MICHAEL DUNN

Company "E" 1st West Virginia Infantry (3 mo) & Sergeant, Company "I" 6th West Virginia Infantry

Researched & Compiled by Linda Fluharty

At the outset of the war, served in Captain George C. Trimble's Company E First West Virginia Infantry, organized for three months, May-August 1861.

Service Record: At age 36, enlisted Oct. 10, 1861 at Wheeling; mustered in Oct. 15, 1861. Promoted from Corporal to 5th Sergeant Aug. 18, 1862. - Wheeling Daily Register, Apr. 5, 1865: “Michael Dunn, Serg’t of Company I, 6 W.Va. Infantry, [died] 3 Apr. 1865, 32y, of ill treatment while in Southern prisons, funeral from his late residence in Benwood, W.Va.”

Service Record status was “deserter from furlough” until 1903 when charge was officially removed because he had DIED, not deserted. He had been captured by McNeill’s company Aug. 2, 1864 at Brady’s Mills, was admitted to Belle Isle Hospital Sept. 24, 1864 for diarrhea; paroled Jan. 30, 1865. Hospitalized at Annapolis, Md. for diarrhea, and finally released in March 1865. His record erroneously stated that he “arrived at US Gen Hosp in Baltimore on Apr. 20, 1865. No evidence of death.” Actually, he had arrived home on furlough at the latter part of March and was dead on Apr. 3, 1865.

On May 18, 1865, widow, Catherine Dunn, a resident of Benwood, applied for a government pension, and it was granted on May 29, 1866, despite the erroneous desertion charge, which must have been missed. She remarried, to Joseph Gans, on May 18, 1869. He died Aug. 13, 1894. In 1902, she applied for restoration of her widow’s pension under Michael Dunn, and that is when the erroneous charge of desertion was realized and finally dropped.

According to Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, in 1903 a stone was ordered for Michael Dunn’s grave at McMechen Cemetery, which is presented on the Marshall County WVGenWeb site.

In her pension application, the widow stated that the soldier died “on the 3rd day of April 1865 at Benwood Marshall County West Virginia of Chronic Diarrhea.” She stated she had married Michael Dunn on July 22, 1855. An affidavit in her pension claim states they were married in Washington County, Pa. by John Sutherland, Justice of the Peace: “No. 819 Mr. Michael Dunn of Benwood To Catharine Reister of Wheeling July 22d 1855.”

This soldier was described as “age 27” and an “Iron Maker, born Wales, Great Britain.” His age varies in records. Catherine died June 4, 1910 in Columbus State Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.

death

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