Archibald Balwin Ellis

Age 19, from the Abbeville District, he enlisted in Greenwood, SC in Captain W.W. Perryman's "Secession Guards" on 17 April 1861 and mustered into Confederate service with them as Private, Company F, Second South Carolina Infantry on 23 May in Richmond, VA. By September 1862 he had been appointed 2nd Musician in his Company.

He was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was promoted to 2nd Corporal by August 1863 and to First COrporal on March 1864. He was captured at Strasburg, VA on 19 October 1864, briefly held at Harpers Ferry, then sent on to Point Lookout, MD on 23 October, arriving at the prison there on 25 October. He was paroled and sent to Aiken's Landing, VA on 28 March 1865 for exchange.

He was a farmer at Greenwood by 1870 and at Cokesbury, Abbeville (later Greenwood) County by 1880. He had retired and was living with his son James by 1910 in Greenwood and was there until about July 1929, when he moved with James and his family to Atlanta.

His basic service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online via fold3, and Salley.2 His wound at Sharpsburg from Mac Wyckoff's A History of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry, 1861-1865 (1994). Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1870-1920, and his obituary in the Greenville News of 28 March 1930. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Sarah H. Riley (1845-1926) in about 1866 and they had 5 children.

See much more about Corporal Ellis and his regiment in a fine post by great-great-grandson Judson Hair. Thanks to Judson for the pointer to Ellis and for a postwar photograph of him, c. 1866-70.

02/06/1842; Hodges, Abbeville District, SC

03/27/1930; Atlanta, GA; burial in Hodges Cemetery, Hodges, SC