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S.N. Sherman

S.N. Sherman

Federal (USV)

Surgeon

Socrates Norton Sherman

(1801 - 1873)

Home State: New York

Education: Castleton Medical College, Class of 1824

Branch of Service: Medical

Unit: 34th New York Infantry

Before Antietam

Oldest of 5 brothers, all physicians, he began his practice in Ogdensburg, NY in 1825, shortly after graduating from medical school. In 1860 he was elected to a term in the US House of Representatives to run from 4 March 1861 to 3 March 1863, but was commissioned Surgeon, 34th New York Infantry on 4 July 1861 (to date from 30 May), and mustered into the regiment on 15 June. He was "away a good deal in Washington."

On the Campaign

He treated wounded soldiers at the Hoffman Farm field hospital at Sharpsburg beginning on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He mustered out of the regiment in March 1863 (at the end of his Congressional term) to accept a commission as Surgeon, US Volunteers. He was assigned as Medical Director at Norfolk, VA and was later in charge of the US Army hospital at Grafton, VA. He mustered out of US service on 7 October 1865 and was honored by brevet to brevet Lieutenant Colonel, US Volunteers.

After the War

He returned to his practice in Ogdensburg.

References & notes

Service information from the State of New York.1 Further details from Chapin.2 His service at Antietam from various cases in the MSHWR 3 and his posting to the Hoffman Farm hospital confirmed in Nelson.4 His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a Brady photograph at the Library of Congress.

He married Lois Low (c. 1808-1864) in February 1828. Their son Low E. Sherman died in December 1863 at age 27, and Lois died in 1864 while with Socrates in Grafton.

Birth

07/22/1801; Barre, VT

Death

02/01/1873; Ogdensburg, NY; burial in Ogdensburg Cemetery, Ogdensburg, NY

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 1900, Ser. No. 22, pg. 258  [AotW citation 21578]

2   Chapin, Louis N., A Brief History of the Thirty-fourth Regiment N.Y.S.V. (1903), Little Falls (NY): Captain Henry Galpin CWRT, 1998, pp. 30, 89, 102-103  [AotW citation 21579]

3   Barnes, Joseph K., and US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 books, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1870  [AotW citation 21580]

4   Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, pg. 13  [AotW citation 21581]