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O.L. Cornman
(1840 - 1862)
Home State: Minnesota
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 1st Minnesota Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 19 year old painter living with blacksmith (uncle?) Fred Cornman and family in Madison County, IL. He enlisted at Stillwater, MN and mustered as a Corporal in Company B, First Minnesota Infantry on 18 May 1861.
On the Campaign
He was killed by gunshot to the head in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. His messmate Sergeant Samuel Bloomer related:
[We] formed in line of battle & advanced through fields, woods & over fences & over the field where the Battle commenced early in the morning & which field was covered with dead & wounded of both sides. At last we halted at the edge of a cornfield by a rail fence but still we were in the [West] woods [battle map]. Had not been at the fence more than 15 minutes before a most terrific fire was poured into the left of our brigade from the rear & front & which fire came quickly down the line to the right where we were ... By that fence my pardner Oscar Cornman was killed & one of Co A, likewise some were wounded & all the wile the battle was raging terribly on our left.His obituary noted:
Corporal Cornman's body was interred by Company B, apart from all the others, in a beautiful grove near the battlefield [burial map]. May it rest undisturbed by the clangor of battle until the great Day when kindred and friends and comrades shall meet to separate no more forever.
After the War
He was reinterred in the new Antietam National Cemetery in about 1867.
References & notes
Burial information from the Antietam Cemetery History,1 which has him as Oscar Corman. Service from Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars 2 with details and the Bloomer quote above from Barden & Jorgenson.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His stone in the National Cemetery and his memorial in Fairview Cemetery, Stillwater, MN, are on Findagrave. The second quote above is from his obituary in the Stillwater Messenger of 30 September 1862. His picture from a photograph in the collection of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers, kindly sent by Emilie Casebolt.
Birth
12/04/1840 in PA
Death
09/17/1862; Sharpsburg, 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 3371]
2 State of Minnesota, Board of Commissioners, Minnesota in the Civil War and Indian Wars 1861-1865, 2 volumes, St. Paul: Pioneer Press Company, 1890-93, Vol. 1, pg. 51 [AotW citation 20237]
3 Barden, Chuck, and Wayne D. Jorgenson, The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment , Published 2000, first accessed 01 January 2002, <http://www.firstminnesota.net/>, Source page: /#/soldier/140 [AotW citation 20238]