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(1843 - 1910)
Home State: Connecticut
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 8th Connecticut Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 16 year old farm boy living with his parents and 4 younger siblings at Canterbury in Windham County, CT. He enlisted on 3 September 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company F, 8th Connecticut Infantry on 23 September.
On the Campaign
He was severely wounded in the left ankle in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
His foot was amputated and he was treated at the Locust Spring field hospital on the Geeting farm near Keedysville, then at the Smoketown/Antietam hospital near Sharpsburg. He was discharged for disability on 5 August 1863 and began receiving a veteran's pension in 1864.
After the War
By 1870 he was in Killingly, CT with no occupation, in 1880 he was back in Canterbury, CT, and in 1900 he was a farmer in Tolland, CT.
References & notes
His service from the Record,1 as William Morfitt. Wound and hospital details from Major Ward's after-action report and Nelson.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1900. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Phoebe Simmons (1847-1909) and they had 3 children between 1865 and 1880.
Birth
10/1843 in CT
Death
03/24/1910; in CT; burial in Carey Cemetery, Canterbury, CT
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. 346 [AotW citation 30766]
2 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, p. 325 [AotW citation 30767]