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(1844 - 1905)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
Son of a justice of the peace, in 1860 he was a 14 year old living with his parents and 3 siblings in Newville, Cumberland County, PA. He enlisted and mustered in Harrisburg as a Private in Company E, 130th Pennsylvania Infantry on 12 August 1862.
On the Campaign
He was wounded by a gunshot to his left leg in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was treated at a hospital in Harrisburg, PA and was discharged there on 17 March 1863 on a Surgeon's Certificate of disability.
After the War
He was a laborer in Harrisburg before he was admitted to the US Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, OH on 18 October 1884. He was "dishonorably discharged" from the Home on 29 March 1886 with a note that his papers were forwarded to the warden of the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. He had been indicted by a grand jury on 15 March 1886 for "depositing obscene letters in the mail" and may have served time in prison. In 1900 he was a "pensioned soldier" living in Harrisburg, PA, and on 8 September 1900 he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Soldier's Home in Erie, PA. He died there on 24 November 1905 at 7:30 PM of a cerebral hemorrhage, age 61.
References & notes
His service basics from Bates1 and the Card File.2 Wound and hospital detail from Nelson.3 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1850-1860 and 1900, the Cincinnati Law Bulletin & Reporter of 15 March 1886, the Registers,4 and the Record Book;5 he apparently never married. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
Two other Kennedys, Cyrus and Alex, were in Company E and also wounded at Antietam.
Birth
09/13/1844; Newville, PA
Death
11/24/1905; Erie, PA; burial in Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Erie, PA
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871 [AotW citation 11256]
2 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17> [AotW citation 31255]
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. 272 [AotW citation 31256]
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, p. 12677 [AotW citation 31257]
5 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs, Pennsylvania Soldiers' and Sailors' Home in Erie, Patient Record Books, 1886-1949, 14 volumes, Erie: Pennsylvania Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, 1886-1949, Vol. 5, p. 181 [AotW citation 31260]