Charles P. Abernathy

In 1860 he was a 26 year old farmer on his father J.C. Abernathy's small place near Cross Anchor in the Spartanburg District, SC. He enlisted at Cross Anchor as 2nd Sergeant of Company D, 3rd South Carolina Infantry on 14 April 1861. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 14 May 1862.

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

He died in a US Army field hospital on the Lavinia Grove Farm at Sharpsburg and was buried on the battlefield near "Mrs. Lucker's [Locker's] barn", which is on the west edge of the West Woods (along the modern Maryland Route 65 bypass).

His widow filed for his final pay of $175.33 in November 1862.

He was probably reinterred at Hagerstown in about 1874.

Burial information from Pruett.1 His service from Salley,2 who has him killed outright at Sharpsburg, and his Compiled Service Records,3 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, at least one having his middle name as Dickson, and the US Census of 1860, as Charles N. Abernathy. His memorial is on Findagrave; thanks to Tom DeNardo for the pointer to that.

He married Rachel Caroline Farrow (later Workman, 1844-1929), probably known by Caroline, in 1858 at Cross Anchor, SC. They had a son Charles Dickson Abernathy (1859-1952). The elder Charles probably had a much younger brother named Dickson (born c. 1853).

A casualty list in the Charleston Mercury of 23 July 1862 has him killed at Malvern Hill, VA on 1 July 1863, in error.

c. 1834 in SC

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