July 31 

By: Joshua Phillips

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          On this day, Walter Jones Boggan (1841-1922) of the 43rd North Carolina Infantry was admitted into a military hospital in Richmond, Virginia, for the first of what would be many days in his sick bed. Boggan, a “gentleman” from a wealthy slaveholding family in Anson County, originally joined the 14th North Carolina Infantry as a Lieutenant on April 20,1861, less than a week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter. After a quick promotion to Captain, Boggan was appointed Major in the 43rd North Carolina Infantry on March 23,1862. Less than a month after the Battle of Gettysburg, Boggan contracted dysentery, one of the more common diseases during the Civil War, which he likely contracted by ingesting contaminated food or water in the army’s poor living conditions after the battle. Boggan remained in the hospital for the rest of the year with chronic dysentery, while also developing bleeding hemorrhoids. Sent home on furlough in January 1864 to recover, Boggan returned that spring with some bad habits. Boggan became fond of the bottle. In August 1864, Boggan was placed in arrest for “intoxication while on duty.” In December of 1864, he resigned his commission, ending a once promising military career.

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National Park Service model of the Chimborazo hospital complex, perched on a bluff above the James River. Boggan was admitted into hospital number 4.

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Sources:

Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 10:293; 1860 U.S. Census: Anson County, NC; Walter J. Boggan, Compiled Military Service Record; Thomas S. Kenan, Sketch of the Forty-third Regiment, North Carolina Troops (1895); Judkin Browning and Timothy H. Silver, "Nature and Human Nature: Environmental Influences on the Union's Failed Peninsula Campaign," Journal of the Civil War Era (2018):402-403.