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W.L. Adams
(1840 - 1862)
Home State: Massachusetts
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
He was a 21 year old seaman (or farmer?) in West Brookfield when he mustered as Corporal in Company F of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry on 12 July 1861. He was captured inn action at Ball's Bluff, VA on 21 October 1861 and held in Richmond, VA. He returned to duty in about February 1862.
On the Campaign
He was mortally wounded by gunshot to the left lung in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was treated at the Smoketown hospital near Sharpsburg, but he died of wounds there on 10 October 1862. He was originally buried near the hospital and reinterred in the National Cemetery about 1867.
References & notes
Basic information from the Antietam Cemetery History1, which has his middle initial as S. Service details from Soldiers 2. Wound and hospital from Nelson.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph hosted by Susan L. Harnwell on her roster page, original from the family album of M. Lawyer.
Birth
03/05/1840; North Brookfield, MA
Death
10/10/1862; Smoketown, MD; burial in Antietam National Cemetery, Sharpsburg, MD
1 Antietam National Cemetery, Board of Trustees, History of Antietam National Cemetery, Baltimore: John W. Woods, Steam Printer, 1869 [AotW citation 3149]
2 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 2, pg. 169 [AotW citation 5762]
3 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, pg. 111 [AotW citation 19199]