FIRED FIRST SIGNAL FOR THE CIVIL WAR
Norfolk, Va., April 10.--Andrew J. Dalton, one of the last three survivors of the crew of the Merrimac which participated in the historic battle with the Monitor in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, died at his home here tonight after a brief illness. He was 78 years old.
In the course of his public career Mr. Dalton served as state senator, a member of the police department, street inspector, sheriff, head of the city electoral board and justice of the peace.
Before Virginia seceded, he enlisted in Company C of the First South Carolina artillery and was stationed at Ft. Johnson, on James Island, from which the signal shell for the first bombardment of Ft. Sumter was fired. Mr. Dalton was one of the gun crew that placed in the mortar the fateful shell that plunged the states into civil war.
--Carter's Weekly (North Wilkesboro, NC), Apr 13, 1922, p. 6

Obituary provided by Family Search (#47153943)

FIRED FIRST SIGNAL FOR THE CIVIL WAR
Norfolk, Va., April 10.--Andrew J. Dalton, one of the last three survivors of the crew of the Merrimac which participated in the historic battle with the Monitor in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, died at his home here tonight after a brief illness. He was 78 years old.
In the course of his public career Mr. Dalton served as state senator, a member of the police department, street inspector, sheriff, head of the city electoral board and justice of the peace.
Before Virginia seceded, he enlisted in Company C of the First South Carolina artillery and was stationed at Ft. Johnson, on James Island, from which the signal shell for the first bombardment of Ft. Sumter was fired. Mr. Dalton was one of the gun crew that placed in the mortar the fateful shell that plunged the states into civil war.
--Carter's Weekly (North Wilkesboro, NC), Apr 13, 1922, p. 6

Obituary provided by Family Search (#47153943)