James Smith Colwell

A practicing lawyer in Carlisle, he mustered into service as First Lieutenant in the "Carlisle Fencibles" - Company A, 7th Pennsylvania Reserves, on 21 April 1861. He was about 48 years old. He was promoted to Captain to date from 4 July 1862.

He was killed in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

Basic information from Bates1. His photograph from one in the collection of the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, PA, hosted online at House Divided from Dickinson College. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post 201 at Carlisle, established in 1881, was named for him. His wartime letters were published by his great-grandson David G. Colwell in The Bitter Fruits: The Civil War Comes to a Small Town in Pennsylvania (1998).

04/1813; Shippensburg, PA

09/17/1862; Sharpsburg, MD; burial in Old Graveyard, Carlisle, PA