This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[196] of the First Massachusetts Light Battery, about to be raised. Lieutenant McCartney was an energetic, zealous officer, in character original and strongly marked,—possessed of a keen sense of justice. It would have been impossible for him to be a routine officer. It therefore goes without saying that popularity would not be the prime purpose of his life in camp, but his ability was conceded by all, and his friends bear the strongest testimony to his fidelity to duty as it presented itself to him. As captain of the First Massachusetts Battery, he was recognized in the army corps to which that command was attached, as one of the ablest artillery officers in the volunteer service. He led his company at Fredericksburg, Salem Heights, Gettysburg, Mine Run, 1863; in the campaigns from Brandy Station to Petersburg in the spring and summer of 1864, he handled his command with admirable judgment and consummate skill. In August, 1864, the Sixth Corps, having been detached from the Army of the Potomac and been sent to the defence of the capital, it afterwards constituted a part of Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah. Capt. McCartney's battery participated in the battles of Opequon and Fisher's Hill. The term of enlistment of the command expired while it was at Harrisonburg, Oct. 3, 1864, sixteen days before the battle of Cedar Creek, and it was mustered out in Boston, on the very day on which that conflict occurred. The captain was then made provost marshal of Boston, and before the close of the war was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. He was prominent as a speaker in the political campaign of 1864, and he was in the following year appointed collector of internal revenue for the fourth district. McCartney is at present practicing in his profession in central eastern Pennsylvania.
Boston. Press of Deland and Barta, 1886.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.