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Federal (USV)

Corporal

William Lewis Kimball

(1837 - 1868)

Home State: Massachusetts

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 12th Massachusetts Infantry

Before Antietam

A 24 year old compositor at the Boston Post, he enlisted on 20 April 1861 and mustered as Private, Company A, 12th Massachusetts Infantry on 26 June in Boston. He was promoted to Corporal on 30 August 1862.

On the Campaign

He was wounded by a gunshot to his right leg in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was admitted to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 28 September and sent on to the US Army General Hospital at Chester, PA on 1 October. He returned to duty in March 1863 but was wounded again, at Gettysburg, PA on 1 July 1863. He was in the US Army General Hospital at Ft. Schuyler, NY into August 1863. He was promoted to Sergeant on 1 March 1864 and mustered out on 8 June 1864 in Boston.

After the War

He moved to Minneapolis, MN, but was admitted to the Soldier's Home in Milwaukee, WI on 19 August 1868. He died there of consumption (tuberculosis) on 19 September 1868. He was 31 years old.

References & notes

Service information from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1 and his Compiled Service Records, online from fold3. Wound and Frederick hospital details from the Patient List.2 Personal details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

His younger brother George Kimball (1840-1916) served as a Corporal in the 12th Massachusetts and later wrote his memoirs and other pieces about his war service. They were published in A Corporal's Story: Civil War Recollections of the Twelfth Massachusetts (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), Alan D. Gaff and Donald H. Gaff, editors; source of some details above.

Birth

05/02/1837; Lyman, ME

Death

09/19/1868; Milwaukee, WI; burial in Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, WI

Notes

1   Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 2, pp. 9-10  [AotW citation 1239]

2   National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #568  [AotW citation 26206]