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Confederate (CSV)

Private

John Wilson Kiestler

(1838 - 1885)

Home State: North Carolina

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 4th North Carolina Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

Age 23, from Rowan County, he enlisted as a Private in Company B, 4th North Carolina Infantry on 3 June 1861 at Rowan Mills, NC. He was wounded at Seven Pines, VA in on 31 May or 1 June 1862.

On the Campaign

He was wounded again, by a gunshot to his left hand in action at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was in a Richmond, VA hospital by 22 September and was furloughed home on the 24th. He lost his 2nd finger to amputation and "the other fingers are permanently closed so that he has very little use of the hand."

In September 1863 he was certified disabled for field service, and was detailed as a nurse to the Winder Hospital in Richmond, VA. He transferred as a nurse to the Wayside Hospital in Burkeville, VA about March 1864 and on 14 December 1864 he requested assignment in Charlotte, NC to be near his soon-to-be wife. He was transferred to the Quartermaster Department in Charlotte on 9 February 1865 and was surrendered and paroled at Salisbury, NC on 24 May 1865.

After the War

By 1870 and to at least 1880 he was a farmer in Atwell Township, Rowan County, NC.

References & notes

His service and other details from his Compiled Service Records,1 via fold3 and the Roster,2 via the Historical Data Systems database, also as John W Kistler, Kestter, Kirstter, and Whistler. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1870 and 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Jane Elizabeth McNeely (1846-1924) on 29 December 1864 (or 2 January 1865) and they had 3 children between 1872 and 1877.

Birth

05/04/1838 in NC

Death

05/11/1885; burial in Back Creek Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Mount Ulla, NC

Notes

1   US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927  [AotW citation 27497]

2   Manarin, Louis H., and Weymouth Tyree Jordan, Matthew M Brown, Michael W Coffey, North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865 : A Roster, 20 Volumes +, Raleigh: North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, 1966-  [AotW citation 27498]