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W.M. Arnold
(? - 1864)
Home State: Georgia
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 6th Georgia Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
From Hancock County, he was commissioned Captain on 22 April 1861 and enrolled with Company A, 6th Georgia Infantry at Atlanta on 27 May 1861. He was wounded at Malvern Hill, VA on 1 July 1862.
On the Campaign
At both Turner's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and on 17 September at Sharpsburg he was detailed to lead a small battalion of "sharpshooters or skirmishers ... trained for that work" made up of his Company and the "A" Companies of the other regiments in the Brigade - the 23rd, 27th, and 23th GA, 13th AL. They were protection for the right (south) flank of the brigade at Turner's Gap and fought as an independent battalion in the East Woods at Sharpsburg, where Captain Arnold was again wounded and captured.
The rest of the War
He was paroled on 30 September and later exchanged and returned to duty. He was wounded for the third time, in the arm and right lung at Chancellorsville, VA on 3 May 1863 and spent Christmas 1863 on leave at home. He was elected Major on 11 February 1864 (to date from 16 June 1863), commanded the regiment at Olustee (Ocean Pond), FL on 20 February, was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 24 March (to date from 20 January) 1864. He was killed by a piece of artillery shell at Petersburg, VA on 7 July 1864.
References & notes
His service from Henderson1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. The role of his battalion at Turner's Gap from G.G. Grattan in the Southern Historical Society Papers (April 1914) [via GoogleBooks] and at Sharpsburg from J.M. Gould in the National Tribune (Washington, DC) of 25 August 1892 online from the Library of Congress. His gravesite is on Findagrave; that and other sources have his birth in 1799, which seems unlikely, given his wartime appearance. His picture from an eighth-plate tintype in the Joe Millazzo Collection, published in Military Images (Summer 2019).
He married Elizabeth Rives Brown (1845-1908) in Hancock County, GA in June 1863.
More on the Web
See an envelope sent him at Yorktown, VA in September 1861, online from Confederate postal service expert Trish Kaufmann.
His wartime papers [finding aid] are in the Georgia Archives.
Death
07/07/1864; Petersburg, VA; burial in Sparta City Cemetery, Sparta, GA
1 Henderson, Lilian, compiler, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, 6 vols., Hapeville (GA): Longino & Porter, 1959-1964 [AotW citation 9554]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 32504]