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A.B. Jerome
(1839 - 1881)
Home State: New Jersey
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
He enlisted on 25 April 1861 as First Sergeant of Company B, First New Jersey Infantry. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant, Company H on 19 August 1861. He was detailed to the Signal Corps and assigned to the First Army Corps in March 1862.
On the Campaign
On 4 September 1862 he was assigned to the signal station at Falls Church, VA but was ordered to Point of Rocks, MD on the 12th. He was at the station on Elk Ridge in view of the Antietam battlefield by 20 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was at Fredericksburg in December and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 16 April 1863.
[at Chancellorsville in May 1863] Lieut. Jerome was occupying a station upon the roof of a house near the bank of the river. The Confederates brought down to the opposite bank a section of artillery and opened fire. The first shot struck the chimney of the house, and the bricks flew in all directions. That station, it is needless to say, was evacuated forthwith. The men scrambled down to the ground and hastily saddled their horses. The lieutenant, who was of an excitable temperament, put the saddle on "hind-side before"; whereupon the cook, Joe Newell, said, "Lieutenant, why-why- d-don't you know you've g-g-got your s-s-saddle on 'hind- side before'? " The lieutenant excitedly replied, "Go to -----! How do you know which way I'm going to ride"?
He was at Gettysburg in July and was was commissioned First Lieutenant in the Signal Corps, US Army on 18 September 1863 to date from 3 March 1863. In April 1864 was acting Chief Signal Officer of the Department of the Gulf and was wounded in action with Admiral Farragut, date not given. He resigned his commission on 20 September 1864.
After the War
He was again in the US Army, appointed 2nd Lieutenant, 8th United States Cavalry on 18 June 1867 and promoted to First Lieutenant on 10 August 1869. He was discharged at his own request on 1 December 1870.
References & notes
Birth
1839 in AL
Death
04/19/1881; San Francisco, CA; burial in Greenlawn Memorial Park, Colma, CA
1 State of New Jersey, Adjutant-General's Office, and William Scudder Stryker, Adjutant General, Record of Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Civil War, 1861-1865, 2 volumes, Trenton: John L. Murphy, Steam Book and Job Printer, 1876, pp. 73, 91 [AotW citation 28663]
2 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. 573 [AotW citation 28664]
3 Henry, Guy Vernor, Military Record of Civilian Appointments in the United States Army, 2 Volumes, New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1873, Vol. 1, pg. 162 [AotW citation 28665]
4 Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, pp. 193, 325, before 577, 804 [AotW citation 28666]