Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

Gen. Robert E. Lee’s failed invasion of Maryland in the summer of 1862 resulted in the capture of thousands of Confederates, many of whom were transported to Fort McHenry, the so-called Baltimore Bastille. That fall the Union Army released the rebels in batches and escorted them, under guard, into Virginia to be formally exchanged.

Among a group of nearly 200 that left the fort that fall was a pugnacious private from Alabama named Davy Barnum. An aggressive little scrapper with a big chip on his shoulder, Barnum seemed perpetually on the outs with one or more of his comrades in the Fifth Alabama Infantry — among them the unit’s bandmaster, Charles von Badenhausen, a former lieutenant in the Austrian Army.

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Barnum had reportedly pulled a knife on the veteran musician in May 1862, shortly before the regiment’s first big battle, at Seven Pines, Va.. The two went into the engagement nursing their feud. Early in the action, von Badenhausen patted Barnum on the shoulder and admonished him to “be quiet, keep cool” — otherwise, he said, “I draws my knife on you.”

Von Badenhausen emerged from the battle uninjured. Barnum was not so lucky. As he lay on the ground with his fellow Alabamians and prepared for action, a conical-shaped Minié bullet struck him in the left shoulder and ripped diagonally across his back. The bullet exited his body just before it reached the spine, and then embedded itself somewhere in his right hip. Unable to locate the bullet, surgeons applied a simple dressing to the wound.

After the injury healed, Barnum returned to duty. The regiment marched into Maryland a few months later with Lee’s army on its invasion of the North. One day after a long march, the exhausted men set up camp for the night and bedded down for a few hours of rest. Barnum tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He eventually complained aloud that a rock was making him uncomfortable. A few of his comrades came over to assist him. “We examined carefully, but could find nothing,” recalled an officer. “We looked in his pockets, and at last discovered that it was the minnie ball that had worked its way under the skin.”

Less than two weeks later, on Sept. 14, 1862, the opposing armies battled near Antietam Creek. After a day of heavy fighting the Confederates were left in a precarious position. General Lee ordered his forces to pull back, and sent in fresh troops to cover the withdrawal. Included in this number were two companies from the Fifth. The detachment of Alabama boys, including Barnum, tramped over to Turner’s Gap. At some point that night, Barnum and about a dozen of his comrades fell into enemy hands and were transported to Baltimore.

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Barnum had not wanted to be in the army. He longed to be a navy man, and dreamed of traveling the world by ship. Locked up in Fort McHenry after his capture, and within a stone’s throw of the waters of the harbor of Baltimore, it appeared he was never further from realizing his ambitions.

Barnum’s capture was not the first time his world had been turned upside down. In 1853, when he was about 9 years old, yellow fever swept through Selma, where he had recently moved with his family from nearby Greene County. His father, a physician who served as one of two health officers in the city, fell victim to the disease. Barnum, his younger brother and mother were spared. His mother had family in Minnesota, and took her two little boys to live in St. Paul.

In 1858, at age 14, he accepted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, and left St. Paul for Annapolis, Md. He was ill prepared for the structured environment; during his first two years, he ranked near the bottom of his class and racked up hundreds of demerits. On the verge of expulsion, he resigned from the academy in 1860. Word of his resignation reached the secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey. A Connecticut Yankee appointed by President James Buchanan, Toucey sympathized with Barnum’s plight and reinstated him, with the caveat that he “diligently pursue” his studies.

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Barnum failed to heed Toucey’s warning. School officials held him back a year and threatened him with expulsion. The outbreak of hostilities in the spring of 1861 ended his slide into academic oblivion; Barnum left Annapolis that summer to fight for the South. His mother, now remarried, and younger brother remained in the North.

Barnum made his way through northern Virginia to the town of Union Mills. There, he found the camp of the “Greensboro Guards,” the Greene County militia company to which his late father had once belonged. It had since become part of the Fifth Alabama Infantry.

Barnum enlisted as a private. Frequent episodes of drinking and brawling followed. Although his reputation as a bad boy persisted even after he returned to the regiment from Fort McHenry in late 1862, he did have his finer moments. During the Battle of Gettysburg, Barnum and his Alabamians participated in the rout of federal forces on the first day of fighting. The next day, Barnum showed up in camp with a haversack full of candy, lemons and other niceties gathered from town. He distributed the treats to his grateful comrades.

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Bynum left the regiment in August 1863 after a transfer he had put in to join the Confederate Navy was approved. Barnum reported for duty at the Charleston Naval Station with the rank of master.

His stint in the navy lasted about a year. In the spring of 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant launched the Overland Campaign against Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Bloody fighting and horrific casualties decimated both armies. Confederate authorities desperate for recruits to fill the brogans of thousands of killed and wounded summoned Barnum back to the army under an existing conscription act. He rejoined his comrades in the Fifth.

The regiment was among the remaining units left in the Army of Northern Virginia that surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. But Barnum was not listed among those present. It is likely he deserted with thousands of other Confederates during the final chaotic days leading up to the fateful meeting between Lee and Grant.

Two months later, though, Barnum turned up in Tennessee and, in June 1865, he signed an oath of allegiance to the federal government. According to his captain, Barnum died soon after in St. Louis. His dream of traveling the world by sea was never fulfilled.

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Sources: David Barnum military service record, National Archives and Records Service; The Sun (Baltimore), Oct. 18, 1862; G. Ward Hubbs, “Guarding Greensboro: A Confederate Company in the Making of a Southern Community”; G. Ward Hubbs, “Voices from Company D: Diaries by the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia”; Greensboro (Alabama) Watchman, March 29, 1900; Greensboro (Alabama) Record, Dec. 17, 1903; The Selma Times-Journal, July 24, 2005; Register of Candidates for Admission to the United States Naval Academy; Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey to David Barnum, April 12, 1860, and Superintendent George S. Blake to Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey, Sept. 27, 1860, William W. Jeffries Memorial Archives, United States Naval Academy; David Barnum military service record, National Archives and Records Service; 1850 Federal Census.

Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His new book, “African American Faces of the Civil War,” was published in August. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.