Sunday, July 15, 2012

Robert Boyd Thornton, student 1858-1860

Thornton enlisted as a private in Co. F of the 12th NC Infantry on April 29, 1861. He was hospitalized in Richmond, VA with chronic diarrhea in July 1862. He received a slight wound in the arm at the Battle of Chancellorsville, VA on May 3, 1863. Thornton was wounded again two months later at the Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, and this time the wound in his left leg necessitated amputation. He was taken prisoner on July 3 and hospitalized at Letterman General Hospital in Gettysburg. On September 10, 1863, he was transferred to a hospital in Baltimore, MD, and then was sent on September 26, 1863 to  City Point, VA and exchanged the following day, and admitted to Winder Hospital in Richmond, VA, and then sent home to to Macon, Warren County, NC. He applied for an artificial leg in a early 1864, and he was present at the CSA General Hospital in Charlottesville, VA for an undetermined amount of time in May 1864 and in August 1864, apparently receiving the leg.

He returned to farming in Warren County, NC after the war. He died February 3, 1909.

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