Charles S. Brown

He enlisted at Camp Clark in Guadalupe County, TX as 2nd Sergeant of Company F, 4th Texas Infantry on 11 July 1861.

He was with his Company in action at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was appointed Sergeant Major of the regiment on 8 October 1862 and was killed in the Wilderness, VA on 6 May 1864:

The color bearer of the Fourth Texas was wounded and sank to the ground, yet he held the flag aloft long enough to hand it to Durfee, of Company B, a brave Irishman, who carried it to a point within a hundred and fifty yards of the enemy's breastworks. There, his hip shattered by a ball, he gave it to Sergeant Major Charles S Brown, who, disabled at the moment of receiving it, before sinking to the ground, passed it to a fourth man, who held it out of the dust and carried it floating proudly and defiantly in the air back with the regiment, Durfee and Brown, companions in misfortune, crawled to the foot of the same tree. Durfee sitting on the side next to the Confederates, Brown on that facing the Federals. In one of the lulls of the battle Austin Jones crept out to them on his hands and knees and offered to carry Brown in his arms to a place of safety. The wounded hero refused, saying "Durfee and I were wounded together and must leave the field together." Ten minutes later, when Jones returned with two litters and their bearers, Durfee was living, Brown dead. He had been shot in the head, and with it drooped upon his breast sat there as if sleeping.

Service information from Davis1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 via fold3. The quote above from a 6 July 1864 letter of Joseph B. Polley which he published in A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie (1908).

The Austin History Center has his "1863 letter home to mother, 1864 letter home informing of his death, and an undated remembrance of Charles by his brother" in the Wheeler Family Papers (AR.K.003) [finding aid].

05/06/1864; Wilderness, VA