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Confederate (CSV)

Private

William Bentley Wicker

(c. 1841 - 1862)

Home State: Virginia

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 15th Virginia Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

He enlisted in Company I, 15th Virginia Infantry on 19 July 1861 at Camp Adams, VA.

On the Campaign

He was mortally wounded by gunshot to the arm and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. There was extensive damage to his elbow joint and his brachial artery was injured.

The rest of the War

His arm was initially amputated about 17 September but considerable infection set in and "the arm was entirely infiltrated with fetid pus", so a Federal surgeon performed a secondary amputation at a field hospital near Sharpsburg on 22 September. He died of pyemia - infection - on 25 September 1862. 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. Details from Adam Zimmerli, citing the 15th VA Infantry Co. I Roster at the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Military Dead 2. Wound and medical details from Fisher.3

Birth

c. 1841; Hanover County, VA

Death

09/25/1862; 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 4487]

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 8851]

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 IV [AotW citation 21406]

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