behind AotW

a companion to Antietam on the Web

Year: 2020

  • This stuff will drive you nuts

    The Antietam Cemetery History has him as Daniel Mibbon, 18th New York Infantry (thanks Western Maryland’s Historical Library/WHILBR!). It’s Dan’l Mibbon, N.Y. on his stone.

    Frederick hospital records list him as Daniel S. Milborne, 13th New York (thanks National Museum of Civil War Medicine!).

    He doesn’t appear in the rosters for either of those regiments or any other New York unit, for that matter (thanks New York State Military Museum!). Nothing close.

    A little more digging, though, and voilà !!

    Under or near this stone in the Antietam National Cemetery lies David Spencer Milburn, late Private, Company D, 13th New Jersey Infantry. A 26 year old farmer, he was mortally wounded on 17 September 1862 just over a month after enlisting. He died in a hospital in Frederick on 2 October.

    I hope his descendants can still find him!

  • Levi Maish

    Lieutenant Colonel Levi Maish, 130th Pennsylvania Infantry was wounded by a gunshot to his right lung at Antietam. He survived that wound and another, at Chancellorsville in May 1863, and mustered out as Colonel of the regiment soon after. He served as a US Congressman from 1875 to 1891.

    His picture in uniform from one kindly provided by Scott D Hann from his collection. The other photograph, from his time as a Congressman, was contributed to his memorial on Findagrave by A.W. Holtzapple.

  • Officers of the 6th Vt., Camp Griffin, Oct. 1861

    This is a group photograph of the officers of the 6th Vermont Infantry at Camp Griffin, VA, near Washington, DC in October 1861. Among them, front row to the right of the colors, is Major Oscar S Tuttle. He commanded the regiment in Maryland in 1862. In the back at far right is his brother Lyman Mower Tuttle who was Assistant Surgeon.

    The photograph is hosted by Tom Ledoux on Vermont in the Civil War; its from the Ed Italo Collection.

  • James VcVay & Sons

    James McVay was an “old man” in the 14th Connecticut Infantry. He had enlisted as a Private in Company K with his sons Michael and Francis in July 1862.  He died of “exhaustion” at the end of the regiment’s first day’s march on what became the Maryland Campaign.

    His was the first death in that brand new regiment.

    His name’s on a familiar looking monument in Norwich, CT.

    ___________

    Notes

    The clip above is from Charles D. Page’s History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Infantry (1906).

    The picture of the Soldiers’ Monument in Norwich, CT is online from Waymarking.  You’ll notice the statue’s similarity to “Old Simon” in the Antietam National Cemetery.

  • Bosses Quay, Crocker, and Platt (Puck, 1900)

    Colonel Matthew S Quay commanded the 134th Pennsylvania Infantry in Maryland. They arrived on the battlefield of Antietam on the morning of 18 September after an all night march. He resigned due to illness in December, but was a Fredericksburg, VA on the 13th as an aide to General Erastus Tyler. Quay was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions there. By the end of the war he was private secretary to Governor Curtin.

    He began his career in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1864 and was a political “boss” in the state for the rest of his life. He was US Senator for two terms, from 1888-1899 and again from 1901 to his death in 1904. Quay once said politics was “the art of taking money from the few and votes from the many under the pretext of protecting the one from the other.”

    This lovely caricature of bosses Quay (left), Richard Crocker of Tammany Hall (seated), and Senator Thomas Collier Platt of NY (right) was on the cover of the Puck Magazine of 24 January 1900, online from ExplorePAHistory.