James Kelley
James Kelley was born around 1843 in Ireland. He immigrated to America by the early 1860s settled in Reading, Pennsylvania. He earned a living as a sailmaker. He enlisted in the Union army as a substitute for Charles Long on December 6, 1864, and the army assigned him to Company D of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 3 inches tall, with brown hair and gray eyes, and he was illiterate. He deserted from his regiment during the winter of 1864-1865. Union forces eventually captured him, and he was publicly executed near Petersburg, Virginia, on March 11, 1865.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (1545) | Kelley, James | 1843 | 1865-03-11 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in:
- Rank out:
- Rank highest:
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 1
- (3218) [associated with] ~ James H. Thatcher to Eleanor S. Thatcher, 12 March 1865
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (506) [enlisted] [D] ~ 67th Pennsylvania Infantry
SOURCES
Edward C. Johnson, Gail R. Johnson, and Melissa Johnson Williams, All Were Not Heroes: A Study of “The List of U.S. Soldiers Executed by U.S. Military Authorities during the Late War” (Chicago, IL: Self-published, 1997).
