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C.H. Lang
(1828 - 1898)
Home State: Massachusetts
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
In 1860 he was a 32 year old cabinet maker in Reading, MA. He enlisted on 10 (or 11) July 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company G, 13th Massachusetts Infantry on 16 July at Fort Independence in Boston.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in the right arm in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was sent to the US Army hospital at Camp Curtin, in Harrisburg, PA by 22 September and was there to 20 January 1863, then transferred to Washington, DC. He was detailed to Division headquarters as a commissary guard from 28 February to at least June 1863. He was promoted to Corporal about September 1863 and discharged by special order of 25 April 1864 to take a commission as 2nd Lieutenant, 59th Massachusetts Infantry (to date from 19 April) and assigned to Company A on 23 May.
He was captured on 30 July 1864 at Petersburg, VA, promoted to First Lieutenant 20 August, by which time he was being held in Columbia, SC. He was paroled at Northeast Ferry, NC on 1 March 1865 and at Camp Parole in Annapolis, MD by 5 March 1865. He was briefly in the hospital there, then on leave in Reading, MA suffering from scorbutis (scurvy) and "general prostration" to the end of April. He mustered out as 2nd Lieutenant on 17 May 1865.
After the War
By 1870 and to shortly before his death at age 70 he had a prosperous railroad express business between Reading and Boston and lived in Reading, MA. He was also chief engineer of the fire department and served a term in the state legislature.
References & notes
His service from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Wound detail from Nelson,3 citing a list in the New York Times of 24 September 1862. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860 & 1880, and from a bio sketch of his youngest, George, in Edwin P. Conklin's Middlesex County and Its People (Vol. 3, 1927). His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Library of Congress.
He married Sarah Ann Staples (1826-1882) in December 1849 and they had 5 children by 1862.
Birth
03/03/1828; Stratham, NH
Death
09/01/1898; Malden, MA; burial in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Reading, MA
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, p. 110; Vol. 5, p. 53 [AotW citation 6976]
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 30555]
3 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, p. 283 [AotW citation 30556]