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Confederate (CSV)

Private

John B. Rate

(c. 1839 - 1862)

Home State: Virginia

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 15th Virginia Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

He enlisted as Private, Company B, 15th Virginia Infantry on 27 July 1861 at King's Mill, VA.

On the Campaign

He was mortally wounded and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

His leg was amputated at the lower third of his thigh by a Federal surgeon on 17 September, but he died of pyemia (blood poisoning/infection) on 30 September 1862, age 23, at a field hospital on or near near the battlefield. He was originally buried "in Mayers' field in the hollow below Grove's house, towards the canal" and probably reinterred at Hagerstown in about 1874.

References & notes

Burial information from Pruett1. Further details and corrections from Adam Zimmerli, citing: the 15th VA Infantry Co. B Roster at the Library of Virginia and Virginia Military Dead2. Wound, medical, and death details from Fisher.3

Birth

c. 1839

Death

09/30/1862; Sharpsburg, MD; burial in Washington Confederate Cemetery, Hagerstown, MD

Notes

1 Pruett, Samuel, and Poffenberger & Good, Greg Farino and Western Maryland Regional Library (WMRL), Washington Confederate Cemetery, possible burials, Hagerstown (MD): WHILBR, 2010 [AotW citation 4478]

2 Library of Virginia, Virginia Military Dead Database, Published 2002, first accessed 30 November 2012, <http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/vmd/> [AotW citation 8846]

3 Fisher, Geoge Jackson, MD, Report of Fifty-seven Cases of Amputations ... after the Battle of Antietam, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1863-01-01, Table 1 [AotW citation 21397]

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