Charles Hamilton Bacon

A 31 year old "roller" - probably a factory worker - in Bridgeton Cohansey Township, Cumberland County, NJ, he enlisted in Company F, 3rd New Jersey Infantry on 28 May 1861.

He was killed by a gunshot that passed through his Testament and abdomen in action on 14 September 1862 at Crampton's Gap and buried nearby.

Chaplain Darrow of the regiment wrote Bacon's widow afterward:

... I went immediately in pursuit of him and found him dead. His diary, Testament and purse I took from his person and handed them to his Lieut. [Charles F. Salkeld], who will forward them to you [at] the earliest opportunity. I buried him with eight of his comrades, who fell in the same fight, under an elm tree in the same field where the regiment charged on the enemy, on the estate of Jacob Goodman, north of the village of Burkittsville, about half a mile distant. We had our funeral on Monday afternoon, the drum corps and comrades of the deceased assisting in the burial of our brave dead ...

Service information from State of New Jersey,1 as Charles F. Bacon. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860.

He married Ann Elizabeth White (1834-1901) in July 1853 and they had 6 children, 5 of whom survived him. They were living next door to her parents and siblings in 1860.

See more about Bacon in a post by John Banks on his Civil War Blog. John is the source also of his picture -from Isaac T. Nichols' Historic days in Cumberland County, New Jersey, 1855-1865 (1907) - and the quote above - from a letter published in the West-Jersey Pioneer of 25 September 1862.

1830 in NJ

09/14/1862; Crampton's Gap, MD