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Federal (USV)

Private

Charles A. Trask

(c. 1840 - 1862)

Home State: Massachusetts

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 13th Massachusetts Infantry

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 20 year old shoemaker boarding with painter William Dove and family at Hopkinton in Middlesex County, MA. He enlisted and mustered at Fort Independence in Boston as a Private in Company K, 13th Massachusetts Infantry on 16 July 1861.

On the Campaign

He was mortally wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862 in his lower abdomen by a large piece of an artillery shell (spherical case shot), which broke his pelvis bone and lodged in his sacrum (lower spine).

The rest of the War

He was initially treated in a field hospital, where the piece of shell was removed. He was transferred to a hospital in Hagerstown, MD on 20 September and on to a hospital in Chambersburg, PA on the 29th. He died there of his wounds on 2 October 1862.

References & notes

His service from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Wound and hospital details from the MSHWR.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. More about his gravesite on the Gettysburg Daily; thanks to J.O. Smith for the pointer.

Birth

c. 1840; Starks, ME

Death

10/02/1862; Chambersburg, PA; burial in Gettysburg National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA

Notes

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. 126 - 129  [AotW citation 7026]

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 32059]

3   Barnes, Joseph K., and US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 books, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1870-1883, Volume 2, Part 2, p. 250  [AotW citation 32060]