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(1836 - 1878)
Home State: North Carolina
Education: University of North Carolina, Wake Forest University
Branch of Service: Medical
Before Sharpsburg
Son of wealthy cotton planter John Houston Thorpe (1814-1883, 42 slaves), by 1860 he had attended medical school in Philadelphia, PA and was a 23 year old physician in Auburn, Macon County, AL. He enlisted there on 12 June 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company F, 12th Alabama Infantry. He was commissioned Assistant Surgeon, CSA in September 1861 and was appointed Assistant Surgeon of the 49th North Carolina Infantry on 4 May 1862.
On the Campaign
He was captured at Sharpsburg on or after 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #5 in Frederick, MD on 10 October and transferred to Baltimore the next day for eventual exchange. He was "relieved from duty" with the regiment on 1 November 1862.
After the War
In 1870 he was a doctor living with his brother John, a lawyer, and his family (his wife was Sallie Eliza Bunn, Lucy's sister) in Rocky Mount, Edgecombe County, NC.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3, indexed under Henry R Thorp (12th AL) and R.H. Thorpe (49th NC). Hospital detail from the Patient List.2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860 & 1870, his father's 1835-1860 plantation account book[finding aid, summary], and L.F. Tillery's Historical Sketch of the First Presbyterian Church of Rocky Mount, North Carolina (1926). His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Lucy Swepson Bunn (later Ramsey, 1849-1883) in January 1872 and they had 3 children.
Birth
1836; Rocky Mount, NC
Death
10/27/1878; Rocky Mount, NC; burial in Pineview Cemetery, Rocky Mount, NC
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 34760]
2 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #949 [AotW citation 34761]