrible battle of Antietam. He took command of the 19th Indiana Infantry there on the morning of 17 September 1862 after its commander Lieutenant Colonel Alois Bachman was mortally wounded leading their charge across the Hagerstown Pike. [His after-action report is on AotW]

By the end of October 1862 Dudley was Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment. Quite an achievement for one so young, but by no means the end of his story.

He briefly commanded the regiment again at Gettysburg on 1 July 1863 after Colonel Samuel J. Williams was wounded, but was himself shot in the right leg and captured by the enemy. Released on 4 July, he later lost his leg to amputation. After a lengthy convalescence he was discharged for disability in June 1864.

He returned to service as Captain in the Veteran Reserve Corps in March 1865 and served in staff positions. He was honored by brevets to Major, Lieutenant Colonel (for his war service), Colonel and Brigadier General (for gallantry at Gettysburg) in March 1865 and left the army for the last time on 30 June 1866.

A very impressive record

But what he was best known for, at least among his peers, was a political scandal of his own making.

General Dudley was very active in Indiana and national Republican politics after the War – a faithful organizer and fundraiser for 20 years – and by 1888 was Treasurer of the Republican National Committee. In that role, during the Cleveland-Harrison presidential race, he wrote a letter to his operatives in Indiana advising them how to manage their “floaters” – voters willing to take money to vote the party ticket – recommending organizing them in groups or “blocks” of five people, closely supervised by a trusted party worker.

An enterprising Democrat in the post office opened the letter and sent it to friendly newspapers.

Although the practice of paying for “undecided” votes was common in both parties, the public release of the now infamous “blocks of five” letter was an embarrassment to the Republicans and their candidate Indiana Senator Benjamin Harrison in particular.

In November 1888 Harrison very narrowly won in Indiana and lost the national popular vote, but squeaked out a victory in the Electoral College to unseat the incumbent Democrat Grover Cleveland.

Dudley never got an invitation to the Harrison White House, needless to say. He maintained an address in his hometown of Richmond, Indiana, but never lived there there again.

Forced out of his beloved politics, he spent his remaining twenty years in law practice in Washington, DC. He died there in 1909 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Lieutenant George Washington “Wash” Greene was in action with Company E of the 19th Indiana Infantry in Maryland in September 1862. He was their Captain when he was captured at Gettysburg in July 1863. He was held at Libby Prison in Richmond, VA and was among a group of 109 officers who tunnelled out of Libby in February 1864, but he was recaptured and spent the rest of the war in Southern prisons.

His carte-de-visite (CDV) is in the collection of the Indiana State Library.

28 year old Sergeant Isaac Branson, Company E, 19th Indiana Infantry was wounded in action at Turner’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862. A member of the famous “Iron Brigade”, he was shot in the left temple and was very lucky not to have been killed outright.

After remaining insensible for a few minutes, he attempted to rise, but being unable to control his limbs, he would constantly stumble and fall. He states that he introduced his little finger into the wound for more than an inch and could feel the brain substance.

He was treated at hospitals in Frederick, MD and Washington, DC, where:

The wound being very painful, he did not wish to have it probed, and therefore did not tell the attending surgeon that the ball remained in the wound. Simple dressings were applied. For several weeks he staggered and had fever, but was never delirious. Spiculae of bone continued to come away for some weeks, but the wound healed gradually.

Isaac was commissioned Lieutenant in April 1863, returned to duty in October, and mustered out at the end of his term in October 1864.

Although a pension examiner found him completely disabled in 1867, he lived to be 64 and was working around the farm up to the day he died.

A couple of things I thought about when learning of Isaac Branson’s story …

Although a bit gory, I expect I’d have put my finger in the hole too, if it had been me. How about you?

And I wonder if he did as well as he did because surgeons didn’t poke about in his brain to retrieve the bullet?

The details of his medical case are from the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870) – click to expand.

Lieutenant John James Perry Blinn was Adjutant of the 14th Indiana Infantry at Antietam and was slightly wounded. Colonel Harrow wrote of him:

My adjutant, J. J. P. Blinn, was with me during the day, and conducted himself as only a brave man can, bearing messages for me, and when not thus engaged remaining at my side witnessing the heroic conduct of his regiment.

He had been a student at Wabash College in Crawfordsville at the start of the war and returned to school in January 1863, but was back in service in March at the request of by-then Brigadier General Harrow as Captain and AAG on his staff. He was mortally wounded at Gettysburg and died on 13 July 1863. Harrow, again:

My own assistant adjutant-general, Capt. John P. Blinn, throughout both days manifested himself a thorough soldier and patriot. He fell, mortally wounded, on the 3d, while gallantly cheering on the men of the command to which he was attached. No tribute can now reach him, but a worthier man and soldier has not died for his country.

His photograph was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Gregory Speciale.

Lieutenant Henry J McDonald mustered as First Sergeant of Company A, 11th Connecticut Infnatry onOctober 1861 but was First Lieutenant when he was wounded in the left arm in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He was Captain of Company D when he was captured in May 1864 and was a prisoner into February 1865. He was afterward Major and Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, and finally mustered out on 21 December 1865.

He farmed in Iowa until 1882 and was then a traveling barbed wire salesman to 1898.

His photograph is in the MOLLUS Massachusetts Collection, online from the Historical Data Systems database.

Another story from the 11th Connecticut Infantry at Antietam:

Private Martin Hoxsie, Company B, was treated after the battle for a saber cut to the head which fractured his skull, and for insanity, which “was subsequently developed”.

Companies A and B of the 11th advanced as skirmishers in the approach to the Rohrbach Bridge on the morning 17 September and at least some of the those men waded the Antietam Creek under fire. The regiment was in action on the far side of the bridge that afternoon, also, where so many were killed or wounded.

The sort-of-good news is that Hoxsie lived to the age of 76 years. I hope he had recovered fully …

But a saber cut? How do you suppose that happened?