The most interesting thing I noted was that William was promoted to Second Lieutenant (field commission), but it didn’t say where. Further, out of twelve Sergeants there were four who received field commissions. This usually occurred in a Company when it ran short of officers. The memorial does indicate that a Colonel and a Major died of wounds received at the battle of  Crampton’s Pass (South Mountain) fought on September 14^th 1862, near Burkittsville, MD. Therefore it was rather easy to assume that at least some of these Sergeants received their commissions due to that engagement. Since there seems to be little or no other record of the 32^nd New York, much less of Company B, we could not be sure. 

I have long since stopped looking for information on this little known New York regiment  and its Company B, but one of my daughters has continued off and on for years and finally found a link to a web site of “Yolo County Biographies” (of all places Yolo County, Woodland, California) which indicates that William H. Winne was awarded the rank of lieutenant and a sword in honor of his service to Company B at the Battle of Crampton’s Gap (Crampton’s Gap and Crampton’s Pass are used synonymously). 

This was a great find and thanks to my daughter, my interest in William and his service at Crampton’s was re-kindled. I then discovered the Crampton’s Gap Battlefield Web Site  and started learning more about this strategic battle and it’s resulting effect on the entire Civil War. I learned that there were two battles that day six miles apart. And the Crampton’s Gap Battle (as opposed to the South Mountain battle) was one of the first, if not the first significant victory for the Union Army. I learned about the sequence of events and how much more one can appreciate why things occurred as they did when you understand the sequence and details of the entire (1862) campaign. I was on a roll…I learned that the bloody Battle at Antietam, three days later, was a direct result of the Union victory at Crampton’s and ended Lee’s first venture into the North. 

And then the roll ended… because I learned that the hallowed ground where William Winne and many other New Yorkers served with valor, where their superiors and comrades died and where the Union Army won a decisive victory, is not preserved as a battlefield at all! Fifteen of the twenty-eight Infantry Regiments who served there were from New York State, but as far as the National Park Service  and the State of Maryland is concerned Crampton’s Gap Battlefield does not exist! South Mountain, six miles away, is a Maryland State Park Battlefield, but Crampton’s Gap is actually “Gathland Park”, a State Recreational Park.