Meeting and Broad Streets near Line Street in Charleston, South Carolina, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in the distance (U.S. Navy, circa 1863-1865, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

There is no disputing that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had a long and storied history. Formed on August 5, 1861, the regiment not only served for the entire duration of the American Civil War; it continued its service to the nation for more than eight months after the end of that terrible conflict, becoming the only regiment from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to fight in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana before it participated in Major-General Philip Sheridan’s tide-turning Shenandoah Valley Campaign across Virginia during the fall of 1864 and helped defend Washington, D.C. in the wake of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865.

As those war years unfolded, newspapers from Easton to Pittsburgh published updates on the regiment’s travels, along with excerpts from letters penned by its baby-faced recruits and wizened warriors. One of the more unusual news items was reported during the 47th Pennsylvania’s final months of service—while it was stationed in the Deep South of the United States of America during the early days of Reconstruction, following the end of the American Civil War. Assigned to keep the peace in the first state that had seceded from the Union, members of the regiment lived and primarily worked in Charleston, South Carolina, where they performed a wide range of provost (civil governance)-related tasks, including the prevention and prosecution of crimes against civilians and the re-establishment of newspaper publishing operations.

The Line Street area of Charleston, South Carolina, where a public pound was established in July 1865 to improve animal control and public safety (Thomas Fetters, The Charleston & Hamburg, public domain; click to enlarge).

During the summer of 1865, that “to do” list was expanded to include the “policing” of the city’s furrier denizens. According to The Charleston Daily Courier, Sergeant George Nichols (alternate surname spelling: “Nicholas”) of the 47th Pennsylvania’s E Company was ordered to supervise the operations of a new animal pound that had been established on Line Street in Charleston, “between Coming and Percy streets”:

Headquarters,
Charleston, S.C. July 20, 1865
[GENERAL ORDERS, No. 64.]

I. A POUND IS HEREBY ESTABLISHED ON LINE-STREET, between Coming and Percy-streets, and Sergeant GEO. NICHOLAS, Co. “E,” 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, temporarily detailed as pound-keeper.

II. Hereafter all cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and dogs found running at large in the City South of Line-street, shall be taken to the public pound and there detained until the penalty prescribed by this Order, together with the charges of the pound-keeper and the actual expense of maintaining said animals while in the pound, shall be paid.

The penalties for each violation of this Order to be as follows:

Cattle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5.00 per head
Sheep, goats, hogs and dogs . . . . . . . $1.00

The amount to be turned into the City Treasury.

III. All animals, except dogs, remaining in the public pound for the space of six (6) days without being claimed and the penalties and charges therefor [sic] paid, shall be sold at public sale by the pound-keeper. The proceeds to be turned over to the owner of such animals, after deducting the fines and pound fees.

All dogs remaining unclaimed for the space of one week shall be shot.

The Provost Marshal and Chief of Military Police are charged with the execution of this Order.

By order Bt. Brig. Gen. W. T. BENNETT, Com’dg Post.
CHARLES G. CHIPMAN,
Capt. 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, A. A. D. C.
OFFICIAL: THOS. F. LAMBERT, 2d Lieut. 47th Pa. Vols., A. A. D. C.
July 21

The Confederate Steamer, Governor Milton, that was captured by Companies E and K, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, October 1862 (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, public domain).

By the time that he had received this duty assignment in 1865, Sergeant Nichols had already amassed a distinguished service history. In early October 1862, while still just a corporal, he was placed in charge of the Governor Milton, a Confederate steamship that had been captured by a detachment of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers as part of Union Army and Navy operations related to the capture of Saint John’s Bluff, Florida. He later preserved his memories of that day’s events with this diary entry:

“At 9 PM … October 7, discovered the steamer Gov. Milton in a small creek, 2 miles above Hawkinsville; boarded her in a small boat, and found that she had been run in there but a short time before, as her fires were not yet out. Her engineer and mate, then in charge, were asleep on board at the time of her capture. They informed us that owing to the weakness of the steamer’s boiler we found her where we did. We returned our prize the next day…..

I commanded one of the Small Boats that whent [sic] in after her. I was Boatman and gave orders when the headman jumped on Bord [sic] take the Painter with him. That however belongs to Wm. Adams or Jacob Kerkendall [sic]. It was So dark I could not tell witch [sic] Struck the deck first. But when I Struck the deck I demanded the Surrend [sic] of the Boat in the name of the U.S. after we had the boat an offercier [sic] off the Paul Jones, a Gun Boat was with us he ask me how Soon could I move her out in the Stream I said five minuts [sic]. So an Engineer one of coulered [sic] Men helped me. and I will Say right hear [sic] he learned Me More than I ever knowed about Engineering. Where we Started down the River we was one hundred and twenty five miles up the river. When we Stopped at Polatkey [Palatka] to get wood for the Steamer I whent [sic] out and Borrowed a half of a deer that hung up in a cut house and a bee hive for some honey for the Boys. I never forget the boys.’”

When the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers made their way back to their respective troop transports near Saint John’s Bluff, the captured steamer was left behind to enable a group of Union soldiers to repair its boiler. Overseeing those repairs was none other than Corporal Nichols, who had been temporarily detached from the 47th Pennsylvania’s E Company. Adding to his diary, he wrote:

“So hear [sic] we are at Jacksonville and off we go down the river again, and the Captain Yard Said you are detailed on detached duty as Engineer well that beats hell. I told him I did not Enlist for an Engineer. well I cannot help it he said. I got orders for you to stay hear [sic]. When the Boys was gone about a week orders came for us to come to Beaufort, S. Carolina by the inland rout over the Museley Mash Rout. So I Borrowed a twelve pound gun with amanition [sic] for to Protect our Selves with. But I only used it once to clear Some cavelry [sic] away. We Passed fort Palask [sic]. But that was in our Possession and we got Back to Beaufort all right. and I whent [sic] up to See the Boys and Beged [sic] captain to get me Back in the company, But he could not make it go.”

After completing his detached duty, Corporal Nichols was reunited with his regiment at its duty station in Beaufort, South Carolina that same October of 1862. He then went on to serve with the regiment for the remainder of its service to the nation, finally mustering out with his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day of 1865. An engineer with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad following the war, he died from pneumonia at the age of seventy at his home in Phillipsburg, New Jersey on March 2, 1908, and was laid to rest at the Phillipsburg Cemetery.

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. “General Orders, No. 64” (establishment and staffing of a public pound in Charleston, South Carolina). Charleston, South Carolina: The Charleston Daily Courier, 21 July 1865, p. 2.
3. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.