EDMUNS and HERMAN SOPER -- 16th and 121st INFRANTRYTWO SOPERS FROM CLINTON COUNTY - A little over a year after the 16thInfantry was formed in Ogdensburg, Edmund and Herman (Heman) Soper, notclosely related, enlisted in the 16th Infantry. The regiment had beenin existence since May 1861 and was known as the First Northern New YorkRegiment.The 16th had just participated in the Battle of Gaines Mill on June27, 1862, and sustained 231 casualties, so they were in need ofreplacement troops. Edmund was assigned to Company E and Herman toCompany G. The regiment formed as a 2-year regiment and was mustered outin May 1863. Men like Edmund and Herman who still had the rest of their3-year term to finish, were transferred to the 121st Infantry in thefield on May 11, 1863, just after both regiments had lost heavily atMarye's Heights and Salem Church near Fredericksburg. Between the tworegiments, they had 430 casualties.The 121st spent the rest of the year in Pennsylvania, Maryland andVirginia with very few casualties even though they were at Gettysburg onJuly 4th. In 1864 and 1865, the men were in the field near Petersburgand Richmond and in 1865, they joined the Appomattox Campaign. Both menmustered out with their companies on June 25th at Hall's Hill, VA.Both men returned to Clinton County, Edmund to Peru, where he was bornand Herman to Plattsburgh. Edmund died in 1893 in Essex County, and wasburied in the Deerhead Cemetery in Lewis, NY. For years, Brevet MajorGeneral Newton Martin Curtis, the author of the history of the 16thInfantry, From Bull Run to Chancellorsville, advertised in New Yorknewspapers for information about men who had been in the regiment. Whenthe book was published in 1906, the notation beside Herman's name was,"dead", with no further information. It's thought Herman died about 1876in Iowa. Curtis got Edmund's death date correct, May 11, 1893.
