William McIntosh Arnold

From Hancock County, he was commissioned Captain, Company A, 6th Georgia Infantry on 22 April 1861. He was wounded at Malvern Hill, VA on 1 July 1862.

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.

He was exchanged and returned to duty, date not given. He was wounded for the third time at Chancellorsville, VA on 3 May 1863 and was elected Major on 16 June 1863. He spent Christmas 1863 on leave at home, was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 20 January 1864 and commanded the regiment at Olustee (Ocean Pond), FL in February, but he was killed by a piece of artillery shell at Petersburg, VA on 7 July 1864.

Basic information from Henderson's Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865 (Vol. 1, pg. 751) via Fincham.1 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. His picture from an eighth-plate tintype in the Joe Millazzo Collection, published in Military Images (Summer 2019).

See an envelope sent him at Yorktown, VA in September 1861, online from Confederate postal service expert Trish Kaufmann.

07/07/1864; Petersburg, VA; burial in Sparta City Cemetery, Sparta, GA