Bela Lewellyn Burr

In 1860 he was a 16 year old working on his widowed mother's farm in Haddam, CT. He enlisted as a Private in Company G, 16th Connecticut Infantry on 7 August 1862, credited to Farmington, CT.

He was wounded in the ankle and shin in action on 17 September 1862 at Antietam. His brother Francis was also wounded, but he died of his wounds in October.

Bela was found on the battlefield 48 hours afterward and initially treated at the Otto Barn. He was moved to US Army General Hospital #4 in Frederick, MD on 1 October 1862 then transferred to Knight General Hospital in New Haven, CT on 2 March. He was discharged for disability on 23 November 1863.

He was "associated with" the Springfield (MA) Daily Union by 1878 and was a journalist in Vernon, Tolland County, CT by 1880. He was a printer and editor at Ellington in 1900, but was a patient in the Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, CT at the time of his death in 1908.

Service information from Ingersoll1 and the Record.2 Frederick hospital details from the Patient List.3 Personal details from family genealogists, notably Charles Burr Todd in A General History of the Burr Family in America (1878), and the US Census of 1860-1900, with his middle name from Gordon.4 His gravesite is on Findagrave; his stone has his birth in 1845. His picture from a photograph in the collection of the Connecticut State Library, kindly provided by John Banks.

He married Sarah E "Satie" Leach (1849-1915) in November 1869.

See more about Burr and his Antietam wound in a fine blog post from John Banks.

06/10/1844; Haddam, CT

04/29/1908; burial in Grove Hill Cemetery, Rockville, CT