behind AotW

This is James C Steele of Statesville, NC, formerly Musician in the 4th North Carolina Infantry band and a veteran of the Maryland Campaign of 1862. This picture is from his 1921 book Sketches of the Civil War, online thanks to a joint venture of the State Library and the State Archives of North Carolina.

By the time this photograph was taken, he was a successful inventor and businessman producing equipment used to make bricks and other clay products. Here’s a piece from the industry journal The Clay Worker of January 1901 featuring Henry Oscar Steele (1874-1942), one of his four sons, all of whom took over the business on James’ retirement in 1912.

Still called J.C. Steele & Company, the firm is in much the same business today under the management of the 5th generation of Steeles. The home he built across the street in Statesville in 1877 is still there, too. Recently restored by the Siegrists, it’s a beautiful event venue.

Mrs. W.E. Coleman of Richmond, VA applied to the United States War Department for a Government headstone for Issac Abner Cowan, late of the 4th North Carolina Infantry, in October 1941. He was a Sharpsburg veteran who had died on New Year’s Day 1931 at 90 years, and was perhaps lacking a marker.

It’s likely Mrs Coleman was with the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) who are headquartered in Richmond and were active then, as they are now, in memorializing Confederate soldiers.

The stone was shipped to Cowan’s daughter Ellen Estelle “Essie” Cowan Sprinkle (1876-1973) in Winston-Salem, NC in April 1942.

________________
The application card is from US War Department records, online from fold3. The recent photograph of his marker is by user SierraBravo on Find-a-grave.

This fine hand-tinted photograph of Bryan Grimes, Colonel of the 4th North Carolina Infantry at Sharpsburg, is from the North Carolina Photographic Archives at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

It was shared online in company with an excellent 2019 magazine article by James Robbins Jewell about Grimes at the “Mule Shoe” salient at Spotsylvania, VA in May 1864. Thanks, HistoryNet.