Robert J. Park, Jr.

From Philadelphia, he mustered into Federal Service in May 1861 in Company D, 19th Pennsylvania Infantry for 3 months. The 19th was composed almost entirely of members of the National Guards of Philadelphia, a pre-War State Militia unit. In August or September 1861 he enlisted in Company R, 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry as First Sergeant. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant (date unknown).

He was mortally wounded in the lower leg, with fracture of his fibula, in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He as treated at a field hospital on the Hoffman Farm near Sharpsburg then transferred to a hospital in Philadelphia. He died there of his wounds on 18 October 1862. He was originally buried in the Monument Cemetery there, but reinterred at Lawnview Cemetery - probably unmarked, in a mass grave - in 1956.

Service data for the 19th Pennsylvania Infantry and his wounding at Antietam from Bates1. Wound and hospital details from Nelson.2 Details of his death and burial from the Philadelphia Inquirer of 18 October 1862, transcribed and augmented with fascinating details in a blog post by Jim Buchanan on Walking the West Woods - thanks to Jim for pointing us to Lt. Park. There are open questions about the existence of Company R of the 72nd, as it is not mentioned in the usual literature, but is found in his CSR jacket at the National Archives (per the Soldiers and Sailors System database). His gravesite is on Findagrave, as Robert I. Park.

c. 1841

10/18/1862; Philadelphia, PA; burial in Lawnview Cemetery, Rockledge, PA