John Johnson and the 3rd Artillery

Thanks again to our Cayuga County Historian, Sheila Tucker, for sharing some information about Scipio. I now have a copy of a document named “Deaths of Officers and Enlisted Men who died while in the military or naval service of the United States or from Wounds or disease acquired in said service and reported by the families to which the deceased belonged when at home, in the town of Scipio county of Cayuga, NY.” This table was prepared by Enumerator D. Gould on the 5th day of June, 1865.
Thankfully, there are just four names upon the page.
First is John Johnson. According to this document, he was 20 when he died and single. He enlisted in September of 1862, in the 3rd or “Seward” Artillery as a private, and all was the same when he died.
We also find John on page 6 of the Scipio Clerk’s Book that I’ve mentioned before, listing all who served. That book tells us John was born in 1845, and that he died of disease at Morris Island on January 22, 1865.
Morris Island was the home of Fort Wagner, a confederate fortification that guarded the entrance to Charleston harbor.
I find a John P. Johnson in Battery B of the 3rd Artillery, in “Cayuga in the Field” by Henry Hall and James Hall of Auburn, NY, and this could be our Scipio boy as I found no other John Johnson listed in the 3rd. The book also says he “died in the service.” In January of 1863, this Battery was attached to the 10th Corps and sent to Hilton Head, NC. It shared in the operations against Fort Wagner and the reduction of the fortifications of Charleston harbor, and remained in that vicinity until it was mustered out at Syracuse, July 13, 1865.
The Division of Military and Naval Affairs has a lot of detailed information at their website at www.dmna.state.ny.us about this and many other Civil War units, and is well worth a browse.