Isaac Onyon

A 22 year old farmer, he enlisted at St. Louis, MO in Company I, 2nd United States Infantry on 23 May 1860.

He was wounded by a gunshot to his right elbow, probably in action near the Middle Bridge at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #5 in Frederick, MD on 22 September and sent on to Washington, DC on 27 September. He was appointed Sergeant on 12 September 1863 and First Sergeant 8 days later. He was wounded again at Spotsylvania Courthouse, VA on 10 May 1864. He reenlisted in May 1865 at Ft. Columbus, NY.

He continued in Regular Army service and was appointed regimental Quartermaster Sergeant in February 1866 and Commissary Sergeant in March 1867. In January 1867 his Company Commander recommended him for a commission. In June 1867 he was examined by a board of officers chaired by Captain W.F. Drum who also recommended he be commissioned, and their findings were forwarded approved by his commanding officer Colonel Sidney Burbank, but Sergeant Onyon was not promoted. He reenlisted again, in Louisville, KY on 20 June 1868, a Private again, and at San Francisco, CA in June 1871 as a Sergeant. He was discharged there on 1 May 1872.

By 1880 and to at least 1892 he was a clerk for the US Army's Quartermaster's Corps in San Francisco. He was given an invalid veteran's pension beginning in 1886 and was a member of the GH Thomas Post No. 2, Grand Army of the Republic.

His service from the Registers.1 His wound and hospital information from the Patient List.2 The 1867 recommendations and further service details are found in a collection of documents in Letters Received by the Commission Branch, [Army Adjutant-General's Office] 1863-1870 via fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1880 (as Isaac Onion). His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Margaret Pratt (1842-1923) in July 1868 in Cook County, IL and they had 5 children between 1869 and 1879.

c. 1838; Queen's County (now County Laois), IRELAND

08/16/1909; San Francisco, CA; burial in San Francisco National Cemetery, San Francisco, CA