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Confederate (CSV)

Lieutenant

Robert M. Kerr

(1837 - 1874)

Home State: South Carolina

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 12th South Carolina Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

A 24 year old coach maker at Rock Hill in the York District, he enrolled as Junior 2nd Lieutenant and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of Company B, 12th South Carolina Infantry on 20 August 1861. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1862.

On the Campaign

He was severely wounded in the right thigh or hip and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was paroled on 24 September and exchanged on 8 November 1862. He was promoted to Captain and returned to duty in January 1863. He was wounded again, at Gettysburg, PA in July. He commanded the regiment as senior officer after 30 September 1864 and was captured on the Southside Railroad near Petersburg, VA on 2 (or 3) April 1865. He was sent to Washington, DC and on to the prison on Johnson's Island, OH. He took the oath of allegiance and was released on 18 June 1865.

After the War

He resumed his trade of coach building in York County and was apparently doing well in 1870. He died relatively young, about age 36, in 1874.

References & notes

His service from the Rolls,1 which says he was promoted to Major of the regiment in 1864 and to Lieutenant Colonel in 1865, and Caldwell2, who has him as a Captain to the end of the war. Further details thanks to Barry Truluck, from his Compiled Service Records via fold3. His Sharpsburg wound detail from a casualty list in the Yorkville Enquirer of 8 October 1862. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860 and 1870. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Margaret Jane Roach (1842-1909) in November 1866, and they had 3 children.

Birth

1837 in NC

Death

02/26/1874; burial in Laurelwood Cemetery, Rock Hill, SC

Notes

1   Thomas, John P., and and previous SC Historians of the Confederate Records, Confederate Rolls of South Carolina, Columbia: Historian of Confederate Records, 1898, Roll of Company H, 12th Reg't Inf, South Carolina Vols.  [AotW citation 24392]

2   Caldwell, James Fitz James, The History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, known first as "Gregg's" and subsequently as "McGowan's Brigade", Marietta (Ga): Continental Book Co., 1866, pp. 200, 209, 219, 224, 226  [AotW citation 24393]