ALEXANDER CHARLES BROMLEY – 22nd INFANTRYWENT SOUTH AFTER THE WAR - When he was 24 years old, Alexander Charles Bromley left his parents’ farm in Lewis, NY, and went to Keeseville to enlist in the 22nd Infantry on May 7, 1861. About a month later in Troy, he was mustered into Captain Oliver Peabody’s Company C, which was totally made up by men from the Keeseville area.The regiment left for Washington at the end of June. Passing through Baltimore, it had one man killed in a riot protesting the war.They stayed in the capital with the Army of the Potomac until the spring of 1862, and by August, they were on General Pope’s Campaign which included the battles at Bull Run and Little River Turnpike where they sustained 180 casualties in serious fighting. The first battle near Chantilly, VA, proved to be their most bloody.In September the 22nd had 30 casualties going over South Mountain on their way to Antietam where they received 30 more. At the end of the year, they were at Fredericksburg and spent the winter in the local area.While they were in camp, Alexander spent time in hospital but rallied by the end of April when camp was broken up for the Chancellorsville movement. For the rest of their 2-year term, the regiment was held in reserve and met its only loss at Pollock's Mill Creek, where 10 men were wounded while acting as rear-guard. The regiment was mustered out at Albany, June 19, 1863,Alexander returned to Lewis and continued to farm. The family broke up soon after his return and while Alexander went south, his parents went to Iowa with some of the younger members of his family. His mother, Sophronia Woodruff, died in 1870 almost as soon as they got there and Charles Bromley, his father died in 1883.Alexander became a clerk in the Pensions Office in Washington and married a local girl, Anna Coe, in 1871. The couple lived in the capital area until he died in 1914 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Anna received her Widows Pension until she died in 1931.
