Henry Ropes

Son of a successful Massachusetts-born merchant, in 1860 he was a 21 year old student at Harvard (Class of 1862) living with his parents and siblings in Boston, MA. It's not clear if he remained in school long enough to graduate before he joined the regiment: he entered service as 2nd Lieutenant of Company K of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry in November 1861.

He wrote his father after the 17 September 1862 Battle of Antietam:

We have had a tremendous battle and again I have been mercifully preserved from all harm ... Our Division suffered awfully. I was bruised slightly twice, once by a spent ball in the shoulder, and once by a cannon shot which passed between my legs, just grazing the knee.

Adjutant Haskell of the 6th Wisconsin later wrote ...

At one of these times a painful accident happened to us, this morning [July 3, 1863, Gettysburg, PA]. First Lieut. Henry Ropes, 20th Mass., in Gen. Gibbon's Division, a most estimable gentleman and officer, intelligent, educated, refined, one of the noble souls that came to the country"s defense, while lying at his post with his regiments, in front of one of the Batteries, which fired over the Infantry, was instantly killed by a badly made shell, which, or some portion of it, fell but a few yards in front of the muzzle of the gun. The same accident killed or wounded several others. The loss of Ropes would have pained us at any time, and in any manner; in this manner his death was doubly painful.

The Antietam quote from his letter of 20 September 1862. The Gettysburg quote is from Haskell's Account of Gettysburg, from a reprint of the Wisconsin Historical Commission. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. The photo above is from a CDV sold at auction by Cowen's in 2004.

We have some of his letters home from the Maryland campaign in a small exhibit.

05/16/1839; London, ENGLAND

07/03/1863; Gettysburg, PA; burial in Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory, Jamaica Plain, MA