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Federal (USV)

Private

Robert LeRoy Goldsmith

(1838 - 1909)

Home State: New York

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 107th New York Infantry

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 22 year old laborer in Elmira, Chemung County, NY. He enlisted there and mustered as a Private in Company A, 107th New York Infantry on 25 June 1862.

On the Campaign

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862 by a gunshot that entered at his lower jaw, fracturing it, passed beneath his tongue, then down and back to lodge in his shoulder blade just above the spine.

The rest of the War

The bullet was cut out at a field hospital, and he had a lot of bleeding and his right arm was paralyzed. He was sent to the Broad & Cherry Streets Hospital in Philadelphia on 26 September. By 12 November he had recovered well, the paralysis nearly gone. He was transferred to the Cuyler Hospital in Germantown, PA on 11 December and was discharged there on 5 January 1863, his disability rated as "one-half and permanent."

He enlisted again, on 9 July 1863 at Horseheads, NY and mustered as a Private in Company D, 14th New York Heavy Artillery on 12 September. He was again wounded, at Spottsylvania, VA, date not given, and again discharged for disability.

After the War

By 1870 and to at least 1880 he was a sawyer at a mill in North Chemung, NY. He was still there at the US Veterans' Census of 1890. In 1900 he was a farm worker on his brother-in-law William Brown's place in Baldwin Township, Chemung County.

References & notes

His service from the Adjutant General,1 also as Robert L. Goldsmith. Antietam wound and hospital details from the MSHWR.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1900. His gravesite is on Findagrave; of of his markers has his birth in 1836.

He married Angeline Elizabeth Stark (1850-1897) in April 1868 and they had 7 children.

Birth

01/16/1838; Elmira, NY

Death

01/1909; North Chemung, NY; burial in North Chemung Cemetery, North Chemung, NY

Notes

1   State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1903, Ser. No. 34, p. 63; For 1897, Vol.4, p. 506  [AotW citation 31414]

2   Barnes, Joseph K., and US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 books, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1870-1883, Volume 2, Part 1, p. 357  [AotW citation 31415]