Jefferson Coates

Without question my hero is my great-grandfather, Jefferson Coates.

Jefferson was born August 24, 1843, in Boscobel, Wisconsin. On his 18th birthday he enlisted in the Wisconsin 7th Volunteer Army, which became known as the famous Iron Brigade. (1) He was wounded at the Battle of South Mountain but recovered in time to be on the front lines for day one of the Battle of Gettysburg. He fought that day with such valor that he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

However, that was no lucky day as he was shot through both eyes by a musket ball called a Minni ball (2) and was blinded. For three days he lay on the battlefield in no man's land while the front line continuously moved back-and-forth over his position. At one point a Confederate soldier tried to steal his boots but was stopped by a Confederate officer who not only stopped the theft but propped my great-grandfather in the shade of a tree and gave him some water.

The Union troops that finally came to recover the dead and wounded did not realize Jefferson was alive until another wounded soldier said he had heard my great-grandfather groaning. Jefferson was carried to the temporary field hospital at Seminary Ridge. He miraculously survived despite the crude medical procedures of those days. He was quickly transferred by rail to the Army Hospital in Philadelphia and where he recovered from his wounds and learned to accept his loss of sight and taste. He then went to the Philadelphia School for the Blind where he learned braille and the art of making brooms. 

Then amazingly, Jefferson returned to his native Wisconsin where, in spite of his handicaps and his poverty, he married Rachel Drew, an attractive and ambitious young lady. They traveled by horse-drawn wagon to homestead in Nebraska. All Union veterans were given 160 acres of land in the Nebraska territory as a reward for their service.

In Nebraska, Jefferson and Rachel built a sod house (3), raised livestock and raised four children. Jefferson even served on the local school board. They prospered until he died at age 37. not from the shot through the eyes but from the festering South Mountain bayonet wounds.

Being blind myself, I was fascinated by what Jefferson Coates was able to accomplish as a blind man in the 1860s when none of the wonderful aids we have today were available. I did not want his story to be forgotten so I hired a professional writer to write a book to tell his story. Memory of Light by Mollie Cox Bryan is available on Amazon. 

Footnotes:

(1) The Iron Brigade took pride in its designation, "1st Brigade, 1st Division, I Corps", under which it played a prominent role in the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863. The 6th Wisconsin (along with 100 men of the brigade guard) are remembered for their famous charge on an unfinished railroad cut north and west of the town, where they captured the flag of the 2nd Mississippi and took hundreds of Confederate prisoners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Brigade

(2) Minié ball, or Minni ball, is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilized bullet for rifled muskets named after its developer, Claude-Étienne Minié.

(3) Sod house. Building a House. Without trees or stone, homesteaders had to rely on the only available building material — prairie sod, jokingly called "Nebraska marble." Sod is the top layer of earth that includes grass, its roots, and the dirt clinging to the roots.

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William Coates