Ezra Ripley

Son and grandson of prominent ministers and abolitionists, in 1860 he was a 34 year old lawyer in Cambridge, MA. He enrolled for state service on 28 April 1861 as 3rd Lieutenant of Company A, 16th Massachusetts and was with them to 2 July. He enrolled again, in Boston on 24 July 1861, and traveled "at his own expense" to Fortress Monroe, VA where he mustered as First Lieutenant of Company M, (First) Massachusetts Battalion. They were reorganized as Company B of the 29th Massachusetts Infantry in December. He was detailed as a Judge Advocate at Fortress Monroe then, from 9 May to 8 June 1862, as an aide de camp to Brigadier General J.K.F. Mansfield. He was in action at the Seven Days in June 1862 but afterward absent, sick with "malarial fever" to September.

He was in action with his company at Antietam on 17 September 1862 and later wrote "I have seen sights and gone through what I hope will never be my lot again.”

He was in Boston on recruiting duty from November to 15 February 1863 and in May was assigned as Acting Assistant Adjutant General to Brigadier General Benjamin Christ. Already a frail man, he became more seriously ill by July and decided to return home to recover, but died enroute of disease on a hospital transport on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, MS on 28 July 1863. He was originally buried in the military cemetery in Helena, AR, but later returned home.

His service from Soldiers, Sailors and Marines 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. His Antietam quote thanks to Richard Smith in a post for Discover Concord. Personal details from family genealogists and Francis H. Brown's Harvard University in the War of 1861-1865 (1886). His picture from a photograph in the MOLLUS Massachusets Collection.3 I'm grateful to Jim Smith for the pointer to look into Ripley.

He married Harriet M Hayden (1822-1917) in May 1853.

See much more about Ripley and his efforts to court-martial his Colonel in early 1862 in a fine blog post by Jim Woodrick on And speaking of which ...

08/10/1826; Waltham, MA

07/28/1863; Vicksburg, MS; burial in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, MA