Francis Marion Kingman

In 1860 he was a 23 year old painter at the Carver cotton gin factory in East Bridgewater, MA. He enlisted as a Sergeant in Company L, 4th Massachusetts Infantry, intended for 3 months' service, on 9 May 1861 - but no further 3-months men were being accepted and they they were sent home. They reorganized the next day as Company C, 29th Massachusetts Infantry for 3 years service. He mustered as Corporal on 18 May 1861 at East Bridgewater and was promoted to 5th Sergeant on 1 November 1861 and 4th Sergeant by February 1862.

He was with his regiment as Color Sergeant at Antietam on 17 September 1862. After more than hour in action at the Sunken Road that morning:

Up to this time neither regiment had known the fate of the others [of the Irish Brigade], nor the extent of their respective losses. Colonel Barnes now hastened to the right of the Twenty-ninth, for the purpose of taking a careful survey of the field. To his dismay, he perceived that the Sixty-ninth, though holding on bravely, had lost nearly half their number; the Sixty-third had fared equally as hard, and the officers and men of both regiments were striving to keep up their formation. The Colonel, feeling a deep responsibility, saw at once that something must be done to prevent disaster ... Colonel Barnes then gave the order, “forward!” Instantly Sergeant Francis M. Kingman, the dauntless color-bearer, sprang to the front, the whole regiment promptly following him. Above the noise of the battle were heard the answering shouts of the brave Irishmen of the Brigade, their warlike spirit gaining fresh impulse as they started forward on the charge.

He was sick in hospitals in Harpers Ferry and Alexandria, VA, then the Convalescent Camp in Alexandria from October 1862 to December 1863, serving also as nurse, ward master, and clerk. During this time he was advanced to 3rd and 2nd Sergeant, then reduced to Private in July. He never returned to his Company.

He was administratively transferred to the 36th Massachusetts Infantry on 1 February 1864, but did not join them, by that time being on detached service at the Augur General Hospital in Washington, DC and at Camp Distribution, VA until he was discharged at the end of his term on 21 May 1864.

After the war he was again a painter at Carver in East Bridgewater, and he worked there to 1891. He was a clerk in the US Pension agency in Boston from 1891 to 1894, then elected to 2 terms in the Massachusetts legislature, 1895-96. By 1900 he was a bookkeeper in Worcester, MA, and in 1910 he was back in East Bridgewater, by then retired.

His service information from Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines1, the History,2 source of the quote above, his Compiled Service Records,3 online from fold3, and George W. Nason's History and Complete Roster of the Massachusetts Regiments, Minute Men of '61 (1910). Personal details from a bio sketch in A Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators (Vol. 4, 1895), family genealogists, and the US Census of 1860-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Ellen Green Alden (1841-1861) in September 1859 and they had a daughter, Nellie (1861-1935); sadly, Ellen died a month after Nellie's birth. He married again, the widow Caroline Matilda "Carrie" Peterson Chandler (1832-1920) in June 1866; she had three children from her previous marriage.

05/25/1837; Bridgewater, MA

11/14/1917; East Bridgewater, MA; burial in Central Cemetery, East Bridgewater, MA