GEORGE WILLIAM BRADFORD – 16th INFANTRYONE OF 170 FROM THE 16th WOUNDED AT GAINES’ MILL - George William Bradford was a direct descendant of Puritan Governor William Bradford who came to the Plymouth Colony in 1620 on the Mayflower. The Bradford family spread throughout New England and his grandfather, Elisha, a Revolutionary War soldier, settled on a land grant in Clinton County.George enlisted in the 16th Infantry when he was eighteen years old in Plattsburgh. He and 63 other men from the Keeseville are enlisted in May 1861 to serve for two years. The regiment organized in Albany, and they left for Washington on June 26, 1861, with the Keeseville men assigned to Company C.The 16th was assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 5th Division of the Army of Northeastern Virginia, and moved to Alexandria on July 11, from there to Manassas for a very short time before they returned to camp. In September they were ordered to Fort Lyon and attached to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Corps, Army of the Potomac. The winter of 1861-62 was passed at Camp Franklin near Fairfax Seminary, VA, where they remained until April 6th and by May 3rd were at Yorktown, VA. Marching up the Peninsula, they had a couple of small engagements before they got to Gaines' Mill on June 27th, where its loss was over 230 killed and wounded.George was one of the men wounded and sent to hospital. He ended up in hospital in Philadelphia, PA, and was discharged for disability on October 22nd. In December, he started receiving his Invalids Pension. He and his family lived on a farm in Clinton County until the 1890s, when he moved to Grafton, NH. When he died there in 1911, his body was brought back to Morrisonville, NY, to be buried in the Union Cemetery.
