Orrin Johnson Crane

After about 1852 he was a ship carpenter in Cleveland, where he "became connected with one of the military organizations of the city". At the outbreak of War in 1861, at age 28, he joined Captain Creighton's company, Company A, 7th Ohio Infantry, as Lieutenant, and was promoted to Captain. He served in Western Virginia, up to Winchester, and was at Port Republic and Cedar Mountain, where he was slightly wounded in the foot. He was promoted to Major 25 May 1862.

At the battle of Antietam, he commanded the regiment, and during the latter part of the engagement, the brigade - the 1st of the 2nd Division, after Lieutenant Colonel Tyndale was wounded.

He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel 2 March 1863. He commanded the regiment in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge.

At fatal Ringgold, he again commanded the regiment. He led it up the steep ascent, where the whistling of bullets made the air musical; and where men dropped so quietly that they were scarcely missed, except in the thinned ranks of the command. The regiment had not recovered from the shock produced by the announcement of the death of Creighton, when Crane himself fell dead at the feet of his comrades, pierced through the forhead by a rifle bullet.

His service from the Roster 1 with details and the death quote above from Maurice Joblin's Cleveland, Past and Present (1869). His gravesite is on Findagrave. Image above is from a carte de visite kindly provided by site visitor Rebecca Libby.

He married Esther L Portis (1830-) and they had 3 children between 1858 and 1861.

See a detailed biography, among those of all of the field and staff officers of the regiment, compiled by Larry Hardman.

1829; Troy, NY

11/27/1863; Ringgold Gap, GA; burial in Woodland Cemetery, Cleveland, OH