behind AotW

a companion to Antietam on the Web

Month: February 2022

  • Bolduc to Bulgick: Special Schedule – Surviving Soldiers … (1890)

    As you probably know, nearly all 1890 United States Census records were destroyed in a fire in 1921 leaving a permanent information gap familiar to historians and genealogists. Not so familiar, I expect, are a set of special veteran’s schedules the Bureau collected during the 1890 Census, most of which survived.

    This Special Schedule was particularly valuable to me in learning about a mystery soldier of the 16th Connecticut Infantry.

    He enlisted as Lewis Bulgick, a Private in Company H in August 1862, was wounded at Antietam on 17 September, and was discharged from the service for disability in February 1863.

    I spent quite a bit of time trying to learn more about Private Bulgick, with little luck. Other regimental researchers before me have had this same problem – all the way back to his fellow veterans in the 1890s. I found a little for him in Massachusetts records of the 1860s and 70s, but nothing about his ancestry, birth, or death.

    Then I stumbled upon a page of the 1890 Special Schedule for Southbridge, MA. Here it is (click to enlarge):

    There on row 35 is the key: he also used the alias Louis Bolduc, his birth name, it turns out. With that I was easily able to find his Québécois parents and 17 (!) siblings, birth and death information, the works. Very satisfying.

    I do not know why he used the Bulgick name instead of the one he was born with – but I believe he consciously chose it, it’s not just a phonetic mis-transcription: in addition to enlisting as Bulgick, he also gave that name to the 1860 and 1870 census enumerators and the Massachusetts towns where some of his 8 or more babies were born. Some of his children seem to have later used Bulgick (or variations) and some Bolduc.

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    For much more detail about the history of the 1890 Special Schedule, see First in the Path of the Firemen by Kelee Blake in the National Archives’ journal Prologue for Spring 1996.

    I got my copy of this particular page from Ancestry.com.

  • Adjutant John H Burnham (c. 1862)

    This fine photograph was contributed to John Henry Burnham‘s memorial by Chris Van Blargan. It was taken in Hartford, CT by Bartlett & Webster, probably soon after he was commissioned in August 1862.

    Burnham was Adjutant of the 16th Connecticut Infantry at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and had the sad task of accounting for the field burials of the soldiers of the regiment who were killed there.

  • Dr. Lesley Gordon’s Roster, 16th Connecticut Infantry (2014)

    While researching her 2014 book about the regiment, Dr Lesley Gordon compiled a roster after my own heart, including pre- and post-war details not usually found in military records. She shared a spreadsheet containing her data on her book’s page. I’ve posted a copy here in the event that page ever goes away.

    Here’s how she describes it:

    This database of men who served in the regiment originated with the state of Connecticut’s Adjutant Generals Office Reports from 1862, 1869, and 1889. As I accumulated more (and sometimes conflicting) information, I filled in gaps and made corrections (especially birth and death dates, and postwar occupations) from the biographical materials collected [by] Ira Forbes and George Whitney … Death and birth dates seemed to have had the greatest inconsistencies in the various sources, and I tried to confirm these by cross-checking the U.S. census, bound regimental records, pension records, obituaries, local histories, as well as a comprehensive unit roster compiled by Scott Holmes. Thus, readers should be alerted that some discrepancies still remain here …

    There may be discrepancies or minor issues, but it’s fantastic that she posted this online for anyone to use; it’s a rare and beautiful thing. Huzzah, Dr Gordon!

    And I wish I’d found this earlier. It would have saved me untold hours with its clues to some of the more elusive men of the 16th at Antietam.

  • The death of Lieutenant Samuel Hopkins Thompson

    Orators at many alumni gatherings have spoken of the gallantry of Lieutenant Samuel Hopkins Thompson, the young Civil War hero, who led his men to the charge at Antietam and died crying, “Form on me, boys, form on me.”

    — Claude Moore Fuess in Phillips Academy, Andover in the Great War, a talk at Yale, New Haven, CT in 1919 [online]

    Well, no, it probably didn’t happen that way.

    A former Phillips Academy student, Samuel H Thompson, the First Lieutenant of Company H, 16th Connecticut Infantry died at home in Connecticut on 22 October 1862. He was 19 years old.

    It’s not clear what killed him, though lots of literary and genealogical references – even his grave marker – attribute it directly to the battle of Antietam. His military record does not mention his being wounded in the combat there and he’s not on the usual hospital lists. An undocumented wound? An illness he caught on the Campaign?

    Something of a mystery.

    See also: his good friend and possibly romantic interest, best selling author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.

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    This photograph of his grave marker was contributed to his Find-a-grave memorial by Jim Bancroft.

  • Lt John C Buchanan (1861)

    This fine image is from the collection of John Claudius Buchanan‘s great-great-great-granddaughter Sarah Boye. Buchanan enrolled as First Lieutenant in 1861 and was promoted to Captain of Company D of the 8th Michigan Infantry on 1 September 1862.

    20 years later he very succinctly described his part and that of his Company in the 1862 Maryland Campaign to his son Claude:

    … came to Alexandria and on through Washington to Maryland;
    under Gen McClellan.

    Marched through MD until 17th Sept [sic] and struck the Rebs at South Mountain;
    next day moved to Antietam;
    took and crossed the stone bridge at Antietam and crossed to the heights beyond;
    here wounded in right arm;
    went into Pleasant Valley and Nov 1 moved to Fredericksburg …

    This is from Claude Robinson Buchanan’s 1882 diary, in which he recorded his father’s War Records. Transcription thanks to Sarah Boye. The original is in the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.