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Federal (USV)

Private

William Collins

(c. 1830 - 1864)

Home State: New York

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 69th New York Infantry

Before Antietam

Age 31, he enlisted at New York City to serve three years, and mustered in as Private, Company B, 69th New York Infantry on 24 September 1861.

On the Campaign

He was severely wounded in the thigh at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He reenlisted on 22 December 1863. On 17 April 1864, President Lincoln wrote General Meade about him:

Private William Collins of Company B, of the Sixty-ninth New York Volunteers, has been convicted of desertion, and execution suspended as in numerous other cases. Now Captain [Bernard] O'Neill, commanding the regiment, and nearly all its other regimental and company officers, petition for his full pardon and restoration to his company. Is there any good objection?

A. LINCOLN.

[No reply or further reference found]. Although not executed, Collins was not returned to duty. He was sent to the military prison at Ft. Jefferson, FL, and he died of disease there on 15 September 1864.

References & notes

Service from the New York Adjutant General,1 who also has him as William M. Collins. His Antietam wound from McLernon,2 citing an official published casualty list. The Lincoln letter from his Works.3

Birth

c. 1830

Death

09/15/1864; Ft. Jefferson, Garden Key, FL

Notes

1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1901, Ser. No. 28, pg. 59 [AotW citation 18257]

2 McLernon, Robert, Casualty List, 69th New York Volunteer Infantry, Meagher's Irish Brigade, Bloody Lane, Antietam, Maryland, September 17, 1862, Springfield (Va): R. McLernon, 2014, pg. 34 [AotW citation 18258]

3 Lincoln, Abraham, and Abraham Lincoln Assn: Roy P. Basler, ed; Marion D Pratt, Lloyd A. Dunlap, asst eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8 Volumes, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953, Vol. 7, pg. 301 [AotW citation 18256]

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