Thomas Nelson Rightmyer
Member Profile
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Name: Thomas Nelson Rightmyer
Place of Birth: Lewes, Sussex County, Delaware
DOB: March 27, 1939
Joined SUVCW: 1987
Camp: Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1
VETERAN ANCESTOR(S):
(1) William
Bruce Waite, Private, Company M, 8th Illinois Cavalry, September 15, 1861 to
October 14, 1864. He was born in Rochester, New York, in 1839. He contracted typhoid fever at the Battle of
Antietam and was sent to McClellan Army Hospital in Philadelphia from which he
was discharged. He married Fanny M. Welser February 7, 1864. The family
tradition is that she was his nurse. Her father was a doctor. Waite died April
25, 1894 and is buried in Cheser Rural Cemetery, Chester, PA where he lived
after the Civil War. He was a carpenter. Their daughter Helen B. Waite married
Lewis Franklin Rightmyer. Their son Nelson Waite Rightmyer is my father
(2) Benjamin B.
Welser was born September 2, 1812 in Philadelphia. In 1835 he married Elizabeth
Chas He enlisted February 26, 1864 in
the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, was trampled by his own men just before
the Battle of the Crater July 30, 1864 and discharged February 2, 1865. He was a shoemaker, one of the prime movers
in the Franklin Fire Company, and an alderman of the City of Chester. He died
April 8, 1887 and is buried in Chester Rural Cemetery.
(3) Aaron
Rightmyer was born 17 March, 1815, and married 22 September, 1839, Catherine
Berlet. Aaron enlisted 28 February, 1864 at age 49 as Private, Company E, 46th
Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, part of the XX Corps. The on-line regimental
history of the 46th Pennsylvania has them at Gettysburg and in January, 1864
re-enlisting and recruiting. Company E came from Berks County including Reading
where Aaron and his family lived. The 46th regiment was sent to General George
H. Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland and fought at Chattanooga and Atlanta and
were part of Sherman’s March to the Sea.
They fought at Bentonville and marched in the Grand Parade at the end of
the war. I am descended from Aaron’s
younger brother William 1822-1875.
SUMMARY OF SUVCW ACTIVITIES:
Life Member of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
Camp Positions:
Dual Membership; Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1,
Daniel Ellis Camp #3
Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp
#1
Charter Member
Secretary and
Treasurer
Daniel Ellis Camp #3 (Charter Revoked 2015)
Past Camp Commander
Department Positions:
Secretary and Treasurer Department
of North Carolina
ACTIVITIES OF INTEREST:
Following my father's death in 1983, I found his Sons of Union
Veterans of the Civil War medal. I joined the SUVCW in 1987 as a National Member
at Large when Richard O. Partington was Commander in Chief. Brother Partington had
been a seminary classmate of my father’s.
Bud Atkinson was the 1992 Commander in Chief. Brother Atkinson,
who maintained the GAR memorial in Philadelphia, supplied me a list of SUVCW
members living in North Carolina at that time. I corresponded with them from
1988 until 1993 when we were finally able to meet in Raleigh.
We did not have enough members interested in forming a camp
at that time. Dr. Maurice Ankrom came to the meeting in Greenville, NC and
agreed to take on the task of organizing in North Carolina SUVCW membership.
The Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1 and the Department of North Carolina
are the results of these efforts.
