Barney McMichael

Age 21, he enlisted and mustered on 25 September 1861 in Pottsville, PA as a Private in Company K, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry.

He was mortally wounded in action at Crampton’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and died the same day in the care of Francis Boland of Company A, who wrote:

Barney McMichael was wounded on Sunday. I had to take him in my hands. He [was wounded] ... by a round ball. He threw up all blood. I had to give him water many times as his thirst was getting intense. He died in my hands and told me to let his father know how he died. There was none of the regiment near when he died. He was buried in a cornfield ...

He was reinterred in the "Irish Catholic" cemetery in Minersville, PA and his parents were awarded pensions based on his service. The War Department provided a headstone for him in November 1879.

His service basics from Bates1 and the Card File,2 also as Bernard McMichael. The quote above from Ward,3 from a letter Boland wrote home in September 1862. Personal details from the widow's (and mothers') pension files and Records of Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, online from fold3. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

c. 1840 in IRELAND

09/14/1862; Crampton's Gap, MD; burial in Saint Vincent de Paul Cemetery #1, Minersville, PA