WATSON CURBY -- 16th CAVALRYWASHINGTON CURBY -- 96th INFANTRYONE BROTHER DESERTED -- THE OTHER DIED - In 1860, fourteen-year-oldWatson Curby was living in Plattsburgh with his mother Ann, the widow ofRuel Kirby, and an older brother and younger sister. He enlisted in the16th Cavalry as it was forming in Plattsburgh on July 20, 1863.Another brother, Washington, had enlisted in the 96th Infantry inOctober 1861, and after going through the Siege of Yorktown, the bloodyBattle of Fair Oaks and the Seven Days' Battles, was reported missingfrom Harrison's Landing, VA, on the James River to where McClellanretreated after the Seven Days' Battles. Washington was reported asbeing a deserter on May 31, 1863, while the rest of the regiment was inNorth Carolina. The brothers were never in the military at the same timealthough both were in the service for about a year and a half each.Watson, the younger brother, gave his age as 21 years when he enlistedalthough he was born in 1847. He was assigned to Company H and left forWashington in August. The regiment only had three engagements innorthern Virginia in the fall of 1863. In 1864, they had about 25recorded battles and skirmished and, in December, Watson becamechronically ill with diarrhea after a year and a half on horseback. Hewas sent to the Brigade Hospital in Falls Church where he died onDecember 28, 1864. He was probably buried nearby. Often soldiers werereinterred in Arlington about 10 miles to the east, but there doesn'tseem to be a record of it for him. Neither is there a burial record forWashington who died sometime later under any variation of his surname.
