Henry H. Perry was born around 1844 in Granger, New York, to Albert and Jane Perry. His father was a farmer who owned $740 of real estate by 1850. The family lived in Granger until the 1850s, when they moved to Marlborough, Massachusetts. Perry attended school in Marlborough, and by the early 1860s, he was working as a shoemaker.

 

He served as a private in the 5^th Massachusetts Militia Infantry. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 9 inches tall, with light hair and gray eyes. The regiment was called into federal service from September 1862 until July 1863, and he was eventually promoted to sergeant.

 

Perry enlisted in the Union army again on April 6, 1864, and he mustered in as a corporal in Company K of the 57^th Massachusetts Infantry. He took part in the Overland Campaign and the siege of Petersburg, and his service records describe him as a “brave soldier.”

 

He supported Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864, writing that November that “the war will end much sooner with him at the head of the Government…we had got to fight it out but that will not take a great while now.” He wanted to “see the army reinforced and see the young men of the north spring to the call of their country,” but he dissuaded his brother from enlisting.

 

He was severely wounded in the right leg during the Battle of Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865, and surgeons amputated his leg. He died in Alexandria, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. According to one hospital worker, “on entering this hospital [in Alexandria] this patient was doing well. Light cold water dressings were used with fair nourishing diet and cont[inued] to do so until April 9^th [at] 2P.M. at which time he was attacked with apoplexy of a severe character and died within five minutes from commencement of the attack.”

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