James W. Shinn

He studied medicine with local doctor James Graham Ramsey, was a student at Jefferson in Philadelphia in 1859, and began his practice as a physician in Rowan County in 1859 or 1860. On 3 June 1861 at age 27 he enlisted as Private, Company B, 4th North Carolina Infantry in Rowan County. He was appointed First (Orderly) Sergeant on 20 August 1861 and commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 22 July 1862.

He was with his Company in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 and later wrote of it ...

The dead & wounded lay mingled together covering acres of ground while hundreds that were wounded worked their way to the rear. It appeared as though mutual extermination would put a stop to the awful carnage.

During the whole day the earth was laden beneath our feet by the thunder of artillery, the enemy firing with marked precision & constancy while the rifled pieces sent their iron compliments through the air with a fury that was perfectly deafening.

He was sick in a hospital in Richmond to about January 1863, when he went home. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on 11 February 1863, but died of disease about a month later on 14 March.

Service from Moore1 and the Roster 2 via the Historical Data Systems database. His presence at Sharpsburg from General D.H. Hill's Report. Personal details from his death notice in the Carolina Watchman of 23 March 1863 from Munson's North Carolina Civil War Obituaries (2015), the Catalogue of Jefferson Medical College (1859), and The History of the Shinn Family in Europe and America (1903). The quote above from Shinn's memoir, transcribed online by Kevin Pawlik on Emerging Civil War.

08/30/1833 in NC

03/14/1863; Baker's Mills, NC