John Eadie Jr.

John Eadie Jr. was born in 1841 in Scotland, the son of John Sr. and Elizabeth (b. 1819).

John Jr. immigrated to America with his parents sometime between 1851 and 1853, and by 1859 they had settled in Ravenna, Muskegon County, Michigan. John Sr. died soon after they arrived in Muskegon and Elizabeth married one George Sipps in 1859. By 1860 John Jr. was a farm hand living with his mother and stepfather in Ravenna.

John was 20 years old and residing in Muskegon County when he enlisted in Company K on May 13, 1861. He was absent sick in the hospital from October of 1862 through January of 1863, and he reenlisted on December 24, 1863 at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Alpine, Kent County. John was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough in January of 1864, probably at his mother’s home in Muskegon, and probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February.

On May 12, 1864, John was wounded at Spotsylvania, Virginia, by a gunshot to the left leg, and his left thigh was “amputated at the middle third” in the field on May 18. He was seriously ill when admitted on May 28 to ward A, bed 45 in Emory hospital in Washington, DC, where he was treated for gangrene and loss of blood. (He was apparently divorced by the time he was admitted to the hospital since his medical descriptive list reported him as being single and his nearest relative as his mother.) On May 29 he was observed to be “partially comatose” and was “Suffering from an ulcer upon his sacrum 3 inches in diameter inclined by gangrene.” The following day it was noted that the “Stump of amputated limb discharges freely from around the bone. Left parts of stump continually look healthy, and about two thirds united. Bone necrosed.” He was given morphine, and on May 31 he was reported to be generally “the same,” although it was noted that he “Grows more comatose and weaker. Refuses at times to take nourishment or stimulants.” He was given morphine at bedtime. The following day, June 1, it was observed that he “Takes but little” stimulants presumably, and “Will not take anything except in small quantities.”

John failed to recover and died at 11:30 p.m. on June 1, in Emory hospital, and was buried on June 2 at 3:00 p.m. in Arlington National Cemetery: section 27, grave no. 421.

In 1890 a woman named Elizabeth Eadie, apparently living in Michigan, claiming to be John’s widow applied for a widow’s pension (application no. 444,341) but the certificate was never granted. (If in fact he had been married, his widow remarried in 1873, to one William Patterson, and she lived in Coopersville, Ottawa County and then in Ludington, Mason County.)