Company D and Staff, 73rd Regiment Indiana Infantry Volunteers (Francis D. Webb)

Chief (Principal) Musician Francis D. Webb :  Webb joined Captain William Kendall’s company in Plymouth, Indiana on 5 August 1862 and mustered at New South Bend, Indiana on 16 August 1862 for which he was paid an advance bounty of $25.00.

Vital stats : 
Height : 5' 9"      Complexion : Light
Eyes : Blue       Hair : Light
Notes : ...at age 28, from Regimental Descriptive Book, Co. D, 73rd Reg't Indiana Infantry. Image of Francis from about 1864.

Although healthy when he enlisted, he fell ill with severe diarrhea in October 1862 while in the Wildcat Mountains, Kentucky and was sent to the hospital in Nashville, Tennessee by First Sergeant James M. Berber on 21 November 1862 while at Spring Place, Kentucky. He spent the time until April and May of 1863 being sent back and forth from Company E, Detachment of Convalescents, Barracks No. 1 to Company D, 73rd Regiment Indiana Volunteers while stationed in hospitals at Nashville, Tennessee. He contracted Typhoid Fever in February 1863 and by 1 April 1863 he had been sent to USA Hospital No. 6 in New Albany, Indiana. The typhoid resulted in the infection of the spermatic cord and loss of the left testicle, ottorhea of the right ear, and general rheumatism. The treatment of the disease with mercury compounds caused the subsequent loss of all his teeth.

Hospital No. 16, Nashville, Tennessee : admitted (21) November 1862, treated for diarrhea, released 31 January 1863
Hospital No. 22, Nashville, Tennessee : admitted 1 February 1863, treated for diarrhea, released 12 February 1863
Hospital No. 12, Nashville, Tennessee : admitted 12 February 1863, treated for typhoid fever by Brigade Surgeon Dr. Seymour, released April 1863
Hospital No. 6, New Albany, Indiana : admitted April 1863, treated for ottorhea of right ear by Dr. Johnson, released June 1863

The 73rd was assigned to Colonel A. D. Streight’s Independent Provisional Brigade and Francis is marked as absent on the Special Muster Roll for that period. It is unclear whether Francis was in the hospital when his regiment was captured at Blount’s Farm, Alabama 7 May 1863 and was held in parole camp for several months or whether he was on detached duty at Headquarters. He was definitely not on the raid in the Provisional Brigade. After the regiment’s parole and release, it reorganized at Triana, Alabama where later Francis was promoted, 31 July 1864, to the Non-Commissioned Officer Field Staff and appointed Regimental Chief Musician (also listed as Principal Musician). He mustered out 1 July 1865.

Notes concerning Francis’ rank : 1865 Customs of Service; Special Enlistments –

223. Principal Musicians.- The law allows to each regiment of regular infantry, the Fifth Artillery, and to each volunteer infantry regiment, two principal of chief musicians. Other laws with regard to bands make the position of chief musician anomalous and inconsistent. (Act July 29, 2861.)  
224. The Act of July 5, 1838, section 16, allows the chief musician seventeen dollars per month, whilst section 4, Act July 29, 1861, provides that bands shall be paid as follows : one-fourth of the twenty-four shall receive the pay of sergeants of engineers, thirty-four dollars, one-fourth the pay of corporals of engineers, twenty dollars, and one-half the pay of pricvates of engineers of the first class, seventeen dollars.  
225. As the principal musicians are in addition to the foregoing, it follows that they get no more than the lowest class of musicians. The leader of the band, by the 4th section of the above Act, is entitled to the pay and emoluments of a second lieutenant of infantry; yet there are no leaders authorized, except in the nine new regiments of infantry. It will be seen, therefore, that the foregoing laws are quite incongruous.
226. Leader of the Band.- Where there is no leader of the band authorized, as in the case of old regiments of artillery an dinfantry, and in all the cavalry regiments, one of the principal musicians acts as the leader of the band. To secure a competant musician for this purpose, the leader usually receives additional pay out of the regimental fund, or by voluntary contribution from the regiment. Leaders of brigade and regimental bands now receive seventy-five dollars per month. (Act June 20, 1864.)
227. The leader of the band is charged with the instruction of the band and the selectiona nd arrangement of the music. He is also charged, in the adsence of a drum-major, with the duties usually asigned to him. Like the drum-major, he receives his orders and instructions from the adjutant of the regiment, or, as leader of the brigade band, from the adjutant-general of the brigade.
228 – 242. con’t

Source1 : 73rd Reg't Indiana information, by Michael Downs
Source2 : Indiana soldiers
Source3 : ...more mention of 73rd men

 

Bibliographic Sources :

 

Catton, Bruce. The Army of the Potomac. Mr. Lincoln's Army.  Doubleday & Company. Garden City, New York. 1951

Catton, Bruce. The Army of the Potomac. Glory Road.  Doubleday & Company. Garden City, New York. 1951

Downs, Michael. 73rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry. online content www.geocities.com/Athens/Pantheon/2106. 2001

Dyer, Frederick H., Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, compiled and arranged from official records of the Federal and Confederate armies. Dyer Publishing Company. Des Moines, Iowa 1905. Courtesy of the U.S. Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Located online http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/

 

Webb, Loren. Diary of Captain Loren Webb, 1861 - 1863, Firelands Historical Society. Norwalk, Ohio. 1995. Transcribed by Matthew L. Burr.

War of the Rebellion, a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1880. Courtesy of Cornell University Digital Library Project, located online http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa

 

Service Record of Chief Musician Francis D. Webb, 73rd Reg't Indiana Infantry, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. Compiled 1894, viewed January 2001.

Pension File of Francis D. Webb, Rachel Webb, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

 

A book that I must have...


History of the Seventy-Third Indiana Volunteers in the War of 1861-65. 1909. Compiled and published by a committee of the Seventy-third Indiana Regimental Association. The Carnahan Press, Washington, D.C.

 

 

 

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