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(1841 - 1916)
Home State: Connecticut
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 8th Connecticut Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was an 18 year old laborer living with his parents and 3 younger siblings in Simsbury, CT. He enlisted on 3 September 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company C, 8th Connecticut Infantry on 25 September.
On the Campaign
He was wounded by a gunshot in both legs in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 25 October and returned to his unit on 1 May 1863. He transferred to the 21st Company, 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps on 10 August 1863 and reenlisted on 4 May 1864. He transferred to Company I, 3rd Regiment, VRC, date not given, and was discharged for disability on 19 September 1865.
After the War
He began receiving a veteran's pension for disability in 1866. By 1880 he was a farmer on his in-law's place at East Granville, Hampden County, MA. In 1900 he was a day laborer in Russell, MA.
References & notes
His service from the Record,1 as James Spellman. Wound and hospital details from Major Ward's after-action report and the Patient List.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860, 1880, & 1900. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Jane A. Northway (1839-1881) in February 1871 in Granville, MA, where they had 3 children by 1876. He married again, the widow Caroline E. Foshay Chapman (1838-1906) in March 1888.
Birth
05/1841; Simsbury, CT
Death
06/10/1916; Springfield, MA; burial in Silver Street Cemetery, Granville, MA
1 State of Connecticut, Adjutant General's Office, and AGs Smith, Camp, and Barbour, and AAG White, Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the Army and Navy of the United States during the War of the Rebellion, Hartford: Press of the Case, Lockwood, and Brainard Company, 1889, p. 338 [AotW citation 30715]
2 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #5.307 [AotW citation 30716]