De CLIFFORD and JAMES WESTON -- 77th INFANTRYLOST A BROTHER IN 1862 - Twenty-year-old James Weston enlisted in the 77th Infantry on October 15, 1861. Ten days later, his nineteen-year-old brother, De Clifford, joined him and they were both mustered into Company I as privates with forty-one other men from the local area. They were sons of James Weston, a carpenter, and his wife, Olive, who were living in the Town of Chesterfield and had ancestors who came from England in the 1630s and ancestors who fought in the Revolution.The men expected to serve under 27-year-old Captain Franklin Norton's company for the next three years. They left Saratoga Springs at the end of November and went straight to Washington where they spent the winter. In the April of 1862, they were sent to the Virginia Peninsula. After the Siege of Yorktown, the regiment started marching toward Richmond in May.On June 24th, Clifford was killed in battle of Mechanicsville and buried on the battlefield. James decided to stay with the regiment and, for much of the rest of his service, he was detailed as a teamster to Divisional Headquarters with small periods of time with his company. He mustered out on June 27, 1865, in Washington.James returned to Keeseville and married Harriet Goodspeed in 1868. They raised their family in various villages in the area -- Vermontville, Clintonville and Keeseville -- before moving to Cornwall, VT, about 1900. He died in 1914 and Harriet died two years later. They are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in West Cornwall.
