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W. West

W. West

Federal (USV)

Lieutenant

William West, Jr.

(1839 - 1889)

Home State: Pennsylvania

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 118th Pennsylvania Infantry

Before Antietam

From Philadelphia, he enrolled and was commissioned First Lieutenant, Company G, 118th Pennsylvania Infantry on 16 August 1862.

On the Campaign

He was in action with his Company at Blackford's/Boteler's Ford near Shepherdstown on 20 September 1862 where

Lt. West had a bullet rip open his coat ...

The rest of the War

He was promoted to Captain of Company G on 1 November 1862, but was very ill by January 1863. He went home sick and resigned his commission on 12 January 1863, and was discharged for disability from that date.

After the War

He moved to Boston by about 1871 and was a leather dealer there in 1880.

References & notes

Service details and the quote above from Donaldson1 (to whom West was at least slightly related). Service basics from Bates.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the 1880 US Census. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to Jose A. Franco for providing West's photograph from his personal collection.

He married Emma Frances Adams (1844-1883) in 1871 in Roxbury, and they had sons Adams (1872-73), Maj. Caleb (1874-1960), Henry F. (b. 1879), and William (b. 1881).

Birth

10/07/1839; Philladelphia, PA

Death

08/26/1889; Boston, MA; burial in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA

Notes

1   Donaldson, Francis Adams, and J. Gregory Acken, editor, Inside the Army of the Potomac: The Civil War Experience of Captain Francis Adams Donaldson, Mechanicsburg (PA): Stackpole Books, 1998, pp. 143, 197, 201  [AotW citation 2205]

2   Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871  [AotW citation 26361]