Losing Four Sons: The Lassell Family of New York

In 2023, I learned of a tragic yet coincidental story buried at Alexandria National Cemetery. Two soldiers, Pvt. Martin Schirm and Pvt. Charles Lassell of the 14th New York Heavy Artillery, were admitted to an Alexandrian hospital on the same day and died on the same day. Even more, they were buried right next to each other in plots 2255 and 2256. This article was intended to be about Schirm and Lassell’s similar wartime journeys, however, I found something gravely more shocking when researching Charles’s backstory: his parents lost four sons in the Civil War over the course of four months. Since 1864, Charles Lassell was just one of several thousand soldiers interred in Alexandria’s cemetery without a story attached to his headstone. This is the story of the Lassell brothers of New York through the paper trail they left behind, and what happened to their family when guns fell.

Historians spend a lot of time sifting through quite mundane and tedious files. As Civil War researchers, much of that time is spent with repetitive muster rolls and deciphering which “John Smith” is the correct one. Charles came to my attention while transcribing medical ledgers from the Grosvenor Branch Hospital in Alexandria, where he and Schirm’s dates aligned. I was fortunate to once again locate something extraordinary within a rather basic record. Nestled within the biographical information for the Lassell family, all ten children survived to adulthood: seven boys and three girls all born within a few years of each other (see endnote for birth order).^[1] As someone who enjoys researching family histories, I make it a habit to see if any men were of “fighting age” for war and proceed to search for their service records. In my search for Charles’s life story, I found three brothers who also took up arms for the Union: Cephas, George, and Harris. At this time, it is inferred that neither Henry nor Ezra enlisted.

The four fighting Lassells enlisted in December 1863 at various posts in Hermon County, all mustering on January 5. Cephas and George went with Company D of the 11th New York Cavalry, Harris with the 1st New York Light Artillery, and Charles with Company L of the 14th New York Heavy Artillery. To have your brother literally by your side must have been a comfort to Cephas and George, who were six years apart. It turned out to be both a blessing and a curse for these two Company D brothers when disease took over, as older Cephas succumbed before younger George.

Charles was the first to die. He perished from typhoid fever on June 22, 1864. Cephas was next, also falling to typhoid at the Marine General Hospital in New Orleans a month later on July 22. George, who had been admitted to another New Orleans hospital – an unknown branch of University General – passed on September 14, coincidentally also for typhoid fever. Harris, the youngest Lassell brother to enlist and the last to go, fell to consumption the following month on October 3 at the De Camp General Hospital on David’s Island, NY.

Henry, age 37, was the oldest sibling who remained at home. Franklin, age 14 and the youngest, also awaited news of his Union brothers. Sisters Caroline and Mary Ann were already married, likely fearing for their own husbands on top of the Lassell boys. Cephas left behind his widow Martha and two children, who filed for pensions in 1864 and 1870, respectfully. As of this writing, the soldiers’ mother Bethiah (“Bertha”) only filed a pension under George’s name. It is unclear if she filed four separate pensions for each of her fallen sons. We can only imagine how Elijah and Bethiah felt receiving one letter of condolence after another. Did their mother hold onto Henry, Ezra, and Franklin tighter in the summer of 1864, praying for the war to spare her remaining sons?

In the family cemetery in Hermon, NY,  you can find many Lassells whose named is misspelled “La Selle.” Five of their other children are buried elsewhere with their own families. Elijah and Bethiah are joined in Hermon Cemetery by youngest daughter Sherrille and their four soldier boys, but you won’t find their bodies there. Cephas, Charles, George, and Harris are all buried where they died. Their parents erected memorial gravestones to represent and mourn them at home until their own deaths in 1878 and 1885.

George and Cephas Lassell lie in Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans, forever Company D soldiers-in-arms. Charles Lassell was laid to rest alongside his friend Martin Schirm at Alexandria National Cemetery. Harris Lassell’s final resting place is currently unknown. I hope to find closure for his story in the near future. There were only two grandsons among these ten Lassells, and Sherrille named her first born after her fallen brother George in 1866. The rest of the Lassell children went on to live full and complete lives, all but Ezra surviving to see the new century unfold.

Endnotes

[1] The children of Elijah Lassell and Bethiah Leonard: Henry (b.1827), Ezra (b.1830), Cephas (b.1832), Caroline (b.1834), Charles (b.1836), Mary Ann (b.1838), George (b.1840), Harris (b.1842), Sherrille (b.1844), and Franklin (b.1848)

Madeline Feierstein is an Alexandria, VA historian specializing in psychiatric institutions, military hospitals, and prisons. A native of Washington, D.C., her work has been showcased across the Capital Region. Madeline leads efforts to document the sick, injured, and imprisoned soldiers that passed through Civil War Alexandria. Additionally, she supports the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Madeline holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminology from George Mason University and a Master’s in American History from Southern New Hampshire University. Explore her research through “Rooted in Place” at www.madelinefeierstein.com.