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Federal (USV)

Captain

George D. H. Watts

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.

References & notes

Basic information from State of New York1. Mention of him and the command structure on the Maryland Campaign in Fuller2. Lincoln correspondence in his Collected Works3. Signal Corps detail from Brown4.

Notes

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]