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Federal (USV)

Private

Christopher Columbus Blake

(1840 - 1917)

Home State: New Hampshire

Branch of Service: Sharpshooters

Unit: 2nd United States Sharpshooters

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 20 year old farmer living with his parents and 5 younger siblings at Dahlonega, Wapello County, IA. On 9 November 1861, then a student listing his residence as Mt. Vernon, NH, he enlisted in Hillsboro, NH and mustered as a Private in Company G, 2nd US Sharpshooters on 12 December.

On the Campaign

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862:

struck ... upon the top of his head by a ball and buckshot, the missiles passing laterally over the skull. Temporary symptoms of concussion followed, and after lying down fifteen or twenty minutes, the patient walked to a field hospital, a short distance in the rear. His lower extremities, especially the left, were numb. The same sensation existed in a slight degree in the arms. The wound of scalp was two inches long by one inch wide, and fracture of the skull was suspected. The head was shaved and cold water dressings were applied.

The rest of the War

After 2 days at the field hospital, he walked (!) the 20 miles to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD. Felt from his cap and hair were removed from his wound. He was sent to a hospital in Washington, DC and, on 24 September, to the DeCamp General Hospital in New York Harbor, where doctors found a fissure (crack) in his right parietal bone.

At the expiration of a week, an incision was made by acting Assistant Surgeon E.B. Root, and some small portions of the external table were removed; the fissure was found to extend upward of two inches beyond the line of the incision. Five days subsequently portions of both table were removed, exposing the dura mater to the extent of the size of a ten cent piece. The internal table, which was found depressed about four lines, was elevated.

His pain and the numbness in his arms and legs disappeared after the surgery and he was discharged for disability on 3 (or 21) November 1862.

After the War

In 1868 a pension examiner found his disability to be total. By 1870 he was a lawyer in Ottumwa, IA and went to Illinois soon afterward. He was practicing in Decatur, IL, in 1880. He ran The Future, a newspaper about predicting weather with "astronomical mathematics" in Topeka/Richland, KS by 1886, and was a lawyer in Boulder, CO in 1900. By 1910 he had retired and was living with his daughter Lalla Etta and her family in Clinton, Douglas County, KS.

He was still publishing weather predictions to at least 1912.

References & notes

Casualty basics from Nelson.1 His service from Ayling.2 Wound and hospital details and the quotes above are from the MSHWR.3 Personal details from a sketch in the Maine Historical Magazine (Vol. II, July 1886-June 1887), family genealogists, and the US Census of 1860-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Rachael Alice Ellen "Rae" Beam (1840-1907) in Iowa in 1865 and they had 9 children between 1867 and 1881.

His brother George Washington Blake (1841-1900) was a Lieutenant in Company K, 2nd Iowa Infantry. Brother Henry Harrison Blake (1843-1864) was briefly a Private in Battery B of the 4th New York Heavy Artillery, but was killed at Ream's Station, VA in August 1864.

Notes

1 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, pg. 133 [AotW citation 16449]

2 State of New Hampshire, Adjutant-General's Office, and Augustus D. Ayling, AG, Revised Register of the Soldiers and Sailors of New Hampshire in the War of the Rebellion 1861-1866 , 2 Volumes, Concord: Ira C. Evans, Public Printer, 1895, Vol. 2, pg. 976 [AotW citation 25035]

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 1, p. 236 [AotW citation 31273]

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