Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) HISTORY OF THE DEWITT GUARD, COMPANY A, 50th Regiment National Guard, STATE OF NEW YORK. PUBLISHED BY THE COMPANY. ITHACA, N. Y.: ANDRUS, McCHAIN & CO., STEAM PRINTERS. 1866. PREFACE. Our object in giving to the public a full, true, and concise history of Company A, 50th Regiment National Guard, State of New York, better known to the citizens of Ithaca as the DeWitt Guard, is to show as honorable a record as can be produced by any similar organization--so far as the membership of this Company was connected with the army and navy of the United States during the late rebellion. We shall show that the total membership of the Company from the time of its organization, in December, 1851, to the present time, has been two hundred and two, of which eighty-two served either in the army or navy during the war against eighty-eight who did not; twenty-nine names appear on the Company roll, of whom it is not known to the writer whether they were or were not in the army, and nine who died previous to the war. We have undertaken a brief personal history to each, which we believe will be interesting to the reader. We also wish to show that the Company has been, from the time of its organization to the present, a self-supporting and self-sustaining institution, until recently receiving nothing from the State but arms, and that the individual members have contributed the sum of two thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars and fifty-six cents, to which amount should be added a liberal percentage for disbursements which do not appear on Company records. We propose to give the name of each member of the DeWitt Guard from its organization, the date of his enlistment, his profession, with such incidents as we think will be of interest to the reader, after which we shall give the history of the Company collectively. There may be those who have belonged to the Company whose names will not appear in these pages. This must be attributed to the fact of their not signing the muster-roll of the Company, as every name there recorded is introduced in the following history. HISTORY. ARCH. H. MCNEIL, Merchant, enlisted November 5th, 1851. At the first election of company officers McNeil was chosen second Lieutenant, which position he honorably and creditably filled to the time of his death, which occurred November 28th, 1855. To Lieutenant McNeil the Company were much indebted. To him more than any other one man, belonged the credit of organizing the Company. He was loved, respected, and honored by both officers and men, and his death caused a breach not easily repaired. Upon receiving intelligence of his death, the Company were immediately called together and the following resolutions unanimously adopted: