Duer, Prosser

Prosser Duer

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

Company F, 99th Ohio Infantry

Place of Birth:

Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio

Date of Birth:

1837

Place of Death:

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Date of Death:

January 2, 1863

Place of Burial:

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Cemetery Name:

Stones River National Cemetery

Prosser Duer was born in 1837 in Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio to parents John and Jane Duer. He was the sixth of nine children in the Duer family. Their names in order of age were William, Thomas, Maria, Mary Ann, John, Prosser, Sarah Jane, Mark, and James. Prosser and many of his brothers worked as farmers in the Holmes County area. 

In August of 1862, Prosser Duer answered his country’s call and serve with the Union army. At Lima, Ohio, he mustered into Company F of the 99th Ohio Infantry as a private on August 26, 1862. He was 25 years old. 

Quickly after its organization, the 99th Ohio was sent to Kentucky in pursuit of Gen. Braxton Bragg’s invading Confederates. They fought at the battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862, functioning primarily as reserves. Prosser and his regiment moved to Nashville, Tennessee with the Army of the Cumberland staying there until the Stones River Campaign began on December 26, 1862. 

On December 31, 1862, Prosser’s regiment, part of Price’s brigade, was tasked with holding high ground above the west fork of the Stones River. While the first day’s fighting raged nearby, the 99th Ohio remained unengaged, witnessing the chaos from their vantage point. On January 1, 1863, they crossed the river at McFadden’s Ford—a maneuver that set the stage for the battle’s decisive final day.

The afternoon of January 2 brought a fierce Confederate assault. In less than 45 minutes, the high ground held by the 99th Ohio became a scene of intense combat. Prosser Duer was mortally wounded and taken to a regimental hospital. According to the U.S. Register of Deaths of Volunteers, he had suffered extreme injuries to the abdomen, wounds that took his life later that day.

Prosser Duer was laid to rest in the Stones River National Cemetery in plot D-1615. His last name is also listed as “Door.”  

Tags: stones river national battlefield, stones river national cemetery, american civil war