William Hazen Rugg
Representing: Union
Unit History
- 12th Massachusetts Infantry F
CDV- Corp. William H. Rugg, 12th MA infantry. POW at Gettysburg (imprisoned at Belle Island, VA & Andersonville, GA). Photographer: W. H. Lane, Haverhill, MA. (photo courtesy: The Horse Soldier, Gettysburg, PA)
Daily capital journal., July 10, 1913, Image 1 About Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1903-1919
Family History
I was curious about finding stories about CWV on YouTube. The link I am sending is about William Rugg in Orting.
CPL William Hazen Rugg
- Birth
- Apr 1840
Massachusetts, USA
- Death
- 9 Jul 1913 (aged 73)
Orting, Pierce County, Washington, USA
- Burial
-
Orting, Pierce County, Washington, USA
- Memorial ID
-
William H. Rugg
Residence Boxford MA; a 21 year-old Shoemaker.
Enlisted on 7/8/1861 as a Private.
On 7/8/1861 he mustered into "F" Co. MA 12th Infantry
He was Mustered Out on 5/20/1865 at Boston, MA
He was listed as:
* POW 7/1/1863 Gettysburg, PA
* Released 5/18/1865 Jacksonville, FL
Promotions:
* Corpl 11/1/1862
Rugg was with a number of Civil War veterans on a special G. A. R. train that was returning them from the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion when he fainted and died. They kept his body on the train until it got to Orting. And in the telling of the tale, the corporal had somehow been upgraded to colonel. Several newspapers picked up the story, some more accurately than others.
The Alaska Daily Empire., July 12, 1913
GETTYSBURG VETERAN DIES ON WAY HOME SEATTLE, July 11. Col. W. H. Rugg, a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the Twelfth Massachusetts regiment, who is given the credit of firing the first gun in the
Battle of Gettysburg, died while returning home from the reunion on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle.
Daily capital journal., July 10, 1913, Image 1
MAN WHO FIRED FIRST SHOT DEAD
Colonel S. G. Ruggs Dies on Special Train on His Return From Famous Gettysburg Battlefield.
UNITED PBESS LEASED WIRE. Tacoma, July 10 Said to have been the first, to fire a shot at the battle of Gettysburg, Colonel S. O. Ruggs, of this city, is dead today, and his body is on the way to the soldiers' home at Orting for burial. Colonel Kugg attended the reunion at the famous battlefield and was returning to the coast when his death occurred on the Washington veterans' special train in Maho yesterday. The intense heat In the East had sapped the old soldier's vitality. Colonel Rugg spent two years and two months in Andersonville, being one of the few hardy enough to withstand the horrors of that prison for so long a time.
Inscription
CPL CO F 12 MASS INF