Sad Discovery

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For a while now, I have wondered what became of my 3rd great grandfather's children.  I know what happened to my 2nd great grandfather, George A. Butterfield, after the Civil War.  What I wanted to find out was what happened to the rest of T.A. Butterfield's children.

The first question I decided to answer was "Did any of the other boys go off to war and what were their experiences in the U.S. Civil War?"  The method I decided to employ to answer this question was simple:  proceed one by one, with each of T.A.'s sons, starting with the oldest and working my way down to the youngest son.

In spite of its seeming pedantry, my method led to some emotional discoveries.  In descending birth order, the sons of T.A. Butterfield and Rebecca J. Webb are:  Sherwood/Therwood W., George A., William F., Thaddeus Actford II, Justin Austin, and Marcus.

George A. is my second great grandfather and I know he had served in  the Minnesota cavalry, enlisting initially as a private and being promoted to full corporal.  As I mentioned in the previous post, George A. Butterfield also served as a corporal in the 51st Wisconsin Infantry.

Little did I know, I was about to embark on a sad journey.  The Butterfield family sent three of their boys off to war.  Of the three, only one would return home - my ancestor, George A. Butterfield.

Sherwood W. Butterfield, older brother of George A., enlisted as a private in Company E, 18th Infantry Regiment, Wisconsin, on 25 February 1862.  He was mustered out at Huntsville, Alabama, on 27 April 1864 at the age of 21 - a POW, he had died languishing in a Huntsville prison.  Official records indicate he died of "disease."

The soldiers of the 18th Infantry Regiment had already fought at Shiloh, Corinth, Jackson, Champion's Hill, and Vicksburg by the time Sherwood W. Butterfield was captured.  These soldiers arrived at Huntsville on Christmas Day of 1863 and would remain there until 1 May 1864.  Sherwood W. was among the 45 taken prisoner in the retaking of Huntsville - most of whom would die in southern prisons before the end of the war.  The 18th Infantry Regiment, meanwhile, went on to march to glory with General Sherman...

For his part, William F. Butterfield enlisted as a private in Company K, Wisconsin 36th Infantry on 29 February 1864.  He was mustered out on 18 June 1864 after being killed at the Siege of Petersburg in county Dinwiddie, Virginia.  Having arrived on the 15th of June, the 36th Infantry Regiment participated in Meade's Assaults (June 15-18), also known as the Second Battle of Petersburg.  Petersburg would make possible the fall of Richmond, the entire operation being under the command of Ulysses S. Grant.

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