Samuel E. Grosvenor

He came to New York City from England with his family in 1845 aboard the SS St. George, and they were living in New York to at least 1850. They had moved to Guilford, CT by 1860.

An unmarried farmer, he enlisted in Company B of the 16th Connecticut Infantry on 23 July 1862 and was mustered in as Sergeant on 24 August 1862.

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was captured on 20 April 1864, with the majority of his regiment, at Plymouth, NC and was a prisoner at Andersonville. He was paroled on 16 December 1864 and by April 1865 was on the way back to his regiment, probably from Camp Parole near Annapolis, MD.

He was aboard the sidewheel steamer Massachusetts, along with about 300 other soldiers, most also former POWs, on the Potomac River bound for City Point from Alexandria. At about 1 a.m. on 23 April they collided with a former coal barge, the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond sank and many aboard the Massachusetts jumped or were thrown over the side, and as many as 87 men drowned as a result, one of them Samuel. His body was not recovered.

His service information from Ingersoll1 and the Record.2. Personal details from family genealogists and from a finding aid to his 1864 diary at the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.

See much more about the collision that lead to his death in a fine piece by Karen Stone from America's Civil War Magazine, and an article in the New York Times of 27 April 1865.

12/01/1840; Dudley, Worcestershire, ENGLAND

04/23/1865; near Blackistone (now St. Clement's) Island , MD