Thomas A. Rayle

Age 32, from Friendship Township in Guilford County, he was conscripted as Private, Company A, First North Carolina Infantry on 15 July 1862 in Edenton.

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

He died of typhoid pneumonia (and wounds?) on 23 October 1862 at the US Army hospital at Hestonville just outside Philadelphia, PA.

His service from the Roster 1 and his Compiled Service Records, online from fold3, both as E.A. Rayle and also, in Federal records, as Thomas A. Rayl. Various Company muster rolls say he was home sick after Sharpsburg and died on 24 October 1862 "at home" or "in Maryland." His gravesite is on Findagrave. His original gravestone was unreadable and replaced in January 2007, mis-identified as Thomas A. Royal, Company A, 1st Regiment, North Carolina Cavalry.

At least one researcher has him possibly as Elam A. Rayl. A man of that name and of about the right age lived in Guilford County, NC to at least 1878, when he married for the third time. It is entirely possible that the records have co-mingled two men.

c. 1830; Guilford County, NC

10/23/1862; Hestonville, PA; burial in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA