behind AotW

a companion to Antietam on the Web

Year: 2020

  • H.T. McKay, 26th Alabama

    Harley Tuttle McKay was a 27 year old shoemaker in 1861 when he left his wife and two year old son and enlisted in the Sons of ’76 – Company H of the 26th Alabama Infantry regiment.

    On 14 September 1862 near Turner’s Gap on South Mountain he was seriously wounded in the leg by a “bombshell. Soon afterward his leg was amputated and he was sent home to Marion County, Alabama on furlough. In April 1863 he was detailed from his Company to Columbus, Mississippi to use his skills as a shoemaker for the Confederacy. He was there for at least a year, but I have no further military information for him after April 1864.

    After the war he was a shoemaker and farmer, and probably a preacher; in his native county to about 1880, then in Texas. He lived to be 84 years old.

    Although his life story is not especially noteworthy for a Civil War soldier, the way it became tangled with another McKay’s after his death is very interesting. And, for a researcher like myself, also very confusing. I’m not certain I’ve sorted it out, even now. See what you make of it …

    The issues first jumped out at me through a couple of cemetery markers.

    (more…)

  • Alabama Confederate soldier Census, 1907

    On this 1907 questionnaire, Henry W Miller, late Private in the 26th Alabama Infantry, related a small story of how he was cared for by a Federal soldier after he had been wounded at Turner’s Gap on 14 September 1862. He was then just 16 years old. He was sent home, disabled, after he was exchanged in May 1863.

    This document is from the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery and was posted online by Family Search (free membership required).

  • Capt Enoch M Vandiver

    Captain Enoch M Vandiver commanded Company A of the 26 Alabama Infnatry in action on South Mountain and at Sharpsburg in September 1862. His photograph from Kirk D Lyons on his Facebook page Alabama Confederate Images.

  • Pvt Joseph C Burns

    Private Joe Burns of Company D, 13th Alabama Infantry survived combat at Turner’s GAp on 14 September but was killed by a gunshot through his lungs at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. His photograph was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Bob Atchison.

  • The view of a staff officer in Maryland

    Lieutenant Richard C. Shannon of the 5th Maine Infantry was assigned as aide-de-camp to Major General Henry W. Slocum, commander of the First Division, 6th Army Corps, in March 1862. Although a well-educated young man, he was still learning his profession as a staff officer in August and September 1862.

    Shannon left behind some wartime diaries which, although not especially dramatic as narrative, offer insight into his day-to-day experience in the field.

    Of particular interest to me is this field notebook/diary he had with him on the Maryland Campaign.

    It is a flip-page style that he probably carried in his pocket, and he used it both as a traditional diary – writing a brief summary of each day’s activity – and as a working notebook to keep orders, names, maps, and other things he needed to remember.

    I’ll pull out some pages to give you a flavor, here. Click on any of them to expand for easier reading. (more…)