site logo
R. Davis

R. Davis

Federal (USA)

Sergeant

Robert Davis

(1832 - 1889)

Home State: Massachusetts

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 2nd and 10th United States Infantry

Before Antietam

At age 16 he served as a Private in the First Massachusetts Infantry from 31 January to 15 July 1848 during the Mexican War. On 11 June 1858, by then a 26 year old farmer, he enlisted again, in Newport, RI in Company I, 2nd United States Infantry, and advanced from Private to Sergeant by 1862.

On the Campaign

He was wounded by a gunshot to his right arm in action near the Middle Bridge at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was treated at the Locust Spring hospital on the Geeting Farm near Keedysville, MD, then at a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD from 22 to 27 September. He was then sent on to Washington, DC.

He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 19 November 1862 (to date from 18 July) at Falmouth, VA, and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 20 October 1863. He was honored by brevet to Captain on 1 August 1864 for his actions at Spotsylvania and around Richmond, VA.

After the War

He remained in US Army service until retired on 18 July 1866 at the rank of Captain. His retired grade was reduced to First Lieutenant on 3 March 1875.

References & notes

Service information from Heitman1 and the Register.2 Personal details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also his photograph (c. 1865), contributed by Jeffry Burden.

He married Mary Miranda Emerson (1837-) in February 1857 and they had a son, Henry (1858-). He married, secondly, Martha Ann Judson Beck (1831-1903) in December 1883.

Birth

04/29/1832; Needham, MA

Death

12/30/1889; Lunenburg, MA; burial in Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, MA

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. 360  [AotW citation 26419]

2   US Army, Registers of Enlistments in the United States Army, 1798-1914, Washington, DC: National Archives, 1956, Vol. 05, pg. 52  [AotW citation 26420]