soldier's heart

Soldier Charles E Goddard

Regiment First Minnesota Volunteers

Company K

Enlisted 04/29/61

Discharged 05/04/64

Rank Corporal

Wounded In Battle, Gettysburg 7/2/63--shoulder,leg

Born 05/14/46, Pennsylvania

Died 12/20/68, Winona, Minnesota

Vocation Worked at a boarding house

"Charlie Goddard wanted to go to war so badly that he lied about his age. He said that he was 18 when he enlisted but he was actually 15. His mother worried about him and encouraged him to desert but he ignored her and went off to war. Like many of the men in the First Minnesota he wrote many letters home telling of life in the unit. He was sick with dysentery at the beginning of the war and missed their first battle at Bull Run.

"After that, however, he was with the unit through thick and thin; including the battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded more than once during their heroic charge. He was treated by the army surgeons but his wounds never did heal properly. He stayed with the regiment and served his full three year enlistment, being mustered out on May 5, 1864.

"Besides the pain of the physical wounds he received at Gettysburg, the teenager apparently also suffered from the mental trauma of the war. When the war was over he returned to Winona and tried unsuccessfully to hold various jobs. He ran for county clerk and won, perhaps based on his war record. Before he could serve, though, he died of consumption, this, undoubtably, as a result of his wounds and, perhaps, compounded by the mental stress he never overcame. The worn out Civil War veteran died at the young age of 23, in December of 1867"(Find First).