Morbid Fact Du Jour For October 26, 2015

Today’s Fallen Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Account of the death of Private Stephen C. Crofut, Company D, 17th Connecticut Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Corps, Union Army, during the American Civil War.

J. Henry Blakeman of Company D, 17th Connecticut was wounded by a rifle ball in the left hip on July 1. His regiment supported Battery G, 4th U.S. Artillery, which had taken position on Blocher’s Hill (now called Barlow Knoll), a mile or so north of Gettysburg. In a letter to his mother written from Jarvis U.S. General Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland on August 1, 1863, he testified as to Crofut’s death.

I will write what I know concerning Stephens death. As you know we lay for twenty or thirty minutes supporting a battery and while lying there the officers called for volunteers to pull down a fence that was thought might be in our way and was somewhat exposed to the enemy’s shells. Selah, Stephen myself and some others went and pulled it down. After lying down again the battery was firing Stephen says “those are ours, give it to them.” These were the last I heard him say as just then we moved towards the rebs and my attention was directed to them. He must have been hit at the same moment that I was, for as soon as I got up I saw him lying near me and under his head a large puddle of blood. I did not go to him for one look at his face satisfied me that he was dead and I could hardly move myself. I suppose he was buried by the rebs as they held the feild [sic] and our boys that were over the feild afterwards said the dead were all buried.

Private Crofut resided in Stratford, Connecticut before the war. HIs grave site today is not known.

Culled from: Killed In Action: Eyewitness Accounts of the Last Moments of 100 Union Soldiers Who Died at Gettysburg

Here’s what Barlow Knoll looks like today (photo taken from the excellent Gettysburg Daily website.