Isaac W. Shafer

In 1860 he was a 17 year old farm boy on his parent's place at German Settlement in Preston County, VA. He enlisted as a Private in Company F, 33rd Virginia Infantry on 24 August 1862 in Warren County.

He was wounded by gunshot in the right shoulder (and possibly left leg) in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. Surgeon Smith (?) excised (removed) the head of his humerus (upper arm bone) in a field hospital the same day.

His military records after Sharpsburg are contradictory and very confusing, including references to both his arm and left leg being amputated. He was in hospitals in Richmond, Staunton, and Lexington, VA to at least August 1863, and he was listed as absent, recovering, through at least December 1863. He's seen as transferred to the Invalid Corps in April 1864, yet somehow captured in Maryland in July 1864, in US Army hospitals in Frederick and Baltimore until released in September 1864. He was at Camp Lee near Richmond as a paroled prisoner on 12 October 1864 and mustered with the Invalid Corps at the end of 1864, the latest record in his military file.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. Medical details from the MSHWR.2

His CSRs are contradictory enough to suggest they are the intermingled records of two different men, yet both the Federal POW and CSA Invalid Corps records of 1864 make note of his 1862 Sharpsburg wounds, which suggests they are the same man. There were two other Shafers in the regiment, William B. (not an obvious relation) and Isaac's brother Obediah T. Shafer, neither easily confused with Isaac in written records.

c. 1843; Brookside, Preston County, VA