Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories

“An Unusual Amount of Patriotism”

26 Capt. Motier Lafayette Norton, Company I, First Veteran Reserve Corps Carte de visite by Richard A. Lewis (1820–1891) of New York City, about 1861–1862 27 “An Unusual Amount of Patriotism” According to an old friend, Motier Norton was “embodied with an unusual amount of patriotism having a great love for liberty and our country.”38 Norton was quick to enlist after the Civil War started, joining Company B of the Eighteenth New York Infantry as second lieutenant. Here he discovered a fact that must have caused him great pain: he did not have the physical stamina to endure the rigors of military life. A few days after he fought in the Battle of Malvern Hill, Virginia, in July 1862, Norton fell ill with typhoid fever and diarrhea . A month later, his health unimproved, doctors sent him to a military hospital in New York, where he remained nearly two months. After his release, he found himself “in such a condition that renders me totally unable to perform the duties of an Officer, or endure the fatigues of a Campaign.”39 He decided to resign for the good of the country. “By remaining longer in the army I feel I am occupying a position that should be filled by a man capable of doing the active duties of an officer and soldier, which I am not.”40 Norton returned to his wife and children in Greenbush, a village outside Albany, New York. A year later, he found another way to serve his country—as an officer in the newly formed Invalid Corps, later renamed the Veteran Reserve Corps. The VRC was created in April 1863 for those unfit for combat duty but able to serve in a limited capacity. He performed quartermaster duties in two New York military hospitals and mustered out as captain in the summer of 1866. After the war, he became a salesman and settled with his family in Ordway, Dakota Territory. Because he was still plagued with 28 diarrhea, his wife and friends urged him to file for a disability pension , but he “felt delicate about asking aid from the government.”41 He changed his mind and reapplied in 1883 after being diagnosed with rectal cancer, but died before the pension was approved. He was fifty-seven. ...