The Boys
Gen. Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh (Library of Congress)
So many of the boys followed him. When most of the boys of Bath were joining the ranks of the 107th, organized in Elmira by Bath attorney and US Representative R. B. Van Valkenburgh, Charley Brother had just turned 17 years old.
Van Valkenburgh, receiving the commission of on August 9, 1861, organized 17 regiments. Born in 1821, Van Valkenburgh was 40 years old.
He knew the Brother Family. Like Val Brother and other sibling of Charles Brother, Van Valkenburgh attended the Franklin Academy in Prattsburgh. The academy was founded by the ancestors of Charles Brother’s maternal side, descendants of Revolutionary War Patriot Captain Joel Pratt.
After the Battle at Antietam on September 17, 1862, Gen. Van Valkenburgh was discharged on October 9, 1862, and he returned back to represent these men in the House of Representatives.
In 1865 he was appointed to Indian Affairs and in 1866 began his term as U.S. Minister to Japan. When he returned to the United States, he settled down in Florida, where he served as Justice in the Florida Supreme Court (1874-1888). He is buried in Jacksonville, Florida.
Charley Brother knew some of the Bath boys that participated in the Battle of Antietam. About three weeks after the battle, Charley took a train to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and became a Marine, following the older boys of Bath to the sea. Because he was younger than the required age of 21, Charles Brother must have packed with him a letter from his father, granting him permission.