John A. Galloway

Son of a saw mill operator, in 1860 he was a 21 year old painter at Hempfield in Mercer County, PA. He enlisted on 30 April 1861 and mustered as a Sergeant in Company H, 8th Pennsylvania Reserves (37th Regiment of Volunteers) on 29 July in Washington, DC. He was captured at New Market Crossroads (Glendale), VA on 30 June 1862 and was held at Libby and Belle Isle prisons in Richmond, VA for about 5 weeks.

He was wounded by a gunshot in action at Turner's Gap on South Mountain, MD on 14 September 1862.

The ball entered the right breast betwen the eighth and ninth ribs, a little anterior to their centre, passed through the lower portion of the right lung, liver, kidney, and emerged below the twelfth rib, about two inches to the right of the spinal column.

He was treated at a field hospital nearby in Middletown, MD then admitted to US Army General Hospital #5 in Frederick, MD on 21 September. He was sent on to Philadelphia and was admitted to the Satterlee Hospital there on the 26th.

When admitted he was in critical condition, and suffering from dyspnoea [shortness of breath] and a severe pain in the right side, extending above the clavicle. The right lung was in a complete state of hepatization [solidified]. He still passed a considerable quantity of blood from the urethra.

He began receiving an invalid veteran's pension in 1869 and in January 1872 a pension examiner noted he "had hemoptysis [coughed up blood] twice since the wound was received ... has cough and pain all the while." By 1889 he was in Topeka, KS. His widow got his pension after his death.

His service from Bates1 the Card File,2 as A.J. Galloway, and Sypher.3 Wound and hospital details from the MSHWR,4 quoted above, and the Patient List,5 as J.A. Gallaway. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and his Pension Cards. His memorial is on Findagrave.

c. 1839; Verango County, PA

07/08/1890