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Federal (USA)

Corporal

Frederick Alanson Chapin

(1836 - 1898)

Home State: Massachusetts

Branch of Service: Artillery

Unit: 4th United States Artillery, Battery B

Before Antietam

A 21 year old carpenter (since at least 1855) and son of a carpenter, he enlisted on 2 April 1858 in Detroit, MI as a Private in Battery B, 4th United States Artillery. He was with them in Ruby Valley, Utah Territory in July 1860 and was still a Private in the Battery as it joined the Army of the Potomac in October 1861. He was promoted to Corporal, date not given.

On the Campaign

He was cited for bravery at Antietam by battery commander Lieutenant Stewart in his Report.

The rest of the War

He was discharged as Corporal in April 1863 at Belle Plains, VA at the end of his US enlistment, and was appointed Quartermaster Sergeant of the 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in June. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant of Company A on 18 April 1864 at age 26 and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 18 September 1865 but did not muster at that rank; he mustered out on 3 September 1865 at Wilmington, NC.

After the War

He was admitted to the Rhode Island Soldiers' Home in Bristol on 12 October 1897 and died there of chronic parenchymatous nephritis (kidney disease) on 29 April 1898.

References & notes

Service information from the ORs,1 Buell,2, the Record,3 Massachusetts in the War,4 and the Registers.5 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and the Massachusetts State Census of 1855. Death detail from the Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of Rhode Island (January 1899). His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Ellen J. Wildes (1844-) in August 1863 in Boston.

Birth

09/07/1836; Worcherster, MA

Death

04/29/1898; burial in North Burial Ground, Bristol, RI

Notes

1   US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (OR), 128 vols., Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880-1901, Series 1, Vol 19, Part 1 (Serial 27), pp. 229 - 231  [AotW citation 10488]

2   Buell, Augustus, The Cannoneer: Recollections of Service in the Army of the Potomac, Washington: The National Tribune Company, 1890, pp. 18, 149  [AotW citation 10493]

3   Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Record of the Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861-1865, 2 Volumes, Boston: Wright & Potter, Printers to the State, 1868-1870, Vol. 1, pg. 515  [AotW citation 10494]

4   Bowen, James Lorenzo, Massachusetts in the War, 1861-1865, Springfield (MA): Clark W. Bryan & Company, 1889, pg. 731  [AotW citation 10495]

5   US Army, Registers of Enlistments in the United States Army, 1798-1914, Washington, DC: National Archives, 1956, Vol. 053, pg. 35  [AotW citation 27444]