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(1838 - 1921)
Home State: Virginia
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 7th Virginia Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
He came to America in 1853, about age 15. He enlisted on 13 May 1861 in Company D, 7th Virginia Infantry at Giles Courthouse and was described as "clownish and full of fun". At First Manassas on 21 July 1861, one of his mates wrote,
George Knoll, "Dutchman," as we usually called him, being in his characteristic mood, but hungry, took from his haversack a chunk of fat bacon, stuffing himself while the artillery fire was in progress.He was ...
... wounded at Williamsburg, Va in May 1862. A ball entered just back of the left trochanter major [thigh bone at the hip joint], and passing forwards and towards the centre of the body, made its escape in front near the situation of the internal abdominal ring. The wounds were treated with cool water dressings. He was only confined to his bed five days, and in a short time [sic] he returned to his regiment perfectly sound.He was held at Ft. Delaware until he was exchanged on 5 August 1862 and returned to duty.
On the Campaign
He was wounded by gunshot to the right ankle and captured in action on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.
The rest of the War
After he was shot,
Knoll was borne on the back of Isaac Hare a mile or more to the hospital in Boonsboro.He was captured there, paroled on 3 October, and admitted to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 18 October. He was transferred to Baltimore on 8 November and was a prisoner at Ft. McHenry. By the Spring of 1864 he was detailed to the CS Commissary Department, but was back with his Company and wounded in the right leg on the Howlett Line on the Bermuda Hundred peninsula, VA on 21 November 1864. He was captured and paroled at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865.
After the War
He was living in Hamilton County, TX, by 1876 and helped establish schools, churches, and post offices at Blue Ridge and Aleman, TX.
References & notes
Basic service information from Riggs.1 The First Manassas and Boonsboro quotes from David E. Johnston in his The Story of a Confederate boy in the Civil War (1914). Wound and hospital details from the Patient List,2 as G. Knowell. The medical quote from Frank Hastings Hamilton's Treatise on Military Surgery and Hygiene (1865, online), which also noted
We saw him after the battle of Antietam, lying in the hospital under treatment for a wound of the thigh which he had just received.Personal details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
More on the Web
See a beautiful map of Giles and nearby Virginia counties drawn by the Confederate States of America Army, Dept. of Northern Virginia, Chief Engineer's Office; Jeremy Francis Gilmer, Chief Engineer (1864), online and zoomable, in full color, from the Library of Congress.
Birth
03/22/1838; Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, GERMANY
Death
03/09/1921; Hamilton, TX; burial in Whittenton Cemetery, Hamilton County, TX
1 Riggs, David F., 7th Virginia Infantry, Lynchburg (Va): H. E. Howard, Inc., 1982 [AotW citation 9733]
2 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 #1.138 [AotW citation 22160]