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C.C. Wehrum
(1841 - 1908)
Home State: Massachusetts
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
He arrived in America at 10 years old in November 1851 and settled with his parents in New York City. He was 13 when his mother died, and he went to East Cambridge, MA to learn woodcarving. He afterward made gilt moldings and was in the decorating business. He enlisted at 19 years old at Fort Warren in Boston on 29 April 1861 and mustered on 26 June as a Corporal in Company E of the 12th Massachusetts Infantry. He was promoted to Sergeant in about November 1861 and appointed First Sergeant on 2 January 1862.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
By October he was in a hospital in Alexandria, VA and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 29 November 1862 (to date from 21 August). He was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company G on 18 February 1863 (from 30 November 1862) and Regimental Adjutant on 31 March 1863. He was wounded again, by a gunshot to his right arm and side at Gettysburg, PA on 1 July 1863. He was promoted to Captain of Company A on 1 April 1864 (dating from 4 February) and mustered out with the regiment in Boston on 8 July 1864.
After the War
He was naturalized an American citizen in October 1864 in New York City. By 1880 he was in the lumber & kindling business there, a partner in C.W. Allcott & Co, and he retired wealthy in 1889. He was in the Tammany organization in New York City and on the City Board of Education from 1891 - 96. In 1900 he was a merchant and lived with his large family at 120 95th Street in New York City.
References & notes
His service from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1880 & 1900, his bio sketch in German Immigration 3 and his obituary in the New York Times of 12 March 1908. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a CDV sold on ebay (there's a copy on his memorial); thanks to John Banks for the pointer to that. There's a late-age photo of him in von Skal's book, page 205.
He married Elizabeth Schumacher () in May 1868 and they had 6 sons and a daughter.
Birth
10/31/1841; Pirmasens, BAVARIA
Death
03/11/1908; Manahattan, NY
1 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 2, pp. 33 - 36 [AotW citation 6790]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers who served in US Volunteer organizations enlisted for service during the Civil War, Record Group No. 94 (Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 32214]
3 von Skal, George, History of German Immigration in the United States and Successful German-Americans and their Descendants, New York City: F.T. Smiley, 1910, pp. 162 & 167; 205 [AotW citation 32215]