Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Event, People

Location

11 West Court Street Warsaw, Warsaw, NY 14569, USA

Lat/Long

42.742794, -78.133498

Grant Recipient

Warsaw Historical Society and The Gates House Museum

Abram B. Lawrence (1834-1912) was born and raised in Warsaw, New York. According to his biography published in Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Powell’s 1893 publication Officers of the Army and Navy Who Served in the Civil War, around 1853, as a young man, Lawrence worked as an accountant in Buffalo and then briefly owned a drugstore in Niagara Falls. In 1858, he sold his store and returned to Warsaw to care for his mother. Lawrence built and operated the Warsaw Gas Works, in addition to a foundry and machinery business.

With the start of the U.S. Civil War, Lawrence entered the Union Army. In 1862, he was selected as Quartermaster of the 130th New York Volunteers, which later became the First New York Dragoons. Lawrence was then placed on detached service in the Commissary and Quartermaster’s Department of Peck’s Division of the 7th Army Corps. He was eventually promoted to the rank of Major and Chief Quartermaster to the 18th Army Corps. After the formation of the 24th Army Corps, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, Lawrence was made Chief Quartermaster and raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. An agreement “in regard to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to the United States authorities” at Appomattox Courthouse on April 10, 1865, included that all public property would be “turned over to staff officers designated by the United States authorities” (H.R. Mis. Doc. No. 208, Part 3, 53rd Cong., 2nd Sess., 1894). By April 10, Lawrence had been designated by Rufus Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, with distributing Confederate Army property pertaining to the Quartermaster’s Department, including wagons, horses, and mules. Lawrence directed the movement of property from Appomattox to Burkeville Junction and Richmond, Virginia. Lawrence also authorized the sheriff of the County of Appomattox to distribute abandoned property of the surrendered Army of Northern Virginia upon the departure of the U.S. forces.

In 1866, Lawrence was mustered out, receiving an honorable discharge with brevet commissions. He returned to Warsaw and worked in the lumber and furniture business. He died at his home on Buffalo Street in Warsaw on March 30, 1912, and was buried in Warsaw Cemetery.