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C.M. Alexander
(1832 - 1891)
Home State: District Of Columbia
Education: Marietta College (OH), Class of 1852
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
He was a bookseller in Albany, Indiana (1852-55) and then a Washington DC patent lawyer before the War. In 1861 he served in the National Rifles, then entered service as Major of the 2nd District of Columbia Infantry on its organization in February 1862. He was commissioned Colonel of the 2nd on the resignation of Isaac A Peck in June 1862.
On the Campaign
He commanded the regiment in Maryland.
The rest of the War
He mustered out of the Service on 16 February 1865.
After the War
He was Postmaster at Washington DC in 1868, and continued his career as a patent attorney until his death.
References & notes
Note: A wartime carte de visite photograph of him is in the Meserve Collection at Harvard. The basic service data here from Hunt1, with additional details from Marietta College2 and the Columbia Historical Society.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph of unknown provenance supplied by David Matthews.
Birth
11/07/1832; Woodford County, KY
Death
01/27/1891; Washington, DC; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC
1 Hunt, Roger D., Colonels in Blue: Union Army Colonels of the Civil War - Mid Atlantic States, Mechanicsburg (PA): Stackpole Books, 2007, pg. 241 [AotW citation 935]
2 Marietta College, Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Marietta College, Marietta (OH): Marietta College, 1901, pg. 46 [AotW citation 936]
3 Columbia Historical Society, Record of the Columbia Historical Society (Vol. 6), Washington DC: Columbia Historical Society, 1903, pp. 197-198 [AotW citation 937]