Perry Allen Lindsey was born on November 22, 1838, in Upton, Massachusetts, to William and Augusta Lindsey. His father was a merchant and tailor who owned $1,500 of real estate and $3,000 of personal property by 1860. He enrolled in a male academy in New London, New Hampshire, around 1845, and he graduated four years later. By 1860, he was living with his parents in Cumberland, Rhode Island, and he was working as a clerk in a store.

 

On June 21, 1861, Lindsey received a commission as a captain in Company G of the 40^th New York Infantry. The regiment took part in the Peninsula Campaign, the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville. He was promoted to major on August 12, 1862, and then to lieutenant colonel on February 23, 1863. He resigned on July 7, 1863.

 

Lindsey married Anna Howe in Milford, Massachusetts, on June 30, 1863. They had at least three children: George, born around 1864; Frank, born around 1866; and Betsey, born around 1868. They lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Lindsey worked as a salesman. By 1870, they employed at least one white domestic servant. They moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts, in the late 1800s. Lindsey applied for a federal pension in April 1903 and eventually secured one. He died in Winthrop of “carcinoma of [the] intestines” on July 3, 1903.

 

Image: Perry Allen Lindsey (Frederick Clark Floyd, History of the Fortieth Mozart Regiment)

SOURCES