Clarence Hopkins Dyer

A Chicagoan from age 2, son of the former Mayor, he was appointed Captain and Assistant Adjutant General (AAG) on 25 September 1861. He joined General Mansfield's staff on the Peninsula in Spring 1862.

He was Assistant Adjutant General, Twelfth Corps on the Maryland Campaign.

Capt Dyer was not with the General at the moment he fell, he having been ordered back by the General to bring on Genl Gordon’s Brigade to their support.

The General was at the time he fell at the head of Genl Crawford’s Brigade. As he fell he was immediately caught up in the arms of five of the privates (from one of our regiments nesct to him) also by the Surgeon of one of the Pennsylvania regiments and carried back about ¼ of a mile to the rear, where he was put into an ambulance and carried back about 1 ¼ mile further to a hospital (made of an old farm house) where he was attended to by the Chief Surgeon of the Corps and had the best of care. Capt Dyer his aid was with him in about 20 minutes after he fell and remained over him constantly until he escpired [sic] ...

He made funeral arrangements and accompanied Mansfield's body back to Connecticut, then returned to duty as a staff officer.

He then reported to Major General Banks for temporary duty at Washington City after which he served with Major General EA Carr commanding the District of St Louis, Missouri and with the same General in the Fourteenth Division of the Thirteenth Corps at Vicksburg and at Little Rock. After this he was with Major General Canby at New Orleans. His last service was with Major General Wesley Merritt who commanded a cavalry corps which marched from Shreveport, Louisiana to San Antonio, Texas.

He was a successful coal merchant in Chicago.

Basic service dates from Heitman1. The quote about General Mansfield's death is from Dyer's report of 10 October 1862, featured and transcribed by Randy Buchman on his Enfilading Lines blog. The quote about his commands after Antietam above and other details from Memorials of Deceased Companions of the Commandery of the State of Illinois, (MOLLUS, 1901).

07/21/1832; Harwinton, CT

08/10/1894; Woodstock, VT