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(1816 - 1862)
Home State: Massachusetts
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 43 year old laborer in Rehoboth, MA. He enlisted on 6 August 1862 in Boston and mustered as a Private in Company F, 29th Massachusetts Infantry on 8 or 9 August.
On the Campaign
He was mortally wounded by a gunshot to his leg in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was initially treated at the Smoketown hospital near the battlefield. He was admitted to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 2 October and died there on 8 (or 9) October 1862.
References & notes
His service from Soldiers, Sailors and Marines 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Wound and hospital details from the Patient List 3 and Nelson.4 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Mary Maria Braley (1817-1883) in November 1836 and they had at least 9 children. Their oldest son Elisha was also wounded at Antietam and 2nd son Joseph L. Westgate (b. 1837), likewise a Private in Company F, died of typhoid fever in Alexandria, VA on 21 October 1862.
There were 8 Westgates in Company F of the 29th Massachusetts including 2 Elishas and 2 Josephs; only 3 of them survived the war.
Birth
08/24/1816; Freetown, MA
Death
10/08/1862; Frederick, MD; burial in Antietam National Cemetery, Sharpsburg, MD
1 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 3, pg. 309 [AotW citation 20144]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served During the Mexican War for the states of Arkansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and in Mormon Battalion, Record Group No. 94, Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1780-1917 [AotW citation 29955]
4 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, p. 434 [AotW citation 29956]