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Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 61st New York Infantry
Before Antietam
He mustered as First Lieutenant of Company F, 61st New York 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. He was 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
He was dismissed from the service on 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."
Watts is listed in Lain's 1863 City Directory for Brooklyn, NY as a printer, but he reenlisted and mustered as a Private in Company B, 139th New York Infantry on 24 November 1863. He transferred, while sick, to Company K of the 98th New York Infantry on 19 June 1865 with no later military record.
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]