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J.W. Patterson
(1835 - 1864)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 25 year old clerk at Buchanan in Allegheny County, PA. He enrolled in Pittsburgh and mustered in Harrisburg on 25 April 1861 as Captain of Company B, 13th Pennsylvania Infantry for 3 months service. He mustered out with them on 6 August and re-enrolled 3 days later, mustering as Captain of Company E of the 102nd Pennsylvania Infantry on 15 September. He was wounded by a gunshot to his chest collapsing his left lung at Fair Oaks, VA on 31 May 1862 and was promoted to Major of the regiment on 3 July.
On the Campaign
He returned to be with his regiment in Maryland and arrived on the Antietam battlefield with them about noon on 18 September 1862. While on the field, he and three other officers of the regiment found and buried the body of Private Louis Merz of the 4th Georgia Infantry.
The rest of the War
He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 16 January 1863 and was captured at Salem Church on 4 May 1863 and briefly a prisoner at Libby Prison in Richmond, VA before being exchanged on 24 May. He was appointed Colonel on 27 May 1863 and was shot in the head and killed in action in the Wilderness, VA on 5 May 1864.
References & notes
His service basics from Bates1 and the Card File.2 His part in the burial of Private Merz at Antietam thanks to John Haltigan. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and a bio sketch by GGGrandson William Avery Phillis III. His picture from a full-length standing portrait photograph contributed to the FamilySearch database by Susan Argyle.
He married Anne Almira Wendt (1835-1908) in May 1859 and they had 3 children.
More on the Web
Mr Haltigan, along with Arthur B. Fox and Jeane H. Stetson, is co-author of The Old 13th is at the Front: A History of the 102nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment 1861-1865 (2026) [via Amazon].
Colonel Patterson's original wooden headboard is part of an exhibit at the Chancellorsville Visitor Center; see more about that from battlefield historian John Hennessy.
Birth
05/04/1835; Pittsburgh, PA
Death
05/05/1864; the Wilderness, VA; burial in South Side Cemetery, Pittsburgh, PA
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871 [AotW citation 35072]
2 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17> [AotW citation 35073]