C.M. Bowen

Federal (USV)

Private

Charles M. Bowen

(1845 - 1878)

Home State: Indiana

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 27th Indiana Infantry

Before Antietam

He enlisted at age 16 and mustered as a Private, in Company A, 27th Indiana Infantry on 12 September 1861.

On the Campaign

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September "his left femur [thigh bone] fractured by a musket ball".

The rest of the War

He was admitted to USA General Hospital #1 at Frederick, Maryland on 24 September

where Buck's apparatus was applied. Nine months subsequently [on 15 June 1863], he was removed to [Jarvis United States Army General Hospital] Baltimore. There were numerous abscesses, and the patient underwent two operations for the removal of necrosed bone. On September 7, 1863, he was discharged the service, with the limb greatly deformed.

After the War

He received a pension, and was employed in the Interior Department. Owing to recurrence of abscesses he was admitted to Providence Hospital in the autumn of 1867, and on November 11th, the limb was amputated in the middle third by Dr. D. W. Bliss. The wound healed well, and a photograph was taken at the Army Medical Museum on January 9, 1868, at which time the stump was firm and healthy

In 1870 he was a law student living with his parents on their farm in Polk Township, Monroe County, IN, but by 1871 he was a clerk in the Pension Office, in Washington, DC, in generally poor health. He died in 1878 of pulmonary disease.

References & notes

Medical details from Otis1, also source of his picture and the quotes above. His enlistment information from the Adjutant General.2 Frederick hospital dates from the Patient List.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1870. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Birth

09/04/1845; Putnam County, IN

Death

03/18/1878; Washington, DC; burial in Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, DC

Notes

1 Otis, George Alexander (curator), and John H. Brinton (collecter), William Bell (photographer), Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, 8 Volumes, Washington DC: US Army, Office of the Surgeon General, 1865, Vol. 5, pg. 71 [AotW citation 7956]

2 State of Indiana, Adjutant General's Office, and William H.H. Terrell, Adjutant General, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana, 8 volumes, Indianapolis: (various) State Printers, 1865-1869, Vol. 4, pg. 614 [AotW citation 18351]

3 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #4.452 [AotW citation 30594]

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