Shrouded Veterans: Distinguished Artillery Lieutenant Commits Suicide After The War
“I had known Mr. Heaton for some time,” Pearce Barnes, a lawyer and a personal friend of Edward Heaton, told an inquisitive New-York Tribune reporter covering the former artillery lieutenant’s suicide. “[H]e telegraphed me to take charge of some legal matters of his demanding immediate attention. He had been in low spirits for two or three weeks, and I believe that the cause of his rash act was temporary aberration of mind caused by overwork.” Barnes said Heaton’s suicide had nothing to do with “pecuniary embarrassments whatever,” denying accusations of financial trouble. Was Heaton’s decision to take his life linked to war trauma, or could there have been other factors involved? Whatever the cause, he took the answer to the grave.
Edward Heaton obtained a commission as a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery during the summer of 1861 and was assigned to Fort Pickens, Florida, as an acting assistant quartermaster. The following summer, he was promoted to first lieutenant. On May 24, 1863, he received command of the consolidated Batteries B and L, 2nd U.S. Artillery in the Army of the Potomac on the eve of Gen. Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania.
During the course of his service in command of the unit, Heaton fought in over 30 battles and skirmishes. Brigadier General Thomas C. Devin recommended he be brevetted to captain and major for gallant and distinguished conduct during the Army of the Potomac’s movement from October 11 to 13, 1863, and several engagements in the Shenandoah Valley, culminating in the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864.
In February 1865, Heaton submitted his resignation to continue his education, confident the “Union cause is on the eve of decisive and final success — which my humble service will not greatly promote.”
Brigadier General Wesley Merritt lamented the young lieutenant’s departure. “During the arduous campaigns of the last two years you have won from all officers with whom you have been connected the highest respect for strict attention to duty,” he wrote to Heaton shortly his resignation. “I take pleasure is assuring you of my high appreciation of your qualities as a soldier … I have always found you active and energetic in the discharge of your duties as battery commander[,] gallant and unflinching in the most trying times of battle — an accomplished soldier and true gentleman.”
Heaton attended Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones, graduating in 1869. He married Charlotte Beers, a sister of Yale classmate and professor Henry A. Beers, who previously had married Heaton’s sister, Mary.
On January 12, 1884, the Heaton family was startled by gunshot in the dining room of their home in Ridgefield, New Jersey. They discovered a pistol is the hand of Edward’s lifeless body and a bullet wound behind his right ear. He was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Beers family plot. He left behind a widow and two children. He was 41 years old.
Shrouded Veterans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing the neglected graves of 19th-century veterans, primarily Mexican War (1846-48) and Civil War (1861-65) soldiers, by identifying, marking, and restoring them. You can view more completed grave projects at facebook/shroudedvetgraves.com.
Thanks Frank. This is a great piece that helps us remember that casualties continue beyond the end of active hostilities — a consistent trend across the nation’s history of warfare. Unfortunately, another consistent trend across all conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan included, is that military and veteran healthcare systems treatment protocols have significantly lagged the problem.
For those interested in veteran suicide, David Kiernan’s Signature Wounds is a great book. Kiernan digs deep and goes beyond the overly simplistic narrative which ascribes these problems to an incompetent President Bush who blundered into an ill-advised war with Iraq, a sluggish Army bureaucracy that missed an emerging mental health problem, and an uncaring Veteran’s Administration. Instead, Kiernan’s detailed narrative highlights the efforts, many of which fell short or were ineffective, of the Army and the VA as they struggled to diagnose the causes and measures to treat this mental health crisis.
These issues became immediately problematic when the Army discovered there was no direct correlation between PTSD, suicide rates and combat. Surprisingly, soldiers who served in combat accounted for less than 25 percent of suicides and those who had deployed more than once accounted for only 10 percent. Another quarter of the suicides were by soldiers who had never deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Clearly, the stress of simply being in the military was having major effect on the mental health of the All-Volunteer Force.
The challenge, of course, was what to do about it. Kiernan concludes that despite some successful efforts by the Department of Defense, the military services and the VA, solving veteran suicide remains a work in progress. In conclusion, Kiernan lays this mental health problem squarely on the nation which outsourced its defense to the All-Volunteer Force and so easily acquiesced to military intervention in two of the countries nation’s longest wars, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank you, Vice Admiral Harnitchek! I added Kiernan’s book to my Amazon cart. Thanks for the recommendation!
It’s very sad, but I can’t help but be angry at what he did to his family.