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N.J. Hall
(1837 - 1867)
Home State: Michigan
Education: US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Class of 1859;Class Rank: 13/22
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Artillery
Unit: 7th Michigan Infantry
see his Battle Report
Before Antietam
He moved with his family to Monroe County, MI as a boy, and was appointed to the US Military Academy in 1854. He graduated from West Point in July 1859 (as Jonathan Norman Hall) and was breveted 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th US Artillery with permanent rank in the 1st US Artillery on 10 Jan 1860. He was stationed at Ft. Sumter, SC at the opening of the War.
He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in the 5th US Artillery on 14 May 1861. He was chief of artillery for Hooker's Division and then as a staff officer with the Chief of Engineers during the Peninsula Campaign. On 14 July 1862 he accepted the commission as Colonel of the 7th Michigan Infantry.
On the Campaign
He assumed command of the 3rd Brigade, Sedgwick's Division after General Dana was wounded in the Division's failed assault on the West Woods.
The rest of the War
He led his brigade at Frederickburg and Gettysburg, but then took leave for illness from typhoid fever. He was promoted to Captain in the Regular Army, 1 August 1863, served on recruiting and court-martial duty, and mustered out of Volunteer service for illness in May 1864. He retired from the Regular Army in February 1865.
He was honored by brevets to Captain (Sept 62), Major (Dec 62) and Lieutenant Colonel (July 63), USA, for gallantry at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, respectively.
After the War
He died at age 30 of disease contracted in the service.
References & notes
Service details from Heitman1. His photograph is from one in the collection of the Archives of Michigan, posted online2. The Massachusetts Historical Society also has a fine copy. Further information from Cullum3 and his gravesite on Findagrave, thanks to the pointer from J.O. Smith. Hall's Cullum number is 1837, coincidentally also his birth year.
He married Maria Louisa Latham (1841-1908) in February 1862 and they had two sons, Norman J and Latham.
More on the Web
His USMA Class ring is online in an exhibit from the Academy.
See a fine essay [pdf] on military leadership - I Ordered No Man to go When I Would Not go Myself - by Scott Hartwig, online from National Park Service e-history library. It features Hall and two of his West Point classmates, Alexander Webb and Alonzo Cushing, and includes extensive detail about Hall's service.
Birth
03/04/1837 in NY
Death
05/26/1867; Brooklyn, NY; burial in US Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, NY
1 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 490 [AotW citation 1088]
2 State of Michigan, Library and Archives, Seeking Michigan, Published 2008, first accessed 28 February 2010, <http://seekingmichigan.org/>, Source page: /u?/p4006coll3,880 [AotW citation 1089]
3 Cullum, George Washington, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy, 2nd Edition, 3 vols., New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868-79, Vol. II, pp. 488-489 [AotW citation 17719]