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W.L. Haskell

W.L. Haskell

Federal (USV)

Captain

William Lewis Haskell

(1836 - 1862)

Home State: Maine

Education: Bowdoin College, Class of 1860

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 7th Maine Infantry

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 24 year old student at Bowdoin College living with is parents and siblings in Poland, ME. By April 1861 he was Associate Principal, Oak Grove Seminary (Society of Friends) in Vassalboro, ME, but he enlisted as a Corporal in Company B, 7th Maine Infantry on 29 July 1861. He mustered on 21 August as First Lieutenant, Company B. He was promoted to Captain of Company G, date not given.

On the Campaign

He was wounded severely in both legs at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was treated at the private home of the Hamilton family in Chambersburg, PA, and wrote his sister Lydia Ann on 28 September:

I write a line today to let you know that I am comfortable indeed, though Friday I had an attack of the most intense pain in my left knee. I could get relief only through the means of morphine, and for several hours until I was brought under the influence of that my suffering was terrible. Then I experienced a most delicious sensation of relief. The surgeon in the meantime poulticed my knee reducing the inflammation and I am now just as comfortable and easy as I can be ... I think I shall suffer no permanent ill-effects from this, for my wounds are looking remarkably well ...
He died of his wounds at Chambersburg on 17 or 18 October 1862.

References & notes

Casualty information from Hyde,1 who has him as First Lieutenant of B and acting Adjutant at Antietam; Haskell may not have received his Captain's commission before the battle. Service information from the Maine Adjutant General2 and the Card File.3 The letter quoted above is in the Rounds family (Lydia's husband's) and was shared on Geni.com. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from an 1860 photograph in the Bowdoin College Library Archives; a similar image, apparently a copy to CDV, is in the Maine State Archives.

He married Louise M Crooker (1840-1887) in August 1861 and their daughter Willa Louise (later Higgins, 1862-1925) was born a week before her father's death.

Birth

07/18/1836; Poland, ME

Death

10/17/1862; Chambersburg, PA; burial in Old Baptist Cemetery, Yarmouth, ME

Notes

1   Hyde, Thomas W., Casualties in the Seventh Maine Regiment in the Battle of Antietam, Lewiston Falls (Maine) Journal, 1862-10-02  [AotW citation 6612]

2   State of Maine, Adjutant General's Office, and John L. Hodsdon, AG, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine for the Year ending December 31, 1862, Augusta: Stevens and Sayward, Printers to the State, 1863, Appendix D, pg. 270  [AotW citation 29217]

3   State of Maine, Maine State Archives, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Card Index, 1861-1865, Augusta (ME): Department of the Secretary of State, c. 2000  [AotW citation 29218]