Colonel Alvin C. Voris.

Push to enlarge.

Alvin Coe Voris.

Birth: Apr. 27, 1827, Stark County.
Death: Jul. 28, 1904, Akron, Summit County, Ohio.

Burial: Glendale Cemetery, Akron, Summit County, Ohio.

Civil War Union Brevet Major General. As a lawyer and legislator, his political career was interrupted by the Civil War. He enlisted as Sergeant in the 29th Ohio Infantry Regiment in September 1861, was promoted 2nd Lieutenant and appointed Lieutenant Colonel in the 67th Ohio Infantry Regiment on October 11, 1861. He was with the 67th throughout the Virginia campaigns, was wounded in action at Winchester in March 1862 and at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. As Colonel in command, he led the 67th in South Carolina and was wounded again at Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. For meritorious service he was brevetted Brigadier General, December 8, 1864, Major General of U.S. Volunteers, November 15, 1865 and mustered out of the regiment on December 7, 1865. After the war, he resumed the practice of law, was later elected to the Constitutional Assembly and served as judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Summit, Medina and Lorain counties, Ohio, retiring in 1896.

History of the 67th., Ohio Infantry.

The rifle ball by which Colonel Voris was wounded at Fort Wagner, split upon the ring of his sword belt, and as. on probing, only a small piece of the ball was found, it was supposed that the larger portion had glanced off without penetrating the body.  As the years passed by, after the close of the war. and his return to his professional duties, the General began to experience an abdominal trouble which finally developed into what was supposed to be an aggravated case of stone in the bladder, and finally, despairing of his life unless he could get speedy relief, in the fall of 1873 he submitted to a surgical operation when to the surprise of the surgeons, his friends, and himself, instead of a stone, three-fourths of an Enfield rifle leaden ball, weighing an ounce and one-eighth, was extracted from the bladder.

That the shot did not kill him instantly in the first place, was simply miraculous ; and that he could have carried that amount of lead in such a vital position for over ten years of a very active life, with-
out fatal results, and finally, to withstand the effects of so painful and critical an operation, not only evinces a remarkable degree of pluck, but a most vigorous constitution.

Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
Colonel Alvin C. Voris Medical History.

 

CASE 801. Colonel Alvin C. Voris, 67th Ohio, was wounded in an assault on Fort Wagner, Morris Island, July 18, 1863. Surgeon M. S. Kittinger, 100th New York, reported that a musket ball penetrated the left inguinal region. Surgeon J. J. Craven, U. S. V., records that this officer was received on the Hospital Steamer Cosmopolitan. July 27, 1863, taken northward, and granted leave of absence. There is no record of the treatment of the injury at this period. Brevetted Brigadier General of Volunteers, for gallantry, December 8, 1864, this officer was honorably mustered out December 12, 1865. He did not apply for pension. In the Cincinnati Times, November, 1873, it is stated that General Voris had long suffered with an affection of the bladder at his home at Akron, Ohio, and that Professor S. W. Hamilton, of Columbus, on exploration detected a foreign body and performed lithotomy, when a battered Enfield rifle bullet of the usual size was extracted from the bladder. The Akron Beacon states that the physicians in attendance reported that the patient had progressed very favorably since the operation, and predicted his speedy recovery. The reporter states that the theory of the entrance of the ball into the bladder was that it had lodged in the muscular coat of the upper part of the organ, and that by gravitation and ulcerative absorption it gradually worked into the cavity. The operator, Dr. S. W. Hamilton, will doubtless print an authentic account of the case.