Robert Hale Ives, Jr.

He was commissioned as First Lieutenant and Adjutant of the Providence Horse Guards on 19 August 1862, and assigned as volunteer Aide to General Rodman. He joined the General on 3 September 1862.

He was mortally wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862 by "a cannon shot in the thigh. The fatal shot tore away the flesh from the bone for several inches and passing into his horse killed the animal on the spot".

"...The wounded officer was borne to a dwelling house near at hand which had been taken as a temporary hospital where he was soon attended by Surgeons Rivers and Millar; the former the surgeon of the division, the latter, of the fourth Rhode Island regiment. His wound, though very serious, was not at first thought to be mortal. On the following day, several hospital tents were pitched on an eminence a little distance from the field, and to these General Rodman, Lieutenant Ives, and some other wounded officers from Rhode Island, were removed. Intelligence of his wound was immediately dispatched to his father, but so removed was the scene of the battle from telegraphic communication and so burdened were the wires with messages from the army, that it was not received in Providence till after the lapse of forty-eight hours. His father hastened to him, accompanied by Dr. L. L. Miller, of Providence, reaching his tent on the following Sunday evening. The army had already moved forward, and so comfortless was a solitary field hospital in the opening autumn, that it was decided to attempt his removal to Hagerstown, the nearest railroad terminus, some sixteen miles away. This was effected in an ambulance without special detriment to his comfort, and his previous good health and youthful constitution still kept alive the hope that he might, in a few days, be brought home and even recover from his wound... His wound, however, had inflicted an injury upon his physical frame too great for nature to repair, and the hope which had been cherished of his recovery was soon extinguished". He died in a home in Hagerstown on 27 September.

Basic information from Dyer1. His life dates, and a photograph, posted by Jen Snoots, from his gravesite on Findagrave. Details and the quotes above from Bartlett's Memoirs of Rhode Island Officers ... (1867).

04/03/1837; Providence, RI

9/27/1862; Hagerstown, MD; burial in North Burial Ground, Providence, RI