Hugh Patrick Roden was born on June 13, 1845, in Wednesbury, England, to George Roden and Rachel Patrick. His father was a tailor who owned $60 of personal property by 1860. The family immigrated to America around 1846 and settled in Troy, New York. They moved to Newark, New Jersey, in the 1850s.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on September 4, 1861, and he mustered in as a drummer in the 7^th New Jersey Infantry. Soon afterward, he visited President Abraham Lincoln to request a transfer to the 2^nd New Jersey Infantry to serve alongside his brother George. Lincoln supported the request, writing that “If it will not injuriously affect the service, I shall be glad for him to be obliged.” Roden, however, remained in the 7^th New Jersey.

 

The regiment took part in the siege of Yorktown, the Seven Days’ Battles, the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, and the siege of Petersburg. Roden opposed the Emancipation Proclamation, predicting that it would “ruin the army.” Nonetheless, he remained devoted to the Union war effort. When Lincoln reviewed the regiment in April 1863, Roden observed that the “boys cheered him as he passed…the men think more of one word from him than they do for a little extra rations and they think a great deal of that.” He mustered out in October 1864.

 

Roden moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the war, and he graduated from the Missouri Medical College in 1870. He returned to Newark and established what one writer called a “large and successful practice.” He married Anna J. Hall on March 6, 1895, and the couple apparently had no children. He died in Newark on December 31, 1911.

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