[no picture yet]

Federal (USA)

Lieutenant

Robert Gideon Welles

(1842 - 1866)

Home State: Connecticut

Command Billet: Company Commander

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 2nd and 10th United States Infantry

Before Antietam

He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, 10th United States Infantry on 5 August 1861.

On the Campaign

He commanded Company K of the 2nd US Infantry at Antietam.

The rest of the War

He was promoted to First Lieutenant to date from 13 September 1862 and was wounded in the leg in action at Gettysburg, PA on 3 July 1863. He was promoted again, to Captain, on 28 November 1863. He resigned his commission on 29 December 1865.

After the War

He killed himself almost exactly a year later, "[t]he rash act was committed a few minutes before 6 o'clock last evening, in his father's library."

References & notes

Service information from Heitman.1 Personal details from family genealogists. The quote above from the New York Times of 31 December 1866 [pdf]. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He was named in part for his Uncle Gideon Welles (1802-1878), US Secretary of the Navy (1861-69).

Birth

12/03/1842; Glastonbury, CT

Death

12/28/1866; Glastonbury, CT; burial in Saint James Cemetery, Glastonbury, CT

Notes

1 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 1016 [AotW citation 26393]

« Search for another Person