Harrison Woodsmall

In 1860 he was an 18 year old student living with his parents and younger brother on their farm at Gosport in Owen County, IN. He enlisted and mustered on 7 June 1861 as a Sergeant in Company H, 14th Indiana Infantry.

He was wounded by a gunshot to his leg in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 24 September and transferred out, destination not given, on 29 September. He was discharged for disability on 15 January 1863.

He helped recruit a company of troops in Owen County (with William L Thompson) and enrolled again for service, was commissioned Captain of Company G, 115th Indiana Infantry on 15 July 1863, and mustered for a 6-month term with them on 17 July. He was promoted to Major on 13 August and mustered out with the regiment on 10 February 1864 in Indianapolis.

He studied law in Ann Arbor, MI and by about 1866 was a lawyer back in Owen County, IN. He went to Georgia and studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1872-73 and worked for Baptist organizations in Georgia doing missionary work among ex-slaves. In 1878 he moved to Alabama and helped found and was first President of the Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School (now Selma University), in Selma. He afterward continued as a missionary in Alabama and other southern states, and died of consumption (tuberculosis) in Memphis on 28 February 1888.

Service basics from the Adjutant General.1 Wound and hospital details from the Patient List.2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, a bio sketch in William Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia (Vol. 3, 1881), and his Pension Card, online from fold3. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Mary Elizabeth Howes (1850-1913) in December 1874 and they had 4 children.

06/09/1841; Gosport, IN

02/28/1888; Memphis, TN; burial in Greenlawn Cemetery, Franklin, IN