Charles Rufus Delano

A 19 year old farmer in Turner, he mustered as a Private in Company G, 1st Maine Cavalry on 31 October 1861.

He was in Maryland and had a horse "shot from under him" in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was detailed as an orderly after 4 December 1862, was slightly wounded at Gettysburg, PA on 1 July 1863, and returned from detail to his Company on 19 September. He was killed in a skirmish at Beaver Dam Station, VA on 10 May 1864 while in the advance guard on Sheridan's Richmond raid.

After the skirmish was over, the body was buried by a squad under charge of Sergt. John B. Drake, near a house by the side of the road. The burial was one that will never be forgotten by any one of the half dozen who were present. Sergt. Drake had found a large box, - a sort of meal-chest - in the house, and made this into a coffin by kicking out the partitions. The owner of the house protested so strongly against this use of his meal-chest that the sergeant was forced to draw his revolver and threaten to put him into the box, also, if he did not keep still.

Chaplain Bartlett made a brief prayer, and the comrades reverently placed the body in its last resting-place, while all the time the column was marching by and paying no attention to the little funeral. This over, the comrades mounted their horses and followed on with the column, with other things to think of than the comrade they had just buried, who less than an hour before had started out as well as they were, and like whom they themselves might be, as one of them was, before the morrow night. Alas! that many a soldier's burial was even less formal than this.

His service from Tobie,1 source also of the quote above and his photograph. Personal details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

His brother George Melvin Delano (1844-1867) was in Company G and was with him when he was killed.

07/03/1842; Shrewsbury, MA

05/10/1864; Beaver Dam Station, VA; burial in Lakeside Cemetery, Livermore, ME