Charlie Minnigerode ran away from home at age 16 and joined the Confederate army. His father, Charles Minnigerode Sr., was a German immigrant, the Rector of St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, one of the most prominent and influential clergymen in the South, and (incidentally) the man who introduced America to Christmas trees. Charlie Jr. earned a commission and became an aide-de-camp to General Fitzhugh Lee.
On the morning of April 9 at Appomattox, just hours before General Robert E. Lee would surrender the army, Charlie was shot by a Federal sharpshooter. The minie ball passed through his chest and Charlie fell from his horse, fracturing his head in the fall. Fitz Lee dismounted and saw that the wound was fatal. Though grieved by the loss of his trusted aide, in the emergency of battle he had to leave him behind.
As Charlie lay dying, he took out a pencil and wrote a poignant letter to his mother. “My Darling Mother. I am dying but I have fallen where I expected to fall. Our cause is defeated but I do not live to see the end of it. I suffer agonies, would to God I could die calmly but – In all things I must see His will be done. My greatest regret in leaving this world is to leave you and the rest of the dear ones. The younger children will be more comforting to you than I have been but none of them will love you more.” He pinned the letter to his chest and awaited his fate.
A passing Federal soldier saw Charlie writhing in pain, cut a button off of his uniform as a souvenir, then continued on his way. A short time later a Federal officer passed. Charlie hailed him and begged the officer to put him out of his misery. When the officer refused, Charlie asked to borrow his pistol. The officer again refused, recalling later that before leaving, “I told him to say a prayer and perhaps some good would come out of it.”
For young Charlie Minnigerode, the third time was a charm. A Federal surgeon came upon him and believing the young man had a chance to survive, had him taken to a field hospital in Farmville. There Charlie recovered, after having been repeatedly left for dead.
Sadly, fate would not deny Charlie a tragic end. Suffering from what we now call PTSD, and depressed by financial reverses, in 1888, Charlie committed suicide at age 42. But after being left for dead on the Appomattox battlefield and before his untimely death, Charles Minnigerode Jr. went on to marry and father seven children, among them Lucy Minnigerode, founder of United States Public Health Services Nursing Corps, US Army Colonel Fitzhugh Lee Minnigerode, and the painter Marietta Minnigerode Andrews.
The photo is of Captain Minnigerode after the war, in the uniform he was wearing on the day he was wounded, with the bullet hole and bloodstains visible.
Charles Minnigerode Jr. was born on June 22, 1845, one hundred seventy-seven years ago today.
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