Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 61st New York Infantry
Before Antietam
Mustered as First Lieutenant, Company F of the 61st NY Infantry on 11 October 1861. [On unknown date] he was detailed to the US Signal Corps as Acting Signal Officer - probably at Georgetown, DC - and returned to his Regiment in March 1862. Promoted Captain on 31 May 1862.
On the Campaign
He commanded the third of three consolidated companies that made up the 105-man Regiment at the start of the Maryland Campaign.
The rest of the War
Dismissed from the Service 23 October 1862. The President sent a note to Secretary of War Stanton on 23 June 1863 - ruling on a 30 October 1862 petition for reinstatement from Watts - saying "Petition refused. A. Lincoln."
After the War
Watts is listed in Lain's 1863 City Directory for Brooklyn, NY as a printer.
1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, Issue 25 (for 1900) [AotW citation 7661]
2 Fuller, Charles Augustus, Personal Recollections of the War of 1861... in the Sixty-first Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, Sherburne (NY): News Job Printing House, 1906, pp. 53 - 73 [AotW citation 7676]
3 Lincoln, Abraham, and Abraham Lincoln Assn: Roy P. Basler, ed; Marion D Pratt, Lloyd A. Dunlap, asst eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8 Volumes, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953, Vol. 8, pg. 512 [AotW citation 7679]
4 Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896 [AotW citation 7681]