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(c. 1840 - 1863)
Home State: Alabama
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 26th Alabama Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
He mustered as Private, Company H, 26th Alabama Infantry on 1 March 1862.
On the Campaign
He was mortally wounded and captured in action on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 "by a missile, which produced a compound comminuted fracture of the upper third of the left femur [thigh bone] and lodged".
The rest of the War
Admitted to General Hospital #4 on September 19, 1862 and transferred to #1 on January 15, 1863.
No apparatus was applied; but the limb was placed in easy position under a pillow, the missile was extracted, and nitric acid was applied to the sloughing wound. On January 26th, the wound had an unhealthy appearance, at first supposed to be gangrenous. The patient had a troublesome cough, for which a stimulating cough-mixture and cups to chest were prescribed. His general condition improved until erysipelas set in, which was ineffectually treated by the expectant plan. He died March 16, 1863, from exhaustion. At the autopsy, the fracture was found united at an angle of forty-five degrees...He was originally buried "on west side of cemetery at Frederick." Probably reinterred at Hagerstown in about 1874.
References & notes
Burial information from Pruett1 and service data from Molesworth2. Medical details from Otis3, which includes a photo of his femur, but has his last name as Powell, and the Patient List.4 He has stones at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, MD, and may still be there. He's also seen as M. Daniel Howell and his full name may be McDonald Daniel Howell.
Birth
c. 1840; Marion County, AL
Death
03/16/1863; Frederick, 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 4745]
2 Molesworth, Tod L., O'Neal's 26th Alabama : "the little regiment that did", Avoca, MI: Tod L. Molesworth, 2000, Company H Roster [AotW citation 7954]
3 Otis, George Alexander (curator), and John H. Brinton (collecter), William Bell (photographer), Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, 8 Volumes, Washington DC: US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, 1865, Vol. 5, pg. 91 [AotW citation 7955]
4 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #198 [AotW citation 20111]