PVT John Henry Slade

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PVT John Henry Slade

Birth
Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia, USA
Death
18 Sep 1862 (aged 19)
Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, USA
Burial
Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia, USA Add to Map
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Johnnie Slade and his small band of friends from Columbus, Georgia marched south from Hagerstown, Maryland two days before the battle of Sharpsburg. Members of the Columbus Guards of the 2nd Georgia Volunteers, they encamped on September 15, 1862 in a meadow just above the banks of the Antietam Creek. On September 17 this small band of men, along with some from the 20th Georgia, numbering at most a couple hundred, kept the Union 9th Corps under Burnside bottled up and unable to cross Rohrbach's bridge, at the same time rendering innumerable casualties among the northern forces.

After hours of holding off Burnside's men, the vastly outnumbered Georgians gave way and retreated toward Sharpsburg. Two weeks after the battle one of John Slades' friends, Theodore Fogle, recalled to his parents what happened:

"Poor Johnnie Slade, he was a splendid soldier. He did his duty well before he fell. He had nearly shot away all his cartridges & was standing up watching the effect of his last shot when a ball passed through the third finger of his right hand and into his stomach and liver. It came out at his back (and) he was carried off to a safe place..."

He was taken by ambulance along the road to Shepardstown to a hospital but died before reaching the Potomac. John Slade was buried near a brigade hospital on the farm of David Smith just west of Sharpsburg. His body remained there until his family arranged his exhumation after the war and John was reinterred in the family plot in Columbus March 23, 1869.
Johnnie Slade and his small band of friends from Columbus, Georgia marched south from Hagerstown, Maryland two days before the battle of Sharpsburg. Members of the Columbus Guards of the 2nd Georgia Volunteers, they encamped on September 15, 1862 in a meadow just above the banks of the Antietam Creek. On September 17 this small band of men, along with some from the 20th Georgia, numbering at most a couple hundred, kept the Union 9th Corps under Burnside bottled up and unable to cross Rohrbach's bridge, at the same time rendering innumerable casualties among the northern forces.

After hours of holding off Burnside's men, the vastly outnumbered Georgians gave way and retreated toward Sharpsburg. Two weeks after the battle one of John Slades' friends, Theodore Fogle, recalled to his parents what happened:

"Poor Johnnie Slade, he was a splendid soldier. He did his duty well before he fell. He had nearly shot away all his cartridges & was standing up watching the effect of his last shot when a ball passed through the third finger of his right hand and into his stomach and liver. It came out at his back (and) he was carried off to a safe place..."

He was taken by ambulance along the road to Shepardstown to a hospital but died before reaching the Potomac. John Slade was buried near a brigade hospital on the farm of David Smith just west of Sharpsburg. His body remained there until his family arranged his exhumation after the war and John was reinterred in the family plot in Columbus March 23, 1869.

Inscription

At the battle of Sharpsburg Md...he fell mortally wounded and died

Gravesite Details

Confederate Civil War Veteran

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