Message in a bottle: How Antietam soldier's remains were ID'd

The marked battlefield grave of a Union soldier from Pennsylvania who was killed at Antietam.
(Alexander Gardner | Library of Congress)

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Shortly after the war, the grim task of disinterring bodies of Union soldiers from the Antietam battlefield and the immediate surrounding area fell to the United States Burial Corps. Most remains were re-buried in a national cemetery established on a hill overlooking the south end of the field, Confederate-held ground on Sept. 17, 1862.

The Corps' work was daunting.

7th Maine Private William C. Stickney's
 weathered gravestone at Antietam National Cemetery.
(Find A Grave)

"The country is dotted over with soldiers’ graves," a  New York Tribune correspondent wrote from Sharpsburg, Md., in January 1867. "Some were killed in battle and in skirmishes, others died of disease or woods in the hospital, and not a few at private houses. They are buried by the roadside, in the woods, in the fields, and frequently in gardens."

Interestingly, bodies with red hair and whiskers were "invariably found in an almost perfect state of preservation," the reporter noted, "while all other colors are found in a state of decay." Sometimes "relics" were found in the graves -- "three ambrotype likenesses," a silver watch and ring, rusted pocket knives and even a rosary, "which some pious soldier had carried, perhaps as a charm against deadly bullets." Burial crews occassionally found a piece of artillery shell with a skeleton or a bullet rolling around the interior of a fractured skull -- awful reminders of the carnage that occurred in late-summer 1862.

Identification was impossible for many soldiers. "The ‘frail memorials’ erected by their comrades have disappeared," the Tribune reporter explained, "and everything seems to have been taken from their persons that could lead to their identification."

A soldier from Maine, however, was among the "lucky" ones. When his remains were uncovered, a bottle was found containing a small piece of paper that read: “Wm. C. Stickney, Co. C, 7th Regt. Maine. Died Sept. 26, at 11 o’clock p.m. Residence, Springfield, Maine.” The 22-year-old son of a farmer was originally buried either at Smoketown, one of the two large tent hospitals near the battlefield, or at a VI Corps hospital, perhaps at Hagerstown, Md.

Whoever performed the noble act of identifying his body with the messaage in a bottle is lost to history.

One of 12 children of Rachel and Moses Stickney, William was shot in the left shoulder, probably during the 7th Maine's futile charge on Henry Piper's farm. "... he was a sound and able bodied man," Charles D. Gilmore, an officer in the 7th and 20th Maine during the war, recalled in 1869, "and one of the best soldiers I ever knew.”

            PANORAMA: The 7th Maine made a futile attack through the Piper orchard.
                                    (Click at upper right for full-screen experience.)

For William's parents, their son's death undoubtedly was traumatic. Neither Rachel, 56, nor Moses, 59, was in good health, and the couple depended on William for financial support. During his little more than a year of service in the Union army, William sent home about $10 a month.

“Mrs. Stickney has no property, either real or personal excepting a cow worth about thirty five dollars," neighbors noted in an affidavit in Rachel's claim for a mother's pension. "She has since the death of her said son William C. Stickney supported herself by working for her neighbors (and) with what assistance she has received as charity from her friends." William, the neighbors recalled, "contributed regularly and constantly to the support of his said mother."

William's father may have been in more dire condition than his mother.

Able to do "but very little labor" for years, Moses suffered from "chronic rheumatism & hemorrhoids of a very distressing character," the family's longtime physician noted. "... His disease was brought on by hard labor & exposure, river driving, and hard fare.”

Mrs. Stickney's pension claim was approved at the standard rate of $8 a month. The national cemetery where her son was buried was dedicated on Sept. 17, 1867. Whether the Stickneys ever visited William's simple grave there is unknown.

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SOURCES:

-- New York Times, Oct. 2, 1862.
-- New York Tribune, Jan. 8, 1867.
-- Stickney, Matthew Adams, Stickney Family: A Genealogical Memoir of the Descendants of William and Elizabeth Stickney From 1637 to 1869, Salem, Mass., Essex Institute Press, 1869.
-- William C. Stickney pension file, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., via fold3.com.

Antietam panorama: 7th Maine's futile attack at Piper farm

Click here for battlefield panoramas from Antietam, Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, Harris Farm, Manassas, Malvern Hill, Salem Church and Spotsylvania Courthouse and more.

        The 7th Maine charged through this orchard on the Piper farm to attack the Rebels.
                                  (Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama.)

After the Union army punched through the center of the enemy line at Bloody Lane during the Battle of Antietam, the 7th Maine was called up to attack Rebels who were harassing a battery from their positions at Henry Piper's farm. Perplexed by the order from Third Brigade commander William Irwin, 7th Maine Major Thomas Hyde asked him to repeat it. To send his depleted regiment against what probably was many times its number was insane, the 21-year-old officer thought.

But Irwin, a 44-year-old officer who was known to enjoy a strong drink or two, was adamant. In fact, he upped the ante.

"That is not enough, sir; go yourself; take your regiment and drive them from those trees and buildings," Irwin emphatically said, according to Hyde. For emphasis, he repeated the order several times and pointed to the farmhouse and barn on the Piper farm.

Major Thomas Hyde of the 7th Maine earned the 
Medal of Honor for his heroics at the Battle of Antietam.
(Photo: Maine State Archives)

And so the 7th Maine, numbering 166 soldiers, marched over and around the bodies of Rebels in Bloody Lane, through Piper's apple orchard and toward the farmer's house and outbuildings. It was about 5 p.m. on Sept. 17, 1862.

"Every private in the ranks knew that a fearful blunder had been made," a post-war history noted, "but as obedience is the first duty of a soldier they advanced promptly."

As Hyde suspected, the attack proved to be a disaster.

After the 7th Maine chased Rebels from the orchard and pushed down a hill toward the Piper farm buildings, Hyde saw four enemy battle flags and quickly realized that his little regiment was indeed vastly outnumbered. A regiment of Rebels fired from behind a stone wall and an enemy battery fired grape shot into the Maine soldiers, who were mauled from three sides.

Unsupported by the rest of the Union army, Hyde skillfully directed a retreat back through the orchard.  The regiment's losses were terrible: 12 killed and 60 wounded. Only one officer survived unscathed. A captain and a lieutenant each had three bullets holes through their uniforms. Hyde and another officer had their horses shot out from under them.

"I drove the enemy from the trees and buildings Col. Irwin ordered me to clear," Hyde wrote in his official report, "but for want of support was unable either to push on after his line was  pierced or to hold the position that was gained.  I cannot make exception for special mention. Where all behaved so nobly, and obeyed orders so readily, distinction would be invidious."

In his official report on Sept. 22, 1862, an officer noted that Hyde "led his regiment into action with spirit and courage, handled it under severe fire with judgment, and retired in compact order and with a steady front.

"Conduct like this requires soldierly qualities of the highest order."

The soldier who wrote the report, William Irwin, the man who ordered the attack, had been removed of his brigade command four days earlier. He returned to the 49th Pennsylvania but resigned his commission in October 1863. A month after the war was over, he ironically was named brevet brigadier general for his actions at Antietam. Mentally deranged, Irwin died in a Kentucky insane asylum in 1886.

On April 8, 1891, Hyde received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics in helping lead what was left of his regiment to safety at Antietam. 

James Hope of the 2nd Vermont painted this image of the 7th Maine going into action
 at the Piper Farm. (National Park Service)