John F. Atherton

A 20 year old carpenter, he enlisted in Caldwell, OH and mustered as Private, Company K, 30th Ohio Infantry on 12 December (22 August?) 1861. He was furloughed, sick, from February - July 1862.

He saw combat for the first time on South Mountain, MD on 14 September and was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. His left lower arm was broken and his elbow crushed by a stone blown from a wall by an artillery round, another stone bruised his hip.

He did not initially seek care in a hospital and his arm healed badly so that he could no longer straighten it. In April 1863 he was sent to a hospital in St. Louis, MO, and was discharged for disability in Cincinnati, OH on 18 July 1863.

He returned to Ohio, moving to Zanesville in 1866, worked at several jobs where he could use one arm, and received a Federal pension. In spite of his injury, which never completely healed, he lived to be 90 years old.

Service from the Official Roster,1 which has him as John T. Atherton, age 23 at enlistment. Details from pension record research by Mike Fitzpatrick, who posted his photograph on Flickr, source of the picture here. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

12/29/1840; Brandywine, DE

07/18/1931; Zanesville, OH; burial in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville, OH