Civil War Memoir: Peter J. Rabb 23rd Battery Light Artillery, New York State Volunteers

The following is from Grand Army of the Republic ~ Department of New York ~ Personal War Sketches of the Members of Charles P. Sprout Post No. 76, of Lockport

Sprout who was with the New York 28th Infantry was killed in Action at Cedar Mountain, Virginia on August 9, 1862

Peter J. Rabb
Born Erie, New York
23rd Battery Light Artillery, New York State Volunteers

…I served as Blacksmith for two years, and was discharged as Private at Washington, N.C…. I was in the battle of Beaver Creek, and afterward in the engagements at Kingston, Whitehall, Mount Olive, Goldsboro, Bachelor’s Creek, Washington, Raleigh, Greensboro, New Bern.

I was wounded November 24th 1863, in the capturing of White’s Camp of Guerrillas, receiving a bayonet thrust through the hand and was confined in Hospital at New Berne….

An important event in my military life was at the capturing of White’s Camp, Nov. 24th 1863. I went around behind a Rebel Picket and caught him by the back of the neck, before he knew it, and with the point of a pistol held to his head and demanded his surrender. He laid down his gun and became my prisoner.

In March 1864 in riding a balky horse that we got from the 3rd N.Y. Cavalry, I was bucked off into a cellar way, and across the street and over a picket fence, sustaining a breach which has troubled, more or less, ever since.