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(1836 - 1862)
Home State: North Carolina
Education: Georgetown College, Class of 1855
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
From Wake County, he was licensed to practice law in 1857. Early in the War he enlisted in Memphis, TN as a Private in a Tennessee artillery Company, then returned home and was commissioned First Lieutenant and Regimental Adjutant of the 48th North Carolina Infantry on 11 July 1862.
On the Campaign
He was mortally wounded in the shoulder and face and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was paroled on 26 September 1862 but died of wounds about 15 October 1862, probably at a field hospital near the battlefield.
References & notes
Service information from Moore,1 who has him as Hugh A. Gunter, and Manarin2, via the Historical Data Systems database. His graduation from Georgetown with an A.B. degree in 1855 is from A Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Georgetown University (1855). His license to practice from an announcement in the Raleigh Standard of 17 June 1857. His place of death inferred from his parole document, witnessed by US Army Surgeon John H. Rauch, who was in charge of sick and wounded Confederate prisoners and their care at field hospitals at Sharpsburg after the battle. His memorial is on Findagrave, which "believes" he was buried at Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown, MD. That's certainly possible, but he's not listed among the known soldiers buried there.
Thanks to Jack Horton Anderson for the pointer to Adjutant Gaston, his correct name, and a clipping of his obituary from the Raleigh Semi-Weekly Standard of 28 November 1862.
His obituary is the source for his previous service in a Tennessee artillery company. Similar names found in the Compiled Confederate Military Service Records for Tennessee artillery units include a J.N. Gaston who enlisted in Rice's Light Artillery in April 1862, and an H.J. Gaston who enlisted in Marshall's Company, Brown Horse Light Artillery in September 1862. For obvious reasons, the latter cannot be our man.
Birth
08/26/1836; New Bern, NC
Death
10/15/1862; Sharpsburg, MD
1 Moore, John Wheeler (compiler), and State of North Carolina, Roster of North Carolina Troops in the War Between the States, 4 volumes, Raleigh: Ashe & Gatling, State Printers and Publishers, 1882, Vol. 3, pg. 355 [AotW citation 6416]
2 Manarin, Louis H., and Weymouth Tyree Jordan, Matthew M Brown, Michael W Coffey, North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865 : A Roster, 20 Volumes +, Raleigh: North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, 1966- [AotW citation 24170]