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E.A. Briggs
(1837 - 1892)
Home State: New York
Education: Albany Law School, Class of 1860
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
He studied the law from about 1856 and was admitted to the bar in 1859, in Albany, NY. In 1860 he was a 23 year old lawyer living with his wealthy merchant father, mother, and 8 younger siblings at Coeymans in Albany County, NY.
On 15 August 1861 he enrolled in Albany and mustered as 2nd Lieutenant, Company E, 43rd New York Infantry on 31 August. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on 26 January 1862 and detailed to the Signal Corps in March 1862. He was assigned to General Banks in the Shenandoah Valley.
On the Campaign
By 4 September 1862 he was posted at Poolesville, MD as a relay between signals by flag from Sugarloaf Mountain to and from Washington, DC, by telegraph. He was there until chased off by Confederates about 12 September.
The rest of the War
He initially declined a commission as First Lieutenant but was appointed 2nd Lieutenant, US Signal Corps on 3 March 1863 (discharged from the 43rd NY in October 1863) and was at Chancellorsville in May. He joined General Burnside in the Department of the Ohio in September 1863, and was assigned to the Department of Virginia and North Carolina in early 1865. He was honored for his war service by brevets to First Lieutenant and Captain of Volunteers on 13 March and mustered out on 13 August 1865 at Georgetown, DC.
After the War
In 1865 he was back with his parents in Coeymans, his occupation still "soldier." From 1866 to at least 1890 he was a dry goods merchant and in real estate in Kingston Township, Meeker County, MN.
References & notes
His basic service from the New York Adjutant General,1 Brown,2 and Heitman.3 Maryland Campaign details from Major Myer's Report. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860-1880, the New York State Census of 1865, Minnesota's of 1875 and 1885, the 1890 US Census of Civil War veterans and widows, and a bio sketch in Album of History and Biography of Meeker County, Minnesota (1888). His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a CDV contributed by Adam Gibbons.
He married Helen Frances Hall (1845-1901) in November 1866 and they had 4 children, all born in Minnesota.
Birth
02/14/1837; Coeymans, NY
Death
04/19/1892; Litchfield, MN; burial in Litchfield Cemetery, Litchfield, MN
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. 23, pg. 1121 [AotW citation 28735]
2 Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, pp. 158, 229, 241, 325, 351, 455, 733 [AotW citation 28736]
3 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 244 [AotW citation 28737]