H. SEYMOUR HALL
The Daily Gazette, Saturday, July 4,
1908, Pg. 2
GEN.
H. S. HALL.
______
With “taps” and a prayer
the body of Gen. H. S. Hall was laid to rest in Oak Hill cemetery at noon
yesterday. Death had occurred in Kansas City on July 1 and had followed
failing health of the last three years which made him an invalid for many
months. Death was ascribed to a paralytic stroke followed by apoplexy but
in reality it was due to the breaking down of the entire system consequent upon
hard service in the union army during the five years of service that he rendered
in battling for the cause of the north, during which time he was twice wounded,
losing his right arm and carrying a bullet in his leg the balance of his days,
in addition to the troubles consequent upon the hardships and disease of the men
who took part in the arduous campaigns of the civil war.
H. Seymour Hall, was born in
Saratoga county, New York, September 26, 1835. His father, died when he
was four years old, and as a boy he worked on his mother’s farm in the rocky
hills of eastern New York, worked in a grist mill and attended a country school.
He had an ambition for an education and by teaching and working he acquired
money enough to attend Genessee college, Lina, New York, since merged into
Syracuse university, where he maintained himself by teaching and working.
He was in the senior year of his college year when the civil war broke out, and
in April, 1861, set about organizing a college company, which became G company
of the 27th New York State Volunteers. From the rank of private in this
company he rose successively to that of ensign, second lieutenant, captain, and
then became assistant inspector general of the second brigade. When the
three years’ enlistment service expired General Hall went to the 121st
regiment of New York State Volunteers as captain and was also made assistant
adjutant general of the regiment, until the spring of 1846 (sic), when he was
appointed lieutenant colonel of the 43rd United States Colored Troops, assisted
in the organization of the regiment at Philadelphia, and returned with it to
Annapolis where the regiment, with General Hall as the only field officer with
it, was attached to Gen. Burnside’s Ninth army corps. The regiment was
commanded by him through the Wilderness campaign from May 5, 1864 to the Mine
before Petersburg, Va. on July 30, where he lost his right arm in an assault
that carried the works, capturing prisoners and colors, for which, he was
promoted to colonel, also to brigadier general by brevet. He was
afterwards in command of Camp Caney at Washington as chief mustering officer,
but rejoined his regiment and entered Richmond, Virginia, with it on April 3,
1865. Later he was detailed as provost marshal of the Manchester division,
and went with his regiment to Texas as a part of Sheridan’s force where he
served at Brownsville until September 30, when he went to Galveston, serving
until January 30, 1866, when he was ordered to Washington and mustered out on
February 13, 1866, having served nearly five years and participating with his
comrades in more than three dozen battles. For his services at Gaines
Mills in June 1862, and Reppahannoch station on November 1863, and the
Petersburg attack he was awarded the congressional medal of honor.
Following the close of the war
General Hall returned to New York and on December 10, 1866, was married to
Augusta J. Galentine, of Rush, Monroe county, New York, at Rockford, Illinois,
whom he had met while in school at Genessee college. They came west and
settled on a farm in Carroll county, Missouri, which General Hall had secured
before the war, and there lived and raised their family of children until they
became of school age, when they moved to the town of Carrollton, Mo., for the
school advantages, and later to Lincoln, Neb., for the University educational
facilities, and later 1888, to Lawrence, Kansas, where all the children were
given the advantages of the schools, and two daughters and one son were
graduated from the University of Kansas. Another son, Harry B. Hall, died
from excessive exercise on the football field when near the close of his school
career and another son quit school to enter the newspaper business in Lawrence.
General Hall is survived by Mrs. Hall, who devotedly and sacrificingly nursed
him during his long illness, rarely leaving his side for the last few years, and
four children: Clarence S. Hall of this city; John G. Hall, a member of
the faculty of the North Carolina Agriculture college at West Raleigh, North
Carolina; Mrs. Dana Templin, of Kansas City; and Mrs. Charles M. Kemper, with
whom he lived of Kansas City. All were present at the bedside when he died
and at the funeral, except John G. Hall, who could not get here in time.
During his residence in Missouri
General Hall took an active part in politics, a republican in a democratic
community, became chairman of the county central committee and brought the
county into the Republican column for the first time in its history; he was also
a member of the state central committee of that state, and served his county as
public administrator, and was a member of the board of education of Carrollton,
Mo. After coming to Lawrence in 1888 he devoted himself to the education
of his children and the comforts and pleasures of his family, and his efforts
were always for the making of the home that all have so ardently loved and been
devotedly attached to, and it can be truly said that he was a “loving and
devoted husband and father” to the utmost degree.
He was a member of the Loyal
Legion, of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was at one time commander of
Washington Post No. 12 of this city, and he also belonged to Acacia lodge No. 9
A. F. & A. M.