October 4 

By: Meghan Ward

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          On this day in 1862, while a prisoner in Boonesboro, Maryland, Major John Howard (1835-1862) of the 2nd North Carolina Infantry succumbed to wounds suffered at the Battle of Antietam. An unmarried 27-year old physician in Tarboro living with his parents (his father was keeper of the Howard Hotel in town) when the war began, Howard joined the 2nd North Carolina Infantry as Captain of Company B on May 16, 1861. The 2nd North Carolina moved to Virginia in the spring of 1862 and fought hard in the Seven Days’ Battles near Richmond. The regiment missed the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, but rejoined the army in time for Antietam. At the battle, his regiment helped defend the Sunken Road, known as “Bloody Lane,” where it suffered fifty total casualties. Howard, who was promoted to Major on the day of the battle, was wounded and captured when the regiment was forced to retreat from the lane. While convalescing in a makeshift hospital in the small town of Boonsboro, 6.5 miles northeast of Sharpsburg, Howard contracted pneumonia, which hastened his death. Howard’s remains were interred in a Tarboro cemetery under a simple headstone, which contains his name, birthdate, and the simple inscription: “Died in Maryland Oct. 4, 1862, of wounds received at the Battle of Sharpsburg.”

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​​​Sources:

Louis H. Manarin, comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 3:380, 390; 1860 U.S. Census: Edgecombe County, North Carolina; Fayetteville Observer, November 6, 1862; Tarborough Southerner, October 18, 1862

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