William Dwight Sedgwick

After Harvard he studied Law, including a period abroad in Germany and a year at Columbia. He then established a practice in St. Louis, Missouri.

He was commissioned First Lieutenant, 2nd Massachusetts Infantry on 25 May 1861. He was detailed to the staff of General Banks as Ordnance Officer, then appointed Captain and Assistant Adjutant General (AAG), US Volunteers 6 September 1861, on the staff of Brigadier General John Sedgwick. He was promoted to Major on 7 August 1862.

He was mortally wounded by a gunshot to his spine in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

"After eight hours he was found by friends and spent his last days in a farmhouse [field hospital in Keedysville] attended by his mother and sister. When he died on 29 September 1862, his wife Louisa [Tellkampf] was not present because she did not learn of her husband's condition until her arrival from Europe. He left behind three daughters: Grace, Amelia and Mary Elizabeth".

Basic information from Harvard1 and Soldiers2, with details from genealogies online. The quote above from introductory material to a collection of family papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. His picture from a photograph in the MOLLUS Massachusetts Collection.3. Wound and hospital details from Surgeon Hard4 of the 8th Illinois Cavalry.

The General may literally have been his "Uncle John."

His death date is September 27 in some sources. He's buried in the Sedgwick Pie - the family plot in Stockbridge Cemetery; his gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Louise Tellkampf (1829-1879) in July 1857 in Hanover, Germany and they had 3 daughters.

06/21/1831; Lenox, MA

09/29/1862; Keedysville, MD; burial in Stockbridge Cemetary, Stockbridge, MA