United States Army Officer. A distinguished Civil War and frontier soldier, his wartime accounts have been a favorite resource for historians. As a youth he attended Kenyon College and studied law in Cleveland, initially attracting attention as a minor poet and matinee idol. His marriage to Eva Prouty in 1859 ended with the deaths of his wife and their newborn in childbirth, and the young widower enlisted in the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Cavalry in 1861. Tall and handsome, his youthful looks and romantic prior career belied his toughness as a soldier. From his early forays against Confederate William Quantrill's Raiders through the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse, Five Forks, Namozine Church, Saylor's Creek, and Appomattox, his star rose steadily, and he twice survived near-fatal wounds. While in command in Missouri in 1865, he famously arrested Wild Bill Hickok for killing a man in a duel in the Springfield town square, but the legendary gunfighter was later acquitted. After the war, Barnitz was appointed a Captain in the newly-formed 7th United States Cavalry, and in 1867 he remarried, taking the former Jennie Platt as his second wife. An early critic of General George A. Custer, he was gravely wounded at the Battle of the Washita in 1868, precipitating his retirement on disability in 1870. When he died at age 77 at a New Jersey seaside resort, an autopsy revealed that a fragment of his old uniform had been embedded in his body for 44 years. He was buried with honors at Arlington, survived by Jennie and 2 of their 3 daughters. His remains also include a surgically-removed omentum from his 1868 wound, an oddity which has been preserved at the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C.
United States Army Officer. A distinguished Civil War and frontier soldier, his wartime accounts have been a favorite resource for historians. As a youth he attended Kenyon College and studied law in Cleveland, initially attracting attention as a minor poet and matinee idol. His marriage to Eva Prouty in 1859 ended with the deaths of his wife and their newborn in childbirth, and the young widower enlisted in the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Cavalry in 1861. Tall and handsome, his youthful looks and romantic prior career belied his toughness as a soldier. From his early forays against Confederate William Quantrill's Raiders through the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse, Five Forks, Namozine Church, Saylor's Creek, and Appomattox, his star rose steadily, and he twice survived near-fatal wounds. While in command in Missouri in 1865, he famously arrested Wild Bill Hickok for killing a man in a duel in the Springfield town square, but the legendary gunfighter was later acquitted. After the war, Barnitz was appointed a Captain in the newly-formed 7th United States Cavalry, and in 1867 he remarried, taking the former Jennie Platt as his second wife. An early critic of General George A. Custer, he was gravely wounded at the Battle of the Washita in 1868, precipitating his retirement on disability in 1870. When he died at age 77 at a New Jersey seaside resort, an autopsy revealed that a fragment of his old uniform had been embedded in his body for 44 years. He was buried with honors at Arlington, survived by Jennie and 2 of their 3 daughters. His remains also include a surgically-removed omentum from his 1868 wound, an oddity which has been preserved at the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C.
Bio by: Nikita Barlow
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