Robert Emory Park

A 17 year old student at Auburn, he enlisted as Private, Company F, 12th Alabama Infantry in July 1861. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in April 1862 and First Lieutenant in June.

He was captured in action near Turner's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 while leading a detail of about 40 skirmishers from his regiment:

... My men slowly fell back, firing from everything which served to screen them from observation. Several of them were wounded and six or eight became completely demoralized by the unbroken front of the rapidly approaching enemy, and despite my commands, entreaties and threats left me, and hastily fled to the rear. Brave Corporal Myers, of Mobile, adopting a suggestion of mine, aimed and fired at an exposed officer, receiving a mortal wound in the breast as he did so. I raised him tenderly, offered him water, and was rising to reluctantly abandon him to his fate, when a dozen muskets were pointed at me, and I was ordered to surrender.

He was exchanged by the end of 1862 and returned to duty. He was wounded and captured at Winchester, VA on 19 September 1864 and captured there. He was promoted to Captain but remained a prisoner at Fort Delaware to the end of the War.

His service from the State of Alabama.1 He was listed as missing on South Mountain in a casualty list for Rodes' Brigade in the Montgomery Weekly Advertiser of 8 October 1862. The quote about his capture on South Mountain is from a sketch of the regiment he wrote for the SHSP.2 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

01/13/1843; LaGrange, GA

05/07/1909; burial in Riverside Cemetery, Macon, GA