site logo
C.M. Bowen

C.M. Bowen

Federal (USV)

Private

Charles M. Bowen

(1844 - 1878)

Home State: Indiana

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 27th Indiana Infantry

Before Antietam

He enlisted as Private, Company A, 27th Indiana Infantry and mustered on 12 September 1861.

On the Campaign

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September "his left femur [thigh bone] fractured by a musket ball". He was about 19 years old.

The rest of the War

"He was admitted to Hospital No. 1, at Frederick, Maryland, where Buck's apparatus was applied. Nine months subsequently, he was removed to [Jarvis United States Army General Hospital] Baltimore. There were numerous abscesses, and the patient underwent two operations for the removal of necrosed bone. On September 7, 1863, he was discharged the service, with the limb greatly deformed".

After the War

"He received a pension, and was employed in the Interior Department. Owing to recurrence of abscesses he was admitted to Providence Hospital in the autumn of 1867, and on November 11th, the limb was amputated in the middle third by Dr. D. W. Bliss. The wound healed well, and a photograph was taken at the Army Medical Museum on January 9, 1868, at which time the stump was firm and healthy".

By 1871 he was a clerk in the Pension Office, but in generally poor health. He died in 1878 of pulmonary disease.

References & notes

Medical details from Otis1, also source of his picture. His enlistment information from the Adjutant General.2

Birth

1844 in IN

Death

03/17/1878; Washington, DC; burial in Graceland Cemetery, Washington, DC

Notes

1   Otis, George Alexander (curator), and John H. Brinton (collecter), William Bell (photographer), Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, 8 Volumes, Washington DC: US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, 1865, Vol. 5, pg. 71  [AotW citation 7956]

2   State of Indiana, Adjutant General's Office, and William H.H. Terrell, Adjutant General, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana, 8 volumes, Indianapolis: (various) State Printers, 1865-1869, Vol. 4, pg. 614  [AotW citation 18351]