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Looking into the 11th Connecticut Infantry at Antietam this week, I found stories of two of the men in a period publication. The Colonel’s I had heard before, the Captain’s? Not …

Colonel Henry Kingsbury

[On 17 September 1862] Col. Kingsbury now received orders from Gen. Burnside to march his regiment to the [lower] bridge, after the batteries had shelled the works on the other side, and hold it until Gen. Rodman [sic] could march his column over. Col. Kingsbury approached the bridge through a narrow defile in the woods, thence through a cornfield, and over a plowed field adjacent to the road. Our skirmishers, advancing, were briskly engaged with the enemy on the opposite side. Col. Kingsbury gave Lieut. Col. Stedman command of the right wing, with directions to advance and occupy a hill between the road and the river overlooking the bridge. Having accomplished this under a heavy fire, the right wing immediately engaged the enemy and lost very heavily in this position; the sharpshooters of the enemy taking off our men very fast while the enemy’s main body was so concealed, that we had little to aim at. Col. Kingsbury at the same time brought up the left wing, where he was exposed to the most intense fire while attempting, as at that time supposed, to take up a position very near if not on the bridge.

All the rebel batteries were now roaring. The air rang with whistling balls and the ground quaked with the hard breath of artillery. The Eleventh Connecticut descended to storm Antietam Bridge. The rebel guns were pouring in a destructive fire of grape and canister; while continuous volleys from an unseen enemy in the woods were also showered upon them. Down the road leaped the Eleventh into this ‘valley of death.’

Companies A and B under Capt. John Griswold were deployed as skirmishers; and they plunged into the swift stream here some fifty feet wide and four deep, their dauntless commander taking the lead. He was shot through the breast while in mid-river but struggled forward, and fell upon the opposite bank, among the rebels.

Captain John Griswold

The left wing of the regiment was now near the bridge. Col. Kingsbury was active inciting his soldiers to the charge by his gallant bearing and the inspiration of his voice. Many men fell. The Colonel was a special mark; and he was soon shot in the foot, and immediately thereafter in the leg; when he was at last prevailed upon to leave the field. While he was being carried off, he received a third ball in the shoulder and a fourth in the abdomen, inflicting a mortal wound.

The men were still fighting; now falling back, and again charging on the bridge. The official report says, “When he fell the regiment felt their last hope was gone: we had lost the bravest of Colonels and the best of men.” Major Moegling now assumed command of the left wing, and led it gallantly; while Col. Stedman held the right wing firmly to the support of the battery. Volleys were frequent and effective …

— The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-65 (1868)

Captain John Kies commanded Company F, 11th Connecticut Infantry at Antietam and had the “painfull duty” to write letters to the the families of men of the Company who were killed there in September 1862.

This is one of those, to the mother of Private Fennimore Weeks who was shot through the head. The letter is in his mothor’s pension application file at the National Archives, online from fold3 [subscription required]. Thanks to John Banks for the pointer.

22 year old Sergeant Henry T. Crants of the 23rd New York Infantry was wounded by a gunshot to his right leg in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He mustered out with the regiment in May 1863 but enlisted again, in the 22nd New York Cavalry, and was Quartermaster Sergeant of the regiment. He was captured at Reams’ Station, VA in June 1864 and died while a prisoner at Charleston, SC on 17 September – exactly two years after Antietam.

Crants’ photograph was posted on Flickr by Mike Fitzpatrick, from his collection.

23 year old Corporal Frank Whitman,  recently a shoemaker in Haverhill, was with Company G of the 35th Massachusetts Infantry advancing above the lower Antietam bridge on the afternoon of 17 September 1862.  He later remembered …

… our progress was stopped by the terrible fire of the enemy. We were obliged to retire. I and a few others were separated from our comrades and left behind with the dead and wounded on the field. We fired a last volley, receiving one in return which sent death to one of our men.

Lying low and carefully watching I discovered the enemy moving to another part of the field a short distance away. Cautiously I looked around among the men and found that two besides myself were alive and unhurt. Turn which way one would nothing could be seen or heard but the dead the dying and the wounded, and the suppressed moans and cries of agony from all directions; here and there cries for a cooling drink of water or a call for assistance and a helping hand. Mangled bodies of brave men, wherever one turned. A ghastly scene that will ever be before my eyes!

We three undertook to relieve the suffering as far as we could and to get the wounded away from the place. This work we continued for several hours, after which we set out to find the regiment. On regaining our lines, at my urgent solicitation, two officers and a number of men were sent with me to remove as many wounded as possible without drawing the fire of the enemy.

On returning to the field we found that the enemy had advanced his picket line some distance beyond his own line and well up to that of ours. Because of this advance our picket would not allow us to go outside of the lines, but I pleaded with him so earnestly that I was permitted to make the attempt to get a wounded comrade of my own company. This was a very delicate task for had I attracted the attention of the enemy an engagement would, without doubt have been precipitated.

Stealthily, however, I worked my way to where my comrade lay within a few feet of the enemy’s pickets and told him in a whisper what I could do for him with his co-operation. My friend, though suffering great pain from a wound in the leg that caused his death three weeks afterward, mutely and thankfully took up the journey to our lines which though near seemed yet so far away. With great difficulty the task was accomplished, and we got within the lines unobserved by the enemy, or at least without drawing their fire. The two officers and other men were able to remove quite a number of our wounded to a place where they could receive medical care.

The morning dawned sad and dreary through the falling rain. Company G was astir early, and counting its members, I saw only eight present with myself the sole surviving company officer. All commissioned and non-commissioned officers who had been in action except myself were gone. Nine were killed and thirty five wounded.

 

Whitman was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Antietam.

At Spotsylvania Court House, VA on 18 May 1864 by-then Sergeant Whitman was “foremost in line in the assault, where he lost a leg”.

He received a second Medal of Honor for that day.

By the end of the Civil War Edward Harvey Morrill was First Lieutenant and brevet Captain, Company B, 61st Massachusetts Infantry, as seen in this carte-de-visite offered for sale by Jeffrey Kraus at Antique Photographics in 2019.

Morrill had been wounded at Antietam in September 1862 while a 19 year old rookie Sergeant in Company Company G, 35th Massachusetts Infantry. He declined a commission in the 35th Infantry in April 1863 but accepted one in the 61st in September 1864.

First Lieutenant William Palmer of Company E, 35th Massachusetts Infnatry was wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862 by a gunshot that penetrated to his bladder. His surgeons found the “ball” (bullet) on the 21st – by which time William was somewhat emaciated and in considerable pain – and removed it from his bladder on the 25th. His surgeon had hope as late as 8 October that he would recover, but “in spite of the most careful sustaining measures the patient sank exhausted” and died of his wounds on 13 October 1862.

A description of his medical care is in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870), an extract seen here.

Albert Clinton Hayden was a 25 year old nail maker in Weymouth when he enlisted in August 1862 as a Private in Company H, 35th Massachusetts Infantry. Just under a month later he was wounded at Antietam. Disabled, he was sent home in November. He died a year after the war eneded, of tuberculosis, just 29 years old.

His photograph is online in the Historical Data Systems database.

Sergeant Jarvis W. Dean of Company K, 35th Massachusetts Infantry was wounded in the right shoulder in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant of Company H on 1 October but resigned and was discharged for wounds in April 1863.

In June 1863 he was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the 16th Regiment, Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC) and served with them to February 1865. He’s in VRC uniform in the photograph above, offered for sale in 2019 by the Excelsior Brigade.

First Lieutenant James Hammond Baldwin of Company D, 35th Massachusetts Infantry was wounded in his first combat, at Antietam in September 1862. He transferred to the 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in December and again, as Captain, to the First Battalion Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in June 1863. That’s about when this photograph was taken. It’s from the MOLLUS Massachusetts Collection at the US Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, PA.

He was commissioned in the Regular Army as 2nd Lieutenant, 16th US Infantry in March 1866. He was promoted to First Lieutenant, and served in the 25th and 18th US Infantry in the South during reconstruction, then in action against Indians in the West. He was promoted to Captain on 6 October 1887 and retired on 30 November 1892 after more than 30 years in uniform.

This is Captain Stephen H. Andrews, Company A, 35th Massachusetts Infantry in a photograph now at the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, hosted online by the Springfield-Greene County Library.

He’s a rare bird with combat experience in the Western Theater – with the 2nd Kansas Infantry at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri – before serving in the East. He led the 35th Massachusetts Infantry briefly after Colonel Wild was wounded on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and was himself wounded at Antietam on the 17th.

He survived the War and was in business in Lawrence, Kansas for many years afterward.