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(1829 - 1910)
Home State: Massachusetts
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
Age 28, a japanner (lacquer finisher in the Japanese style) from Salem, he enlisted, along with his cousin (or brother) Patrick, as a Private in Company K, 20th Massachusetts Infantry on 18 July 1861. He was promoted to Corporal by September 1862.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862 by a piece of shell which fractured the left side of his skull.
The rest of the War
He was treated in a hospital in Baltimore, where fragments of bone were removed. He was discharged for disability on 4 April 1863; he had been awarded a disability pension in March. A pension examiner noted that he had "vertigo, palpitation, and morbid wakefulness" in November 1863. By 1865 he was a morocco (leather) dresser in Lynn, MA. In 1870 he was not living with his wife and children, who were in Peabody, MA.
He was admitted to the Soldier's Home in Togus, ME on 20 September 1887 and died there of liver cancer on 26 December 1910.
References & notes
Initial casualty information from Nelson.1 His service from Bruce's History 2 and Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines.3 Further wound and hospital details from the MSHWR.4 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1870, the Massachusetts Census of 1865, and the Registers.5 His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Martha E Harris (1834-1920) and they may have had as many as 5 children by 1867.
Birth
1829 in IRELAND
Death
12/26/1910; Togus, ME; burial in Togus National Cemetery, Chelsea, ME
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. 154 [AotW citation 17111]
2 Bruce, George Anson, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1865, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906, p. 506 [AotW citation 31310]
3 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 2, p. 578 [AotW citation 31311]
4 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. 238 [AotW citation 31312]
5 US Department of Veterans Affairs, Registers of the United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers 1866-1938, Washington, DC: US National Archives and Records Administration, 1938, Eastern Branch, entry 6330 [AotW citation 31313]