(1831 - 1862)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was an unmarried 28 year old carpenter in Easton, Northampton County, PA. By the start of the war he was captain of a local militia company - the Easton National Guards - and he mustered with them for 3-months Federal service as Company H, First Pennsylvania Infantry on 21 April 1861 in Harrisburg. They mustered out in July and he enrolled again, as Captain, Company B, 51st Pennsylvania Infantry at Easton on 16 September 1861.
On the Campaign
He commanded his Company on the Maryland Campaign of September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was killed at Fredericksburg, VA on 13 December 1862. Major William J. Bolton (Captain of Company A at Antietam) wrote:
The death of Capt. Ferdinand W. Bell was a very serious loss to the regiment. Very unassuming, and a grand disciplinarian, and as fearless as a lion."Oh! smother the damp hair over his brow;
It is pale and white, and gastly now;
And hide the wound in his gory breast,
For his soul has fled to its final rest."
References & notes
His basic service from the Card File 1 and Bates.2 Further details and his picture - a woodblock print from a photograph - from Rev. Uzal W. Condit's History of Easton, Penn'a (1885). Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to Ed Catterson for the poke to look into Captain Bell.
Birth
09/29/1831; Easton, PA
Death
12/13/1862; Fredericksburg, VA; burial in Easton Cemetery, Easton, PA
1 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 29869]
2 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871 [AotW citation 29870]