Corporal Horatio Bruce, a Vermont sharpshooter in the 2nd United States Sharpshooters was wounded at Antietam in September 1862 and again, mortally, at Totopotomoy Creek, VA in May 1864. He died in Washington, DC in June. His photograph was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Brian White, from his collection.

In the background above is the sleeve of Captain Hugh R. Garden‘s uniform coat, offered at auction by Poulin Antiques and Auctions. That’s some stunning braid against the red artillery cuffs. His photograph, of unknown provenance, is from his Findagrave memorial.

Garden served as a Private soldier beginning in April 1861 and was a Corporal by February 1862. He then organized the Palmetto Artillery – “the guns being cast under his supervision from church bells at Columbia” – and he commanded the battery as their Captain through the war, including in Maryland in September 1862.

_____________

Update May 2024

Here’s a very fine hand-colored photograph of Captain Garden, a piece LiveAuctions sold for $7,500 in September 2017. I’ve only just now found it.

And to update his details, he was Color Bearer and Sergeant of Company D of the 2nd Infantry 1861-62, not Private or Corporal, at least according to his Compiled Service Records. I previously trusted someone else’s research, in error.

Lieutenant Samuel McBride Pringle of the Palmetto Artillery was mortally wounded at Sharpsburg – “a cannon ball taking off his leg midway between the knee and the foot” – and he died in Winchester, VA a week later.

The letter pictured here is part of one one he wrote from the Richmond “Poor House” to his mother in May 1861. It’s online, along with others he wrote during the war, thanks to Furman University. His photograph was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Ervin Shaw.

Lieutenant Edwin R. White took command of the 23rd South Carolina as the senior officer remaining on the field on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and led them at Sharpsburg on the 17th. Edwin was in the 4th generation a family of stonecutters in Charleston, noted for their gravestones and funerary sculpture, and he returned to that craft after the war.

The lovely headstone seen here is typical of the work of the Whites (and their Walker in-laws) and is among several of theirs in the First Scots Presbyterian Churchyard in Charleston, SC pictured online by Tracy Rylands on her Adventures in Cemetery Hopping.

Captain Henry H. Salley of the 22nd South Carolina Infantry was wounded in action at Turner’s Gap on South Mountain in September 1862. His photograph is of unknown provenance, posted to his memorial on Findagrave.