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H.C. Meinell
(1841 - 1891)
Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Artillery
Before Antietam
Son of a successful farmer, in 1860 he was 19 years old and lived with his parents, siblings, and servants at Oyster Bay, Queens, NY. He enlisted on 25 April 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company K, 5th New York Infantry - Duryee's Zouaves - on 28 June, but was discharged 4 November to accept appointment as 2nd Lieutenant, 3rd United States Artillery (to date from 24 October 1861). He was promoted to First Lieutenant a week later.
On the Campaign
He commanded a section (2 guns) of the combined Batteries C and G, 3rd US Artillery on the Maryland Campaign of September 1862 and was afterward mentioned by Captain Gibson "as worthy of commendation and reward."
The rest of the War
He was brevetted Captain for his actions at Fredericksburg, VA in December 1862.
After the War
He continued in the Army, in command of Battery C by April 1867, then at Jefferson Barracks, MO, then was post Quartermaster at Fort McPherson, NE in June 1867, but he resigned his commission on 1 January 1870. He was living in Montclair, NJ by 1878 but was in Richmond County, NY in 1880.
References & notes
His service from the New York Adjutant General1 and Heitman,2 with details from Letters Received by Commission Branch [Office of the Adjutant General, US Army], 1863-1870, online from fold3. His role at Antietam from Captain Gibson's after-action report. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a June 1862 photograph of 4 officers of Battery C.
He married Army Chaplain John F. Fish's daughter Mary Louise Fish (1846-1912) in about 1865 and they hd 5 children.
Birth
12/30/1841; Oyster Bay, NY
Death
07/12/1891; Manhattan, NY; burial in [cremated]
1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1898, Ser. No. 17, pg. 916 [AotW citation 28881]
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. 702 [AotW citation 28882]