Albert Dyer was just a boy when he answered Lincoln’s call in July of 1861,
Albert Dyer was just a boy when he answered Lincoln’s call in July of 1861, enlisting in Co. C, 13th Massachusetts Infantry. The teenager-turned-soldier came of age while present at well over a dozen engagements, including Thoroughfare Gap, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. Dyer's Civil War experience may never have been as intense as it was on July 1, 1863, when he and his regiment stubbornly tried to hold the far right of the First Corps line just outside the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Nearly two thirds of the unit became casualties that day. Promoted to Sergeant on the field in the midst of that chaos, he held the rank for the remainder of his enlistment. Few records exist regarding Dyer’s post-War years, although circumstances known suggest a struggle. In late 1864 he returned to his hometown of Medford, just northwest of Boston, but never married or had children. Apparentl...