Elijah Marion Ragsdale

Son of a prosperous farmer, he enlisted at age 27 on 1 August 1861 in Decatur, GA and mustered on 5 August as a Private in Company C of the Infantry Battalion, Cobb's Legion. He was promoted to 4th Sergeant in 1862.

He was mortally wounded by a gunshot to his thigh in action at Crampton's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and captured.

He was treated at the US 6th Army Corps field hospital in Burkittsville, MD and sent to Fort McHenry and paroled for exchange on 6 November. He was admitted to the Camp Winder hospital in Richmond, VA on 13 November, "attacked" by variola (smallpox) on 3 or 4 December, and transferred to the smallpox ward at Howard's Grove Hospital in Richmond on 15 December 1862. He died there of his leg wound complicated by smallpox on 21 January 1863.

His father Francis Asbury “Berry” Ragsdale filed a claim for his final pay of $168.00 on 9 February 1863.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1850.

His brothers James, Marshall, Warner, and William were all in Confederate service; none survived the war. James, a Lieutenant in the 21st Mississippi Infantry, was killed at Malvern Hill in 1862. Marshall, William and Warner were in Company C of the Legion and with Elijah in Maryland.

Fairly recently, a well-meaning soul obtained a US government headstone for Elijah's uncle Elijah Newton Ragsdale (1814-1909)[see Findagrave], attributing Elijah Marion's Confederate service to the elder Elijah Newton, in error. I have not found the younger Elijah's burial place.

c. 1834; DeKalb County, GA

01/21/1863; Richmond, VA