Open main menu
Open main menu
![[no picture yet]](images/none.gif)
[no picture yet]
(1841 - 1923)
Home State: Maryland
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 5th Maryland Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 19 year old farmhand living with his parents and 6 younger siblings on their small farm at Elkton in Cecil County, MD. He enlisted in Baltimore on 28 September 1861 and mustered the same day as a Private in Company A, 5th Maryland Infantry.
On the Campaign
He was wounded by a gunshot to his left shoulder which broke his humerus (upper arm bone) in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862, and arm was amputated at the shoulder joint the next day.
The rest of the War
He was discharged for disability in Frederick, MD on 12 January (or 3 February) 1863.
After the War
In 1870 he was a huckster living in Elkton, MD but by 1880 and to at least 1900 was a farmer there. He had retired in Elkton by 1910.
References & notes
His service from Wilmer1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3, also as John Burk. Wound and hospital details from the MSHWR.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Annie M. Howard (1846-1925) in 1863 and they had 4 children.
Birth
01/05/1841; Cecil County, MD
Death
08/18/1923; in DE; burial in Leeds Cemetery, Elkton, MD
1 Wilmer, L. Allison, and J.H. Jarrett, George H. Vernon, State Commissioners, History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers, War of 1861-5, Baltimore: Press of Guggenheimer, Weil & Co., 1898, Vol. 1, pp. 181 - 184 [AotW citation 14248]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 33116]
3 Barnes, Joseph K., and US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 books, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1870-1883, Volume 2, Part 2, p. 621 [AotW citation 33115]