Ambrose Henry Hayward

A needle maker in Philadelphia, he enlisted as Private, Company D, 28th Pennsylvania Infantry on his 21st birthday, 21 May 1861, and mustered as Corporal on 28 June.

He was near his Brigade commander Tyndale when that officer was hit by a gunshot to the back of his head at Antietam on 17 September 1862. Along with First Lieutenant Charles W. Borbridge, Company I, he dragged Colonel Tyndale some 50 yards to safety. He was under intense fire the whole time and later wrote

... there was no one who had a more narrow escape than myself. A ball knocked off my cap and nearly took me from my feet. I put my hand up and saw there was no blood and smiled.

He was promoted to 2nd Sergeant on 1 December 1862 and First Sergeant on 1 January 1864. He was wounded through the thigh and into his abdomen in action at Pine Knob, GA on 15 June 1864 and died of his wounds at a US Army hospital in Chattanooga, TN on 19 June 1864.

His service from Bates.1 Antietam and other details from Timothy Orr's Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward, 28th Pennsylvania Volunteers (2011). His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a February 1864 photograph in the Massachusetts Commandery of MOLLUS Collection via the Historical Data Systems database.

His wartime letters and other papers are at Gettysburg College [finding aid].

05/21/1840; North Bridgewater (now Brockton), MA

06/19/1864; Chattanooga, TN; burial in Chattanooga National Cemetery, Chattanooga, TN