Lewis R. Stegman

He had been a surveyor and began a law practice in New York City by 1861. On 30 September of that year, then 22 years old, he enlisted in New York City, helped recruit men for the Company, and mustered as Captain, Company E, 102nd New York Infantry on 5 March 1862. He was wounded by a piece of shell to his head at Cedar Mountain, VA on 9 August.

Although not fully recovered, he was with his Company in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was wounded again, at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863 while in command of the regiment, and at Ringgold Gap, GA on 27 November 1863. He was promoted to Major of the regiment on 12 February 1864 (to date from 24 November 1863). He was wounded, for the fourth time, on 15 June 1864 in the thigh at Pine Mountain, GA and was discharged for wounds on 24 October 1864.

On 23 December 1864 he was appointed Major, 1st United States Veteran Volunteers, Hancock's Veterans Corps, then organizing in Washington, DC. He was honored by brevet to Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers on 13 March 1865 for "gallant and meritorious" war service, and mustered out on 20 February 1866.

By 1865 he had a law partner, Thomas I. Hughes (1834-1865) with offices in New York, but it's not clear that he practiced immediately after the War; he was a political reporter for at least 3 Brooklyn newspapers. He was under-Sheriff of Kings County, NY, in 1876, served a term in the New York Assembly in 1879, and was elected Sheriff of Kings in 1881. In 1886 he was charged with stealing $3000 from an estate in 1884, outcome unknown; fallout from the case was heard in civil suits and by the NY Supreme Court to at least 1896.

He was appointed chairman of the New York Monuments Commission in 1912, replacing General Daniel Sickles, and presided over the dedication of the State monument at Antietam on 17 September 1920.

Service information from the Adjutant General1 and the Register.2 His presence at Antietam from his speech at the dedication of the New York monument at Antietam; thanks to J.O. Smith for the pointer to Stegman and that address. Personal details from his death notice in the Brooklyn Times of 8 October 1923. The theft case from an article in the New York Times of 13 May 1886. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, probably taken about 1865, from a CDV posted by Larry Chenault from his collection.

There is an August 1864 photo of him on crutches with another officer in Miller's Photographic History of the Civil War (Vol. 7, pg. 289), online from the Hathi Trust.

A later portrait engraving of him is online from the New York Public Library.

His war history Rifle Shots and Bugle Notes: Or, the National Military Album ... (1884), with co-author Joseph A. Joel, is online from the Internet Archives.

See also a nice video clip (via Youtube) about him at Gettysburg from Douglas Ullman Jr. of the American Battlefield Trust.

01/18/1839; Brooklyn, NY

10/07/1923; Brooklyn, NY; burial in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Flushing, NY