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Writer's pictureKirk Jenkins

Remembering Private John Henry Masonheimer, Company A of the Fifteenth Kentucky


Private John Henry Masonheimer was a tailor, born in Carroll County, Maryland, the son of Peter Masonheimer and Anna Barbara Rinehart. Masonheimer was forty-eight years old, 5’9”, with a light complexion, hazel eyes, and dark hair. During the last four months of 1862, Masonheimer was the ward master of the regimental hospital. Private Masonheimer was discharged January 24, 1863, in Murfreesboro on a certificate of disability. He returned to Shelby County after leaving the army. Thomas McGrath and Masonheimer successfully repulsed a guerrilla raid on the Shelbyville Courthouse in August 1864, killing four. Masonheimer moved to Louisville in 1875. Masonheimer’s wife Elizabeth Dysert died before the war; his son, Walter, moved to California in 1875 and was not heard from again. John Henry and Elizabeth had two more children, twins Mary and Lewis. Masonheimer died in the evening of October 11, 1895, and is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky.


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