Open main menu
Open main menu
E.R. Brown
(1845 - 1930)
Home State: Indiana
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 27th Indiana Infantry
Before Antietam
A 16 year old farmer in Pulaski County, he mustered into Company C, 27th Indiana Infantry on 12 September 1861. As he later remembered it:
It is alleged that certain of the boys who were under the minimum age put the figures 18 in their shoes, and, when asked how old they were, answered innocently, "I am over eighteen." The writer [Brown] was not smart enough to think of such a clever expedient. When he was mustered Major Wood stopped in front of him, and, laying one of his hands on each of the writer's shoulders, asked kindly, "Bub, how old are you?" Of course the answer had to be "eighteen," even if it was "stretching the blanket."He was promoted to Corporal, date not given.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in the belly in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was detached as clerk at Tullahoma, TN from 1 November 1863 to August 1864. He mustered out with his Company on 1 October 1864.
After the War
He graduated from Wabash College in 1868, and then from Lane Seminary (Cincinnati, OH) in 1871. He was a Presbyterian minister in Iowa for 3 years and was a storekeeper in Monticello, IN for 27 years. He completed his history The Twenty-Seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion in September 1899. He was a banker in Akron, OH and Winamac, IN, retiring in 1921. He was once commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) of Indiana.
References & notes
Casualty information from Nelson1. Service details and the quote above from his own regimental history,2 with details from the Historical Data Systems database. His picture from grandson E.R. Brown as printed in Giants.3 Some post-War details from Thompson's Indiana Authors and their Books 1917-1966 (1974), which cites the Indiana State Library as source. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
Birth
08/09/1845; Pulaski County, IN
Death
03/14/1930; Winamac, IN; burial in Winamac Cemetery, Winamac, IN
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. 144 [AotW citation 16654]
2 Brown, Edmund Randolph, The Twenty-Seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, Monticello, IN: E.R. Brown, 1899, pp. 28, 580 [AotW citation 18392]
3 Jones, Wilbur D., Jr., Giants in the Cornfield: the 27th Indiana Infantry, Shippenburg (Pa.): White Mane Publishers, 1997, pg. xiv [AotW citation 18393]