Hugh Fraser
Hugh Fraser was born around 1843 in Scotland to Alexander and Margaret Fraser. His father was a plasterer who owned no real estate. The family immigrated to America around 1844 and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Fraser grew up and attended school there, and his father died sometime in the 1850s.
He enlisted in the Union army on May 1, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company C of the 38th Pennsylvania Infantry later that day. The regiment passed through Washington, D.C., in July 1861, and Fraser marveled at the White House and the Capitol building. The “rotunda of the Capitol,” he wrote, “is magnificent beyond Description.” In April 1862, he wrote that he “cherish[ed] no malice or hatred for the rebels. No doubt many of them are deceived.” Nonetheless, Fraser remained devoted to the Union, vowing to “do what I can for my country.” He was “happy that I have been able to do something for the cause of Liberty and Union.” If Confederate soldiers “have not the caution to be sure they are on the right side,” he continued, then “they must take the consequences.”
On July 9, 1862, after surviving “3 battles & [being] in reserve of two others,” he observed that “it is a miracle that I have escaped for I have been places where the bullets were coming seemingly as thick as hail & shell & solid shot lighting & bursting all around me.” He insisted that his family “must not attribute it to Cowardice that I was not shot for whenever our Regiment was ordered in I was in my place all the time.” He was killed in action on August 30, 1862, in the Second Battle of Bull Run.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (2202) | Fraser, Hugh | 1843 | 1862-08-30 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: Private
- Rank out: Private
- Rank highest: Private
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 10
- (6623) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Agnes D. Fraser, 28 December 1861
- (6629) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Agnes D. Fraser, 9 July 1862
- (6630) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Agnes D. Fraser, 29 April 1862
- (6631) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Margaret Fraser, 29 April 1862
- (6632) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Anne B. Fraser, 19 April 1862
- (6633) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Agnes D. Fraser, 29 March 1862
- (6634) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Sister, 22 February 1862
- (6635) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Agnes D. Fraser, 11 October 1861
- (6636) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Margaret Fraser, undated
- (6637) [writer] ~ Hugh Fraser to Sister, 26 July 1861
People - Records: 3
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (675) [enlisted] [C] ~ 38th Pennsylvania Infantry
SOURCES
1850 United States Federal Census, available from Ancestry.com; Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com; Hugh Fraser to Sister, 26 July 1861, Nau Collection; Hugh Fraser to Agnes Fraser, 28 December 1861, Nau Collection; Hugh Fraser to Anne Fraser, 19 April 1862, Nau Collection; Hugh Fraser to Agnes Fraser, 9 July 1862, Nau Collection.
