Company Unknown
Private
Edward Alton joined the Army, the 13th Connecticut Infantry, as a private on March 14, 1861. In January 1863, he was captured and spent eight months as a POW, escaping from the Belle Island Prison Camp west of Richmond, Virginia, in September 1863 by swimming away in the James River. He was mustered out at the war’s end, March 13th, 1865, in Hartford, but re-enlisted in September 1866, serving as a first sergeant in the Army of the West, 36st Infantry, for three years. Arthur MacArthur, Douglas MacArthur’s father, was his commanding officer and wrote of him “Faithful, true and diligent. As a man, and as a soldier, equaled by few & excelled by none.”