By: Lauren Letizia
During the Fall of 2019, a handful of first-year Gettysburg College students traveled down to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. to conduct primary source research into a group of Civil War soldiers whose “dog tags” now reside in the collections of the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. This post is the second in a short series highlighting the stories of the men who wore these unique identification tags into battle. For a short history of military identification tags, or “dog tags,” check out Savannah Labbe’s (’18) 2016 article on the evolution of the dog tag.
Many thanks to Ray Richie, President of the Texas Civil War Museum, for his generosity in sharing these fascinating items from the museum’s collection with our students!
James B. Minturn was born in 1833 in New York City, New York. When the Civil War broke out, he decided to leave his work as a merchant to enlist in the Union Army on August 12, 1862. Minturn was mustered into Company B. of the 127th New York Infantry on September 8, 1862, when he was 29 years old. He was promoted to Corporal on January 10th, 1863 and then to 1st Sergeant on August 1, 1863. However, was later Minturn demoted on March 11, 1864 for reasons unknown. On August 11, 1864, he asked for a furlough to attend the Free Military School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Free Military School of Philadelphia was established in 1863 by both abolitionists and Union officers as an institution for the training of white Union soldiers to become officers of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). The school recruited their students from deeply Republican units and trained both soldiers and non-commissioned officers. Private Minturn, however, never became an officer of a USCT unit. Minturn ultimately was dishonorably discharged by the 127th New York on September 24, 1864, but proceeded to accept a commission in the 38th New Jersey Volunteers. James Minturn survived the war and was mustered out in Charleston, South Carolina on January 30th 1865.
The 127th New York Infantry Regiment, also known as the “Monitors,” was under the command of Colonel William Gurney, who organized the regiment in Staten Island, New York. After leaving New York state on September 8, 1862, the 127th served in the defenses of Washington, D.C., eventually joining John J. Abercrombie’s Division, of the 12th Corps, until February of 1863 before transferring to the 22nd Corps (Department of Washington), commanded by General Samuel P. Heintzelman, until April of 1863. The 127th participated in the April Siege of Suffolk as well as Dix’s Peninsula Campaign (June 24-July 7). After short stints in the 7th and 11th corps, the regiment served out the rest of the war, from August, 1863 through June of 1865, in the 12th corps, Department of the South, along the coast of South Carolina, where it participated in the sieges of Forts Wagner, Gregg, and Sumter in August, and in the on-going operations against Charleston. The regiment lost 35 enlisted men killed or fatally wounded and one officer and 94 soldiers to disease during its service in the Civil War.
“Battle Unit Details.” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed February 9, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UNY0127RI.
Fry, Zachery A. “Philadelphia’s Free Military School and the Radicalization of Wartime Officer Education, 1863–64.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 141, no. 3 (2017): 275. https://doi.org/10.5215/pennmaghistbio.141.3.0275.
