Enlistment Date: July 15, 1863

Release Date: June 10, 1865

Unit: Company B, 61st Pennsylvania Volunteers

Brother Ildephonse Hofmann, O.S.B., served as a private in Company B, 61st Pennsylvania Volunteers. Correspondence in the monastery archives from the War Department, dated June, 1865, noted that “now supposed to be at the Soldiers Home, Elmira, New York, will be discharged the service of the United States upon the receipt of this order at the place where he may be serving.”

Other papers refer to him as Alphonse Hoffman, private or captain in Adalbert Fell’s Company, I, regiment of Vet. Res. Corps volunteers, who was enrolled on the 15th day of July, 1863, to serve three years or during the war, is hereby discharged from the service of the United States this 10th day of June 1865 at Elmira, N.Y., state by reason of Spec. Order No. 277. He was born in Wurtenberg, Germany. 

A reference in Bonaventure Gaul’s pension papers referred to him as being tended to by his family physicin, Dr. Ildephons Hoffman, who died in 1873. 

Reference: Historia Monasterii I, VH-41, Letters, Saint Vincent Archabbey Archives. 

(Compiled by Raymond Aguiar)