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Confederate (CSV)

Private

Samuel Altman

(c. 1841 - 1862)

Home State: Georgia

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 50th Georgia Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

He enlisted as a Private in Company K, 5th Regiment, Georgia State Troops on 6 October 1861 and mustered out with them in April 1862. He enlisted again, on 11 May and mustered as a Private in Company A, 50th Georgia Infantry on 11 August 1862.

On the Campaign

He was mortally wounded in the head by a gunshot which "laid bare the frontal bone to the extent of two inches in length by three-fourths of an inch in width" in action at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862, and was afterward captured there.

The rest of the War

He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 19 September and sent on to the General Hospital at 16th and Filbert Streets in Philadelphia on 27 September. He seemed to be doing well until about 6 October when he began to fail. A trephination - hole in his skull - was performed on the 11th to relieve the pressure but it was ultimately unsuccessful and he died of a brain abscess on 11 October 1862. He was buried the next day in Glenwood Cemetery in Philadelphia.

After the War

He was reinterred in a common grave at the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Philadelphia National Cemetery in 1891.

References & notes

His service basics from Henderson,1 who has his wounding and capture at Sharpsburg on the 17th, and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Wound and hospital details from the MSHWR.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Birth

c. 1841

Death

10/11/1862; Philadelphia, PA; burial in Philadelphia National Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Notes

1   Henderson, Lilian, compiler, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, 6 vols., Hapeville (GA): Longino & Porter, 1959-1964, Vol. 5, p. 292  [AotW citation 2915]

2   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 31233]

3   Barnes, Joseph K., and US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 books, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1870-1883, Volume 2, Part 1, pp. 123-124  [AotW citation 31207]