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R. Dinsmore

R. Dinsmore

Federal (USV)

Lieutenant

Richard Dinsmore

(c. 1840 - 1866)

Home State: Pennsylvania

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: Signal Detachment, Army of the Potomac

Before Antietam

A 20 year old bookkeeper in Centre County, PA, he enrolled there on 8 June 1861 and mustered on 21 June as 2nd Lieutenant, Company E, 5th Pennsylvania Reserves. He was detailed to the Signal Corps in August 1861 and appointed an instructor on 30 December. He was assigned to the First Army Corps, Army of the Potomac in March 1862.

On the Campaign

On 14 September 1862 he was posted to Short Mountain (Short Hill?) near Middletown, MD, and during the battle of Antietam on the 17th was sent to establish a signal station near Frederick, MD. He was there to at least 20 September.

The rest of the War

He was promoted to First Lieutenant to date from 17 September 1862 and to Captain on 5 March 1863. He was with the cavalry corps at Gettysburg, PA on July 1863 and afterward declined a commission as a First Lieutenant in the Signal Corps, USA. He was discharged on 12 March 1865.

References & notes

His basic service from Sypher1 and the Card File,2 with details from Brown,3 source also of his picture. Maryland Campaign events from Captain B.F. Fisher's Report. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Birth

c. 1840

Death

10/10/1866; Bellefonte, PA; burial in Union Cemetery, Bellefonte, PA

Notes

1   Sypher, Josiah Rhinehart, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, Lancaster, PA: Elias Barr and Company, 1865, Vol. 1, pg. 614  [AotW citation 28717]

2   Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17>  [AotW citation 28718]

3   Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, before pg. 69; pp. 69, 157, 292, 759  [AotW citation 28719]