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(1842 - 1862)
Home State: Georgia
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 53rd Georgia Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
In 1860 he was an 18 year old farmer on his father's place at Zebulon in Pike County, GA. He enlisted as a Private in Company A, 53rd Georgia Infantry on 28 April 1862 in Griffin, Spalding County.
On the Campaign
He was mortally wounded and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September.
The rest of the War
He died of wounds on Elias Grove's farm near Sharpsburg on 24 September 1862 and was
Buried on west side of Mayer’s old graveyard. Boards destroyed.
After the War
He was probably reinterred in the Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown about 1874.
References & notes
Burial information from Pruett.1 His service from the Roster 2 and his Compiled Service Records, US National Archives, online via fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860.
His older brother Glenn O Colwell, also a Private in Company A, was captured at Sharpsburg, probably left behind to care for the wounded, including James. Another brother, Robert B. Colwell (1834-1909), was in the same Company, but was not in Maryland in 1862.
Birth
1842; Pike County, GA
Death
09/24/1862; Sharpsburg, MD; burial in Washington Confederate Cemetery, Hagerstown, MD
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 4496]
2 Henderson, Lilian, compiler, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, 6 vols., Hapeville (GA): Longino & Porter, 1959-1964 [AotW citation 19665]