William & Margaret Roulette

Margaret and William Roulette

Position at Antietam

Civilian farmers (William- Age 35 and Margaret – 32 at the battle)

Family and Farm

William and Margaret (Miller) Roulette (m. 1847)
Six children, in 1862 ages 13 years old to 19 months
Farm – @ 179 acres 120 were improved, valued at $11,000. 1000 bu. wheat, 600 bu. corn, 20 tons hay, 50 bu. oats, 40 bu. Rye / 9 horses | 14 cows/cattle, 11 sheep, 30 swine | livestock valued @ $750 $20 in honey, $150 in meat, $100 in orchard fruit, 500 lbs. butter, 60 lbs. wool, 25 bu. peas/beans, 8 bu. clover seed
In 1860 Hiram O. Clipp was a tenant; Jacob Myers may have been another tenant
Nancy Campbell, also known as Nancy Camel, was manumitted from slavery in 1859. working as a domestic servan ; 15 y/o Robert Simon, farm hand (1860)
The family went to the Manor Church, four miles north, for safety

Historical ownership and Structural Changes

1748 Cresap received a 212-acre patent named “Anderson’s Delight”,
1751 William Anderson
1761 John Reynolds probably began construction on house – two-room cabin (southern end); 1780 center section, 1800 kitchen added to north end (beehive oven)
1784 Joseph Reynolds (son) acquires farm; main house finished, and spring house/kitchen added
1804 John Miller. added onto the springhouse, constructed the icehouse and smokehouse; interior of the house, adding molding and trim of the period. Farm stayed in with descendants of John Miller
1851 William Roulette built the large bank barn (tenant house @1820-1900’s)
1901 Benjamin Roulette / 1947 Samuel Roulette / 1956 Howard Miller
1998 The Mellon Foundation purchased and donated to the National Park Service (NPS)

Battle of Antietam

William returns to the house on September 16^th to keep an eye on his property. William came out in the midst of the fighting “to see what was happening, and he cheered the men in blue on: ‘Give it to ’em! Drive ’em! Take anything on my place, only drive ’em!’ he yelled”
French’s Union division (5,000 men) followed by Richardson’s (5,000 men) advanced against D.H. Hill (2,500 men) and R.H. Anderson (3,00 men) Confederate divisions
A Confederate artillery shell landed, shattering among the rookies of the 132nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. In their flight to get out of the area they knocked over Mr. Roulette’s apiary. – BEES
House, barn and outbuildings used for hospital purposes; used unthreshed wheat used for bedding and shelters. Piles of amputated legs and arms. Chaplain H. S. Stevens of the 14th Connecticut wrote, “During the battle the rooms were stripped of their furnishings and the floors were covered with the blood and dirt and litter of a field hospital.”

Aftermath

Roulette claimed $30 for “Damages to house and barn” and $6 for “1 safe knocked to pieces by shell; a $150 claim for “Burial ground for seven hundred soldiers.” “My whole farm and buildings were occupied. They used the house and barn as a hospital, but afterwards the doctors took the house for their quarters temporarily.”
U.S. troops appropriated 350 chickens, 25 ducks, and eight turkeys, 1 wagon load of pumpkins, 645 pounds of sugar, dozens of eggs, “75 Pounds Iron taken from Blacksmith shop, eight hundred pounds of hay, two horses
U.S. army making “roads through fields and tramping ploughed fields so that they must be ploughed over.
Dr. Biggs traveled to the home of William and Margaret Roulette seven times from October 14–19
October 21, 1862, Roulette family lost their youngest daughter Carrie May to typhoid fever
Over 700 bodies were buried on his property.
Claim for damages and loss of property requesting $2496.27 for an “inventory of goods, chattels, and personal effects belonging to me which were destroyed and carried off by the Armies during the late battle of Antietam”.
The Roulettes receive $377.37 from a hospital claim. $4 settlement for hay taken by the Armuy of the Potomac (AOP) ambulance corps.
Roulette disinters and arranges transportation home of the remains of Private Robert Hubbard of the 14th CT

Postwar

In 1865, Roulette’s name next son Ulysses Sheridan Roulette. Four children left area, only two remained.
Margaret Ann passes away in 1883, William retires, remarries moves into Sharpsburg
14CT Reunion in 1891, some boarded with the Roulette’s and they donated old fence rails for fires.
Nancy Campbell stayed on with the Roulette’s and bequeathed the majority of her estate—$100, along with a bed, clothing, and personal effects—to Susan Roulette Santee, the daughter of William Roulette.

Death

Margaret died February 18, 1883, age 53. William dies on February 27. 1901 at the age of 75. Both buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Sharpsburg, MD with their children, Carrie May and Otho.

Quotes

In speaking about obtaining claim vouchers from the Quartermasters, William Roulette said, “We were all upset so and did not get any [vouchers] and did not know who to get them from.”

A Pennsylvania veteran who witnessed the Roulette farm turned into a hospital wrote, “The tables on the Roulette barn floor presented a scene of the schambles. Piles of amputated legs and arms were in evidence, inviting even from stolid hearts, commiseration, pity, tears. In the stables below. and under temporary straw sheds along the adjacent fences and out buildings, were to be found hundreds of wounded and dying men.”