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H.M. Clarkson
(1835 - 1915)
Home State: South Carolina
Education: South Carolina College (1855),
University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Class of 1859
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 13th Alabama Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
One of 16 children of wealthy Charleston merchant and planter Thomas Boston Clarkson (1809-1879) and his wife Sarah Carolina Heriot (1807-1877), he was an unmarried 25 year old physician in Columbia, SC at the start of the war. In December 1860 he joined the Columbia Flying Artillery militia battery and was Corporal and had charge of a gun which fired on the Star of the West in Charleston Harbor on 9 January 1861.
He was appointed Assistant Surgeon, CSA on 30 April 1862 (to date from 24 March) and enrolled in Richmond, VA as Assistant Surgeon of the 13th Alabama Infantry.
On the Campaign
He was with his regiment at Turner's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He passed an exam on 13 April 1863 and was appointed Surgeon, CSA on 9 July 1863 (to date from March). He ran a field hospital in McPherson's Barn at Gettysburg, PA in July, and was transferred from the field to post duty in August 1863. In September he was assigned to CS General Hospital #1 in Lynchburg, VA and he was sent to the City Hall (prison) Hospital in Macon, GA in February 1864 and was Surgeon-in-Charge there to at least September. He served, lastly, at a hospital in Columbus, MS, was surrendered and paroled there on 19 May 1865.
After the War
He left South Carolina for Haymarket in Prince William County, VA in 1870 and he practiced medicine there to about 1905. He was also Prince William County Superintendent of Schools from 1892-1909.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records 1 online from fold3, and the Alabama Archives.2 Personal details from family genealogists and his obituary in the Washington, DC Evening Star of 19 June 1915. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph of unknown provenance hosted by the Alabama Confederate Images Facebook page in 2019.
He married Jeanie Irving Sayre (1841-1921) in September 1863 and they had 10 children; 5 sons survived him.
More on the Web
He was well known as a poet, particularly of the Lost Cause; a collection of his works was published as Songs of Love and War in 1898 and expanded in 1910. That edition is online from the Hathi Trust.
Birth
11/06/1835; Charleston, SC
Death
06/17/1915; Haymarket, VA; burial in Saint Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Haymarket, VA
1 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 33073]
2 State of Alabama, Dept. of Archives & History, Alabama Civil War Service Database, Published 2004, first accessed 01 January 2010, <https://archives.alabama.gov/research/CivilWarService.aspx> [AotW citation 33074]