A bricklayer from Norristown, Private Levi Bolton, Company A, 51st Pennsylvania Infantry was wounded in combat at Antietam in September 1862 and again at Spotsylvania Court House in May 1864, but he survived both wounds and the war.
There is a story that he was on guard duty at Annapolis in 1862 and challenged General Burnside, who could not remember the password. Bolton was escorting the General to the guardhouse “under arrest” when Burnside remembered it.
In 1902 he was still living in the house in Norristown in which he was born. His photograph was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Charles McDonald.
Private Thomas McCall of Company A, 4th New York Infantry was seriously wounded by a gunshot to his left arm at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He had surgical procedures to remove pieces of bone and bullet and the wounds healed enough that he was discharged for disability in December 1862. By May 1863, though, the bone was deteriorating and he had pneumonia. He died from that and his “suppurating” gunshot wound on 24 August 1863.
Private McCall’s medical treatment after Antietam is detailed in the Army Surgeon General’s Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870), an extract seen here.
Private Wesley Gould, Company F, 45th Pennsylvania Infantry was the youngest of 6 brothers who served during the war. He had just turned 18 years old when was twice wounded in action on the Maryland Campaign of 1862: at Fox’s Gap on South Mountain and at Antietam 3 days later. He survived his wounds, as well as a stint as a prisoner of war in Libby Prison, Richmond and Salisbury, NC (1864-65), and was 2nd Lieutenant of Company F when he finally mustered out of service in July 1865.
After the war he farmed, then went to law school and was a life-long lawyer and politician in his native Delaware County, NY. He married Pamelia Brazie (1846-1921) in 1868 and they had two daughters. Pamelia’s brother Jacob had been a Sergeant in Company F and a POW with Wesley.
The photograph here is of Wesley, probably as a NY State legislator (c. 1894), contributed to the Family Search database by Frederick Neil Simms [free membership required]. It’s over a 1912 postcard view of his home in Hancock, NY. The postcard was offered for sale by HipPostcard.
A descendant of Harry Stewart sent me his portrait today. Stewart was First Sergeant, Company A, 2nd Maryland Infantry when he was killed in action near the Lower Bridge over the Antietam on 17 September 1862.
Back in October 1861, after his first 3 months in the Army, he had written home from Camp Carroll in Baltimore.
I can’t imagine that the Union is threatened and I am a soldier. It appears more like every day life with a long holiday when I want it. Haven’t come to the reality yet. If I could get home for a little while I should like it very much and if I should live for three more years and in the meantime make and save some money I am going to get married to my friend here in Baltimore for she is one of the reasoning kind and will not have me until I am discharged. She has a sewing machine and makes money for herself every week. In fact, a sweet industrious patient young lady who loves me very much. Please keep this to yourself now …
His friend was Amanda Easley of 183 Ann Street. In a later letter he reiterated that he would not be getting married soon, and besides, he wrote, “Amanda is too sensible to agree to it.”
In January 1862 the regiment was posted to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and he wrote “Amanda was well when I left, her brother has enlisted with me.” Four months later that brother George Easley died of typhoid fever at New Bern, NC.
In April, from New Bern, Harry had written:
As a soldier I am satisfied. I love the cause, I love the flag which flies over me and am willing to die if needs be for the cause in which I am engaged. You will all pray for me for I cannot say my life is safe for a moment for we are amongst rebels. Yet, I know I cannot be forgotten.
No, he is not forgotten.
________
Thanks to Dr Kenneth Stewart Thompson for posting his ancestor’s letters online.
William W Brewer was an oil producer and gas operator living in Norwich, PA when this family photograph was taken about 1905. That’s William, wife Orpha, daughter Nellie Brewer Means, and twin grandsons Wallace and Perry Means. It was contributed to his Findagrave memorial by Brenda Gordon.
The inset wartime photograph of William was published in Thomson & Rauch’s History of the “Bucktails”, Kane Rifle Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps (13th Pennsylvania Reserves, 42nd of the Line (1906). Private William Wallace Brewer enlisted in the “Bucktails” – the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves – in May 1861 at age 17, was wounded at Antietam in September 1862, and mustered out in June 1864.
