behind AotW

Here’s 30 year old Haverford, Massachusetts shoemaker Andrew Jackson Gile just before the war. He was killed at Antietam on 17 September 1862 about a month after he enlisted as a Private in the 35th Massachusetts Infantry.

This photograph is from My Great-Grandmother Judith Sargent Gile 1804-1891 – a book in the family by Winifred Jewel Harley. Thanks to Kristin Laing for that!

David Brainard Murray enlisted in the 35th Massachusetts Infantry in August 1862 and was wounded at Antietam a month after he mustered into service. He was at hospitals until November 1862 then discharged … not for his wound, but for “incipient phthisis” – early-stage tuberculosis or similar progressive lung disease.

His Surgeon’s Certificate of Disability (thanks his Compiled Service Record file at the National Archives) contains a wealth of information about him, and is the source of the detail about his discharge – without it I would have assumed he was discharged due to wounds.

Murray enlisted again, briefly, in 1864 and survived to have a long life as a clergyman in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Thanks to descendant and author Bill Guerrant for pointing me to Hugh Lindsay Guerrant of the 13th North Carolina and providing this photograph of him in his First Lieutenant’s uniform, from his collection.

Lieutenant Guerrant was apparently close enough to Brigadier General Samuel Garland at Fox’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September to retrieve the pit from the peach the General was eating when he was shot there. And he later raised a tree from it back home. Some story!