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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