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Federal (USV)

Private

Michael Higgins

(c. 1826 - 1907)

Home State: New York

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 51st New York Infantry

Before Antietam

Age 35, he enlisted on 14 August 1861 in New York City and mustered as a Private in Company C, 51st New York Infantry on 9 September.

On the Campaign

He was wounded by a gunshot to his right hand in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was treated at the Locust Spring field hospital on the Geeting farm near Keedysville, and was discharged for disability from wounds on 17 November 1862 at the US General Hospital on David's Island, New York Harbor.

After the War

On 20 April 1867, in Jersey City, NJ (or 30 April in Newark), he enlisted as a Private in Company E, 43rd United States Infantry. He was discharged for disability at Fort Wilkins on Lake Superior near Copper Harbor, MI on 10 May 1869. He never married and was admitted to the Northwest Branch, National Soldier's Home in Milwaukee on 15 February 1874. He died there at age 73 in 1907.

References & notes

His service from the Adjutant General1 and the Registers of Enlistments.2 The hospital details from Nelson.3 His wounding also on a casualty list in the New York Herald of 23 September 1862. Personal details from the National Homes.4 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Birth

c. 1826; County Waterford, IRELAND

Death

10/08/1907; Milwaukee, WI; burial in Wood National Cemetery, Milwaukee, WI

Notes

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. 25, p. 100 [AotW citation 30341]

2 US Army, Registers of Enlistments in the United States Army, 1798-1914, Washington, DC: National Archives, 1956, Vol. 66 (1867), p. 24 [AotW citation 30345]

3 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, p. 247 [AotW citation 30342]

4 US Department of Veterans Affairs, Registers of the United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers 1866-1938, Washington, DC: US National Archives and Records Administration, 1938, Register, no. 4-6, p. 121 [AotW citation 30346]

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