Samuel Derrick Webster

In 1860 he was 14 year old apprentice to Delius O. Maupin, publisher of the Virginia Advertiser in Moorfield, VA, and lived with his family. On 28 February 1862, by then a 16 year old in the printing business in Martinsburg, VA, he enlisted and mustered at Williamsport, MD as a drummer in Company D, 13th Massachusetts Infantry.

He was in action with is company on the Maryland Campaign of 1862. On 17 September at Antietam he wrote

All last night the Pa. Reserves and the rebels in our front kept up volleys – creeping in upon each other and firing. Just at daylight I was up. Had tried to sleep, but lay on the ground with only a piece of rubber blanket about 18 inches wide for Dana and I, and didn’t succeed very well.

At daybreak ... Went obliquely to the right, across a fence running with our line; then across the lane, and on to the corner of a woods, from which we moved towards the Dunker Church ahead of us on the pike, about half the regt – the left – being covered by the woods ... Moved right ahead, the skirmishers in front falling back over the first line of the rebels, in a cornfield, who suddenly rose and poured in a volley. This line soon used up, and so was the brigade sent to relieve them.

After about 2 ½ hours the division was relieved by another, tho’ by that time they were a mere skirmish line ... When ordered off Co. D. had but 4 men, under a sergt, and a corporal – the latter wounded. Co. K. had but 3 men under the Capt. who was wounded just as he told them to help off such wounded as they could ... I went back to Keedysville and established a Hospital for my boys in the upper part of the stable alongside the bridge. Get in at a hole on the end where a board was knocked off ... Sixty of the 13th lie around a straw stack in rear of the field, wounded, but they seem to bear it right easily. One cut the bullet out of his leg with a jack knife. All who are not too badly hurt laugh and joke over their wounds as though they were fun.

He transferred to Company G, 39th Massachusetts Infantry on 14 July 1864, was detailed as a nurse to the 5th Army Corps hospital at City Point, VA on 30 July, and mustered out at Petersburg, VA on 28 February 1865 at the end of his term of enlistment.

He studied the law and was admitted to the bar in 1868. He moved to Wyoming where he practiced law, ran a newspaper and later became Indian Agent for the Yankton Sioux. He moved to St. Louis by 1900 and worked for the Terminal Railroad Association there to at least 1920, then a 74 year old statistician.

His service from Soldiers, Sailors and Marines 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. The quote above from his Diary in the H.P. Huntington Library [finding aid], pointer from Hartwig;3 thanks to Brad Forbush for the diary transcription. Personal details from the US Census of 1860, 1900, and 1920, and his Missouri death certificate (which has his birth in Martinsburg, VA, probably in error). His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Adella Pepper (1847-1931) in January 1871 and they had 4 sons by 1887.

09/22/1845; Talleyville, DE

02/29/1828; St. Louis, MO; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Kirkwood, MO