Joseph Lehman

Born in Germany, he came to Texas at about age 16, and became a naturalized American citizen in 1857. On 13 July 1861, by then a 23 year old baker, he enlisted at Waco, TX as a Private in Company E, 4th Texas Infantry.

He was in action with his Company at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and was wounded by a gunshot to his left arm in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862, and captured there.

His arm was amputated at the shoulder and he was paroled at Sharpsburg on 27 September. He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 27 October, sent to the US Army General Hospital in Baltimore on 12 November, and on to Ft. McHenry on the 17th for transport south. Although officially discharged on a Certificate of Disability on 29 November 1862, he was still in hospitals in Petersburg and Richmond through December.

On 15 January 1863 he was detailed for duty at the Texas Hospital in Richmond, VA, but on 6 June 1863 was furloughed home to Waco, and was probably there for the duration of the war.

Sometime before 1885 and up to his death in 1900 he was proprietor of the Lehman House hotel on 8th Street in Waco, TX. By 1888 and to at least 1892, then open 24 hours, he also operated Joe Lehman's Ice Cream Parlor & Restaurant on South 4th Street there.

Service information from Davis1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 via fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census for 1900, and his obituary in the Waco Times-Herald of 14 August 1900. His postwar occupation from ads in the Waco Evening News of 11 August 1888 (pg. 3, col. 1), 6 May 1889, etc. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Mary Van Dyck (1859-1944) in Waco in December 1890.

Find the Lehman House on an 1886 map of Waco, in a post on the blog.

10/23/1837; Baden, GERMANY

08/13/1900; Waco, TX; burial in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco, TX