I've been working on a short sketch of the life of Charles C. Weysser, a West Dennis businessman in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It turns out that his dad died for his country in the Civil War. For Memorial Day, here's some of what I know about his dad:
Charles W. Weysser immigrated from Württemberg in Germany, and married a Crowell girl from Dennis in 1856. He and his wife appear to have moved to Fall River, where he worked as a confectioner. They had three children between 1859 and 1863.
I don’t know a lot about Weysser’s personal experiences during the war. I know he enlisted as a private in the 58thMassachusetts late in 1863, was mustered into the service in March 1864, was eventually promoted to sergeant, and died on July 18 or 19, 1864.
Assuming Weysser was present with his regiment through the spring, he would have left Massachusetts for the front in Virginia in late April 1864, and arrived in time for Grant’s brutal Spring 1864 “Overland” campaign.
For six weeks in May and June, in battle after battle, Grant wore down Lee’s army, destroyed its ability to act independently, and gradually forced it back into siege lines at Petersburg, south of Richmond.
The 58thMassachusetts, part of Burnside’s 9thCorp, saw a lot of combat in the spring of 1864, and, again assuming Weysser was with the regiment throughout this time, he lived a nightmare.
The regiment fought at the Wilderness, at Spotsylvania Court House, at Cold Harbor, and was in the first assault on Petersburg in mid-June. Those place names should give you pause and send a chill down your spine.
The 58thwas in the middle of the debacle of the Battle of the Crater on July 30. The 58thwas one of the regiments wrecked when it was actually caught in the crater by the rebel counterattack.
Sergeant Weysser wasn’t present though, having died, probably from disease, on July 18 or 19.* He was just over 31, and left a widow with three small children. He’s buried in a government cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. A long way from Württemberg, and from Fall River and Dennis for that matter.
If the family was living in Fall River at the time Weysser enlisted, they appear to have moved to West Dennis. Weysser’s wife is buried there, as are his children. His son, Charles Christopher, ran a retail business on Main Street as late as 1919.
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*The history of the 58thMassachusetts lists all its battle casualties, dead and wounded, and Weysser doesn’t appear on this list.
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