Open main menu
Open main menu
C.A. Gates
(1843 - 1885)
Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Artillery
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 17 year old living with his parents and brothers Alonzo and Edward on their farm at West Monroe in Oswego County, NY. He enlisted in Baldwinsville, NY on 16 September 1861 and mustered as a Private in Battery B, First New York Light Artillery on 20 September for a term of 3 years. He was described as having blue eyes, light hair, and a fair complexion, and stood 5 feet and 3 1/4 inches tall. He was probably wounded (hand?) in action at Savage's Station near Richmond, VA on 29 June 1862 and was in Mt Pleasant Hospital in Washington, DC on 14 August.
On the Campaign
He was with the battery at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was promoted to Corporal, date not given, and reenlisted on 25 December 1863. He was a Sergeant when he mustered out at Elmira, NY on 18 June 1865.
After the War
He went to Iowa shortly after his father Arad Gates (1804-1885) did in 1865, and by 1870 he was a farmer with or near his father and brother Alonzo, half-brother James, and other Gates families at Koszta in Iowa County, IA. He farmed there until his early death at age 42 in 1885. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Bricker Post #145, at Ladora in Iowa County, and began receiving a veteran's pension for disability in June 1880.
References & notes
His service from the Adjutant General1, his Muster Roll Abstract, and his GAR card, the latter two online from fold3. The Washington, DC hospital detail from his letter to his father of 14 August 1862 and his presence at Antietam from one of 21 September. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860-1880, the Iowa State Census of 1885, family bio sketches in the Union Historical Company's History of Iowa County, Iowa (1881), and his pension card. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to Steve Gates for the pointer to his great grandfather Charles and for sharing his photograph and letters.
He married Hannah Marcia Marcellus (1848-1924) in Iowa in April 1867 and they had 5 children.
More on the Web
A set of his wartime letters are in the University of Iowa Special Collections Repository in Iowa City [finding aid], and they are online from the Iowa University Libraries.
Birth
06/02/1843; West Monroe, NY
Death
10/16/1885; Honey Creek Township, Iowa County, IA; burial in Koszta Cemetery, Koszta, IA
1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York for 1863, Albany: Comstock & Cassidy, Printers, 1864, For the Year 1896, Vol. 2, p.155 [AotW citation 34825]