Walker Pension Files

In reply to your communications of July 15^th, 1879 requiring that I certify under oath the “nature and locality of the wound or injury” I have to say that the injury is a hernia in the left groin. This is answer to your requisition upon blank “57.” In answer to your requirement upon blank 58, that a com’d officer certifying “when where & under what circumstances the alleged hernia was incurred.” I refer you to the deposition of Thomas B. Brooks’ late Chief Engineer of siege operations against Fort Wagner. In answer to your further requirement upon aforesaid blank 58 viz, “The affidavit of the Surgeon or Assistant Surgeon of claimant’s Reg’t as to treatment of said alleged disability.” I have to refer you to my “application,” and to former communications. These inform you that my bruises resulting from the explosion of the torpedo, and other shock, and hard service were of a general character, & though prostrated, sick, & off service for six days immediately following the siege, and for several days immediately following the explosion – vide – T.B. Brooks deposition – yet rest, absolute rest, so far as I remember, was sufficient for recuperation; therefore, I cannot produce the evidence in this instance -- this according to my best recollection, though it may be that visiting surgeons at my tent treated me with general or specific advice.

In answer to your letter of said date (July 15^th) requiring “the affidavit of your (my) family physician (or other competent testimony) which should show what your (my) physical condition was it and prior to your (my) enlistment, and especially whether you (me) were free from hernia as alleged.” I have to say that prior to the war I never had an ailment from my youth up requiring the advice of a physician, except in one instance. In that instance my bare arms had been unusually exposed to a hot summer sun. The blister occasioned thereby was very painful; one or both arms being much swollen, & a Dr. Elmer (now I believe dead) was called in – the treatment was a simple emollient, & very soon relief was obtained. But I respectfully refer you to the fact that according to my recollection my enlistment was as a private, & that I remember a physical examination – when the Co. “I” was organized I was formally elected Captain. The record of this physical examination should be in the records of the Surgeon Gen’ls Dept. at Washington, D.C., or at Albany, N.Y. As to your further inquiry – “showing what your (my) condition was at the date of your (my) discharge, and what it has been continuously from that time to the present” I have to say that no examination was made by an Army Surgeon, I was in good health at the time, and as before set forth in my “application” and previous communications, I did not myself suspect at that time, that the small protuberance in my groin (of which I was quite sensible) was a hernia. It was in 1866 as before stated in aforesaid previous communications to your office, that the nature of it became painfully apparent to me. Referring to the affidavit of Dr. A. Monteiro (now on file in your office) I will herein say, that that was the first occasion (in 1872) that I became alarmed by its painfulness, and sought the advice of a surgeon.

Richmond, Va. 12 April 1879

I have carefully read the whole of the within letter of transmittal and accompanying application for a pension by Major Jos. Walker formerly Captain of Co. I, First New York Volunteer Engineers & can truthfully say that my recollection of the facts & circumstances therein set forth as having occurred on the night of Aug. 26, 1863, is clear and distinct up to the point of the exact nature & extent of the injury received about which I have no distinct knowledge nor recollection. But I am clear that he was injured & temporarily disabled.

Immediately after the terrible explosion I remember to have gone back along the trench & of finding neither negro nor torpedo, but instead a large gap in the parapet & by Major Walker who was evidently considerably hurt for he spoke with difficulty & was incoherent & scarcely to be understood. I also remember that he was unfit for duty for a time afterwards but cannot say for how long.

In stating this I have not had my official Report to Gen’l Q.A. Gillmore on whose staff I was serving before me but believe it must contain some reference to the circumstances.

I cannot close this statement without doing violence to my own feelings should I neglect to add as Major Walker’s then superior officer that his behavior on this particular night was gallant & efficient in the highest degree as it was before & after on more than one occasion. He was emphatically the hero of the occasion. I am ready to swear to this statement if desired.

Thomas B. Brooks

Then Capt. Co. A 1^st N.Y. Vol. Engineers. Later Major & A.D.C. & Bvt. Lt. Col. & Col. Also Directing Engineers of the Siege operations against Fort Wagner.

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I, Thomas Benton Brooks of Newburgh, New York, late “Major Aid-de-Camp and Assistant Engineer Department of the South,” General Quincy A. Gillmore Commanding, had for the greater part of the time immediate charge under the Commanding General of the Siege operations against Fort Wagner on Morris Island in 1863 do depose & swear: That I have undeniably known Major Joseph Walker of Manchester, Chesterfield County, Virginia, later Captain of Co. I First Regiment of New York Volunteer Engineers since his entry into the U.S. Service in 1861. That during the siege operations against Morris Island he reported to me almost the whole time and served under my immediate orders. Regarding his physical condition when he entered the service I can only say, he claimed to be, had the reputation & appearance of being perfectly sound & well. Nor can I conceive how he could have performed the service which I saw him perform had he then suffered from the hernia from which I know he has been suffering for some years.

My recollection of the occasion and circumstances under which he asserts he received the said hernia is perfectly clear and distinct and it is confirmed by my official report to General Gillmore: it was on the night of the 26^th of August 1863 when the Ridge containing the rifle pits in front of fort Wagner was assaulted and captured. I quote from my before named report: “The moment the Ridge was gained the work of entrenching was begun under the superintendence of Captain Walker. The fifth parallel was opened x x x x cover being rapidly obtained under the stimulus of a severe grape & shell fire from “Wagner.”

Although it was no part of Captain Walker’s duty he being an Engineer Officer and he was practically unarmed yet he joined in & was one of the foremost men in the charge. It was said in Camp afterwards that “he captured three armed rebel soldiers with his canteen.”

After Captain Walker had succeeded in advancing the sap & effecting a … to a point perhaps one hundred yards distant from the ditch of the Fort and near midnight I passed along the now rapidly being strengthened sap (fifth parallel) and near its head (the sea end) I found a peculiar segar shaped body sticking out of the parapet which I then supposed & afterwards knew to be a torpedo (described in Engineer & Artillery operations against Charleston, 1863, pg. 263, Fig. 12 & 13). A colored corporal was vigorously shoveling sand near by & had encountered it. Captain Walker was leaning on the parapet resting & we speculated as to the nature of the torpedo, I moving the plunger cautiously. Moving on toward the head of the sap I heard in a few seconds a great explosion, one of the most terrific I had ever heard, but which at the moment I supposed to be a shell which had burst very near me. Having finished my inspection I returned along the sap & found a large breach in the parapet where the torpedo had been but … and negro corporal gone. The latter had been blown a number of yards and killed. Captain Walker was a little further back, sitting on the ground & leaning against the parapet and attended I think by his men. I spoke with him a moment about the terrible explosion and asked if he was hurt. He answered incoherently and was as it seemed to me injured; I passed on & arranged to have him relieved I think by Capt. F.E. Graef.

This was the period (Aug. 27^th) & preceding & following few days that General Gillmore (his report pg. 68, Sect. 158) describes thus: “The dark & gloomy days of the Siege were now upon us. Our daily losses although not heavy were on the increase and our progress was discouragingly slow and even fearfully uncertain. The converging fire from Wagner alone almost enveloped the head of the sap delivered as it was on a line subtending and angle of nearly 90 degrees, which the flank fire from the James Island batteries increased in power and accuracy every hour. To push forward the sap in the narrow strip of shifting sand by day was impossible which the brightness of the prevailing harvest moon, rendered the operations almost as hazardous at night: … indeed seemed almost at a standstill, and a feeling of despondency began to prevaid the rank and file of the command. There seemed indeed no adequate return in accomplished results for the daily losses which we suffered and no means of relief cheering and encouraging to the soldier seemed at hand.”

It was in this time of need that after three days of rest Captain Walker although still unwell volunteered to undertake some particularly hazardous work on the night of Aug. 29^th. My report says: “It was a bright moonlight by which the enemy concentrated a sharp musketry and light artillery fire on the party who were strengthening the advanced line of sap under the supervision of Captain Walker. The fire destroyed the parapet and one shell killed and wounded six sappers of Captain Walker’s command. On this night & others Captain Walker did much volunteer valuable & dangerous reconnaissance conspicuously that of examining the trenches & parapet of Ft. Wagner and removing with his own hands the obstructions to an assaulting column. This duty is only in part a matter of record & is picturesquely suggested by the view in Gen’l. Gillmore’s Report pg. 70 when Capt. Walker represented as passing in front of the sap roller on a reconnaissance. But his gallantry & efficiency are well known & matters of official record.

Subscribed and Sworn to before me this 22^dday of Aug. 1879. Thomas Benton Brooks

State of New York, Orange County Clerk’s Office. I, John A. Wallace, Clerk of said County, and the County Court of said County (a Court of Record), DO HEREBY CERTIFY that Chas. L. Chatterton whose name is subscribed to the annexed affidavit, was, at the time of taking the same, a NOTARY PUBLIC in and for said County, duly elected and qualified, and having full power to take the same; and further, that I am well acquainted with the handwriting of the said NOTARY, and verily believe that the signature subscribed to the said affadavit is genuine.

In WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereto subscribe my name and affix the Seal of said Court and County, this 22 day of August, 1879.

Brooklyn, March 18, 1880

I hereby certify that during the year 1861 Joseph Walker, Captain and afterwards Maj. Walker of the 1^st N.Y. Engr. Corps, was engaged in recruiting what was afterwards Co. I of the aforesaid Corps. I recollect of his examination by the army surgeon for a physical disability because the examination was made at the same time, and by the same surgeon that examined me.

Maj. Walker was declared sound, perfectly sound, and all subsequent events during the war corroborated the surgeon’s declaration, for I never knew a man of more hardi…, physical endurance, and general good health than he.

Through all weathers and in all service, often involving the extreme of danger and hardship and effort, he invariably came off, I may say, as good as new.

During the Siege of Ft. Wagner I was in command of a detachment of Engr. Troops and Infantry details in Folly Island, S.C., getting out Engr. Material for his use. I had not personal knowledge of him during that particular time, but through general and special reports I knew that his service in the siege was highly conspicuous, that he had the reputation of bearing a charmed life, and was universally regarded by the troops as the hero of the siege; he was afterwards generally known as “Wagner Walker.”

After the siege, being 2^nd Lieut. of Co. I of the Engrs. of which he was then Capt., I either rejoined or often visited my Co. and his command, he was suffering and complaining not from disease but from exhaustion and the bruises and shocks incident to his desperate service in the advanced trenches. I do not recollect that medical attendance was necessary in his care, rest and opportunity to recuperate seemed to be what was required to restore him. By complimentary order of the Gen. Comd. with an understood view to his recuperation he was placed in command of the Steam ship Fulton to carry all prisoners of the Dept. to Ft. Columbus in N.Y. Harbor.

I tented and messed with Capt. Walker whenever in camp in duty with the Co. or visiting when in detached service, and know that the effects of the siege were as severe as above related and that a curious result was left as a reminder of the incidents and casualties of the siege in the shape of something in the nature of a puff in his groin, of which however he did not complain. It did not occur to Capt. Walker or myself that it was a hernia, we thought it the remains of a bruise which he had received in the siege. It has however developed into a hernia – this hernia being identical in place with the puff. I am satisfied and can certify that it is the same injury of which I was cognizant very soon after the Surrender of “Wagner.”

As to the time, in terms, for I believe it was subject matter of conversation several times. I can say that it, or they, were between about the 20^th of Sept. and middle of Dec. 1863.

James H. Harold

Late Lieut. 1^st N.Y. Vol. Engrs.

Sworn to before me the 18^th day of March, 1880

John Daly

Special Deputy Clerk of the

City Court of Brooklyn.

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Herewith I forward with enclosures, my application to be placed upon the Invalid Pension Roll of the United States. In the declaration as to the injury, and the time and manner of it, I have endeavoured to be as truthfull and full as the space in the printed form allowed. I append as further evidence the statement of Bt. Col. T. B. Brooks, who fortunately on the 12^th inst. Happened to be passing through Richmond. Also the certification of my family physician who since 1872 has advised me upon the subject.

From commencement of active siege operations against Charleston (about July 10^th 1863) either with Gen’l A.H. Terry on James Island, or with Gen’l Q.A. Gillmore on Folly or Morris Island, up to the night of the 26^th August, I was continuously on duty, but from 26^th August to 2^nd Sept. was not on duty, and this interregnum was compelled by the shock and bruises rec’d as set forth in the application, and as will be hereafter more particularly described.

At the time of the explosion I was leaning upon the parapet of our yet imperfect trench, and now directly beneath the guns of Fort Wagner. The Fort loomed in front a huge indefinate mass, and I was resting and peering at the space between, which before had been to us “terra incognita,” trying to see what kind of ground we had yet to traverse before the work was ours; but exulting in the fact that after this night’s advance, we had got out of the gloomy uncertain days of the seige, and that the Fort must surely fall, and then Charleston, and Sumter, and Charleston Harbor would be completely controlled by our guns.

The firing from Wagner which through the night had been terrific, had nearly, if not altogether ceased – only the vertical fire from the batteries on James Island, from Gregg, Johnson, and an occasional shell form Moultrie continued in usual effective force. I believe that the rest and look I was taking, leaning and partly lying, upon the parapet in front saved my life, for though receiving the shock through the earth, it yielded upward in the line of least resistance, and only laterally and in its falling motion partially enveloped me – the torpedoes were ten gallon vinegar or lager beer kegs, about half filled with powder – into the bilge of these was fitted an apparatus having a brass plunger resting upon a fulminate; when planted the top of the plunger was left a little above the earth, and upon a light piece of wood or shingle was placed to resemble drift – we had dug one trench by the end of this particular one, and thrown the earth over and partially on it. How it was exploded by the man at work next to me I cannot tell – whether he struck it with his shovel, or threw earth upon its plunger it was alike fatal to him and nearly so to me. It was only in camp the following day my bewildered mind recovered coherent recollections. Thinking it a bursting shell, I had remembrance of the flash, the stunning force, and the sound, and as in a dream I remembered the sensations which succeeded: the first of these were etherially pleasant, but the latter and those accompanying returning consciousness were indescribably dismal. Of what happened after extricating myself from the debris I had only dim remembrance – of standing in an exposed place and speaking with Maj. Brooks, of turning over the Engineer command of the trenches to the officer relieving me, and of assistance rendered by the soldiers in returning to camp I was aware – but in confused form – very different from all the dangers transactions and events which preceded the explosion, and which graphically and indellibly were fixed in my memory.

I do not remember that the injury in the groin while laid up in camp, was conspicuous over the general bruise my whole body had sustained for several days; but I do remember and know that it was the last that gave me pain. I cannot remember that ever during my term of service, though nearly always upon the front, and often sick, sore, and bruised, I had recourse to a surgeon, and at this time did not though I think it likely some of my surgeon friends called at my tent to offer assistance if needed – rest, absolute rest, and ordinary care was all I considered necessary to complete recovery.

After the pain passed away, the enlargement remained, and continued a little soft painless thing, covering an area of about a quarter dollar, and having a quite perceptible bulge. I did not know it was a hernia -- I had no experience in hernias – of all the people I had ever known not more than two or three had ever acknowledged themselves to me suffering from hernia, and these had given me no information as to the origin. If I had any thought on the subject, it was that if a person had one he would know it, for it would give him sensible pain. I have often thought since, and now believe, that at times it did pain me, but being at the time on hard duty, I had accounted it to the incident fatigue exposure and excitement.

I have in my mind however, that from its first appearance I was conscious of its presence as I have described it, and in my cogitations upon it I thought it the harmless remains of some sort of sprain of ligament or gland; I could as I distinctly remember smoothe out beneath the skin what seemed to be serous matter, somewhat the same as the puff on a horses leg – which it appeared in most respects to resemble – but as before stated it became in 1866 painfully apparent in its true nature, and form that time has been often somewhat strangulated, and from 1872 the subject of frequent consultations with my family physician (Dr. A. Monteiro) who has at each time advised me as to its dangerous character.

One other explanation I will now make – ever since 1866 I knew it to be a hernia, and that on account of it I was entitled to a pension. But I considered that I had property and means and brains sufficient, never to require such aid from the Gov’t. Times are now changed, and justice to myself and family requires me to make this application, and to receive from a generous country the award she makes to those who have in the discharge of dangerous and arduous duties been injured in her defense.

For information as to the circumstances narrated here, in the application, and as to that portion of my military history involved in the siege of Fort Wagner, I refer you to Gen’l Q. A. Gillmore’s Report on the siege of Charleston, and especially to the portion of the Report which is contained in the Report and Journal of Maj. T. B. Brooks, directing Engineer of the siege operations to reduce Fort Wagner.

Presentation sword of Major Walker