Category Archives: 1864

Election Day 1864 — Lincoln or McClellan? How the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers Voted

The platforms of the Union and Democratic parties, U.S. Presidential Election of 1864 (courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; click to enlarge).

Even in the midst of a devastating civil war, Americans across the United States managed to come together to fulfill their civic responsibilities by voting on Election Day. Fathers and sons flocked to city and small town polling places while soldiers on active duty filled out ballot forms wherever they were stationed during the early to mid-1860s.

With respect to the Presidential Election of 1864, which was held in multiple states across America on November 8, 1864, that voting took place for members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at their encampment near Newtown, Virginia, according to a letter that was subsequently penned by 47th Pennsylvanian Henry D. Wharton to his hometown newspaper in Sunbury, Pennsylvania on November 14:

“The election passed off quietly and without any military interference, not the influence of officers used in controlling any man’s vote. In the regiments from the old Keystone, the companies were formed by the first Sergeant, when he stated to the men the object for which they were called to ‘fail to,’ and then they proceeded to the election of officers to hold the election – the boys having the whole control, none of the officers interfering in the least.”

Were the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers pro-Lincoln or pro-McClellan?

Excerpt from Henry Wharton’s letter to his hometown newspaper, November 14, 1864 (The Sunbury American, November 14, 1864, public domain; click to enlarge).

Wharton reported that, after the votes from members of the regiment were counted, President Abraham Lincoln was the favored choice of most of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Lincoln had garnered one hundred and ninety-four votes to General George B. McClellan’s one hundred and twenty-one (a margin of seventy-three votes). Those votes, by individual company, were tallied as follows:

  • Company A: President Lincoln (ten); General McClellan (one)
  • Company B: President Lincoln (twenty-six); General McClellan (two)
  • Company C: President Lincoln (twenty-nine); General McClellan (thirteen)
  • Company D: President Lincoln (thirty-one); General McClellan (eleven)
  • Company E: President Lincoln (twenty-four); General McClellan (three)
  • Company F: President Lincoln (eighteen); General McClellan (sixteen)
  • Company G: President Lincoln (nine); General McClellan (thirteen)
  • Company H: President Lincoln (ten); General McClellan (twenty-four)
  • Company I: President Lincoln (nineteen); General McClellan (sixteen)
  • Company K: President Lincoln (eighteen); General McClellan (twenty)

But Wharton’s figures for the men from Company K were incorrect, according to historian Lewis Schmidt, who noted in his book, A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, that “Fifteen of the members [of Company K] voted for the Lincoln electors and seven for the McClellan electors” when they “voted on the battlefield of Cedar Creek, November 8, 1864.” The members of Company K who cast votes that day were: “David H. Fetherolf, Mathias Miller, John Keiser, Phaon Guth, James D. Weil, Daniel Strauss, Paul Strauss, George Sherer, Lewis G. Seip, Henry Hantz, Charles W. Abbott, George Kase, Charles Stoudt, William Schlicher, William F. Knerr, E. F. Benner, George Delp, Tilghman Boger, William H. Barber, William D. Schick, Frank Beisel, and David Semmel.”

Apathy or Attrition?

One of the first things that researchers notice when looking at those figures for the 1864 election is that the number of votes tendered by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers that November day was lower than it should have been — shockingly so when considering that each company of the regiment had been staffed by roughly one hundred men when the 47th Pennsylvania left Camp Curtin and headed for Washington, D.C. three years earlier. The turnout of 47th Pennsylvanians was not a sign of voter apathy, however, but of a simple, ugly truth. The regiment had just recently lost the equivalent of nearly two full companies of men in combat. According to Wharton, “The battle at Cedar Creek thinned our ranks by which we lost many votes – this number and those away in hospitals would have increased the Union majority to three hundred.”

* Note: When Henry Wharton wrote the phrase “Union majority,” he was referring to the National Union Party, which had been established during the 1860s by prominent Republicans as a way to bring members of their party together with “War Democrats” and potential voters from border states to vote for President Lincoln and others who supported the Republican platform for eradicating chattel slavery and ending the nation’s secession crisis and civil war.

What Happened After That Election in 1864?

President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 (W.E. Winner, painter, J. Serz, engraver, circa 1864; public domain, U.S. Library of Congress).

Successful in his bid for re-election, both in terms of the electoral college and popular vote, President Abraham Lincoln went on to deliver one of his most inspiring addresses to the nation, urging his fellow Americans “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and “do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” He then continued to shepherd his nation through one of its darkest times until the war was finally over.

Food for Thought

If Henry Wharton and his fellow soldiers could make it to the polls on Election Day after all they endured in battle, so can you. Please vote. Your voice does matter.

 

Sources:

  1. “Political Party Timeline: 1836-1864,” in American Experience: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided. Boston, Massachusetts: GBH Education for WGBH-TV (PBS), 2001.
  2. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  3. “The People’s Candidate: Lincoln’s Presidential Elections,” in “Illinois History & Lincoln Collections.” Urbana, Illinois: Main Library, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, retrieved online November 3, 2025.
  4. Transcript of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (delivered Saturday March 4, 1865), in “UShistory.org.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Independence Hall Association, retrieved online March 4, 2020 and November 3, 2025.
  5. Wharton, Henry D. “Letter from the Sunbury Guards, Near Newtown, VA, November 14, 1864.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, November 26, 1864.

Finding Your 47th Pennsylvanian: The Surprising Details in Pennsylvania’s Civil War-Era Muster Rolls

Excerpt of muster-out roll, Company G, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, December 25, 1865, page one (Pennsylvania Civil War Muster Rolls, Pennsylvania State Archives, public domain; click to enlarge).

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s collection of Civil War-era muster rolls is another of the three major tools that beginning, medium and advanced researchers initially turn to for help in determining which Pennsylvania military unit(s) a soldier served with during the American Civil War. Unfortunately, it is also a resource that often does not receive the close attention from researchers that it should.

Those who have chosen to spend significant time looking through the individual documents contained in this collection have come to understand that, in addition to confirming the identity of a soldier’s regiment and company, as well as his rank(s) at enrollment and final discharge, Pennsylvania’s Civil War-era muster rolls are also useful for documenting when and where that soldier enrolled and mustered in for service and whether or not he had some change to his status while serving, such as a promotion, reduction in rank or charge of desertion — and possibly data which documented whether or not he was wounded or killed in battle and, if so, when and where.

Physically created as hard-copy index cards that were later preserved by the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as part of the “Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records” group of documents from the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs’ archives (Series RG:-019-ADJT-11, 1861-1866, 1906), this collection includes muster rolls from each of Pennsylvania’s volunteer infantry and volunteer militia regiments, emergency volunteer militia regiments that were formed during the summer of 1863 in response to the looming invasion of the commonwealth by the Confederate States Army, United States Colored Troops (USCT), United States Veteran Volunteer regiments and Hancock Veterans Corps, regiments of the Veterans Reserve Corps, and independent or other unattached units. Preserved on microfilm decades ago by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a portion of this large collection has since been partially digitized and made available on the Ancestry.com website as “Pennsylvania, U.S., Civil War Muster Rolls, 1860-1869.”

* Note: Although Ancestry.com is a subscription-based genealogy service that generally requires users to pay for access to its records collections, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania entered into a partnership with Ancestry.com several years ago “to digitize family history records in the State Archives and make them available online.” As part of that agreement, Ancestry.com created Ancestry.com Pennsylvania to provide free access to Pennsylvania residents to the Pennsylvania records it has digitized. If you reside in Pennsylvania and want to learn more about how you may obtain free access to those records, please contact the Pennsylvania State Archives for guidance. If you reside elsewhere, check with your local library to determine if it offers access to Ancestry.com as part of its service to library users.

What May Researchers Find with This Resource?

Excerpt from muster-out roll, Company G, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, December 25, 1865, showing soldiers’ promotions, status as Veteran Volunteers, etc. (Pennsylvania State Archives, public domain; click to enlarge).

According to personnel at the Pennsylvania State Archives, Pennsylvania’s Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records collection includes:

“Alphabetical Rolls. The rolls are arranged alphabetically by the soldiers’ surnames. Entries usually give the name, rank, civilian occupation, and residence, the unit, regiment, company, and commanding officer, and the date and place where the roll was taken. Particulars about sickness or injury are also sometimes noted.

“Descriptive Lists of Deserters. Lists give the names, ages, places of birth, height, hair and eye color, civilian occupations, and ranks of deserters, the units, regiments, and companies to which they were assigned, and the dates and places from which they deserted.

“Muster-In Rolls. Entries usually list the name, age, rank, unit, regiment, and company of the soldier, the date and place where enrolled, the name of the person who mustered him in, the term of enlistment, the date of mustering in, and the name of commanding officer. Remarks concerning promotions and assignments are sometimes recorded.

“Muster-Out Rolls. The dated lists ordinarily give the soldier’s name, age, rank, unit, regiment, and company, the date, place, and person who mustered him in, the period of enlistment, and the name of the commanding officer. Particulars concerning pay earned, promotions, capture by the enemy and the like also regularly appear.

“Muster and Descriptive Rolls. Generally the rolls give the name, age, town or county and state or kingdom of birth, civilian occupation, complexion, height, eye and hair color, and rank, the unit, regiment, company and commanding officer, and the amount of money received for pay, bounties, and clothing. Rolls for assigned United States black troops are included in this group. Included throughout are such related materials as regimental accounts of action, and correspondence related to infractions of military procedures, correspondence from soldiers addressed to the governor expressing grievances or petitioning for promotion.

“The data found in the documents of this series were used to create the Civil War Veterans Card File, 1861-1866 (Series 19.12).”

Be Sure to Look for Data Regarding Soldiers’ Pay

Excerpt from muster-out roll for Company G, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, showing soldiers’ pay data, December 25, 1865 (Pennsylvania State Archives, public domain).

One of the most fascinating features found on the muster-out rolls for Pennsylvania volunteer soldiers is that many of the infantry unit clerks took the time to meticulously record the pay data for multiple members of their respective regiments. As a result, present-day researchers are often able to determine how much bounty pay a particular soldier was eligible for at the time of his enlistment — and how much of that promised pay he actually received, as well as how much money he still owed the United States government for his army uniform, rifle and ammunition at the time of his discharged from the military.

Another striking feature on the muster-out rolls is the “Last Paid” column, which corroborates the shocking fact that many Union Army soldiers were expected to perform their duties, even though they were not being paid regularly — a data point that also may help to shed light on why some soldiers’ families faced greater hardship than others (because some soldiers were able to send part of their pay home while others were not).

Caveat Regarding Ancestry.com’s Collection Related to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Screenshot of Ancestry.com’s record detail page for Peter Haupt, which incorrectly identifies him as a member of Company A, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, instead of Company C (fair use for illustration purpose, October 2025).

Although Ancestry.com’s collection of Pennsylvania Civil War-era muster rolls can be a useful tool for researchers, there is a significant problem with records related to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry that merits closer scrutiny — the inaccurate transcription of soldiers’ data. That scrutiny is needed because the muster rolls from the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company C were mixed together with the muster rolls from Company A when they were posted to Ancestry.com’s website, making it appear, when browsing through those rolls, that all of the soldiers listed on every single one of those incorrectly grouped muster rolls were all members of Company A, when they were not.

Complicating things further, the Ancestry.com personnel who were assigned to transcribe the data from each of those muster rolls and create Record Detail pages for each individual soldier that summarized each soldier’s data from the muster roll on which it appeared, apparently did not realize that the muster rolls from Companies A and C of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had been mixed together. As a result, those transcribers incorrectly described every soldier from that improperly sorted muster roll group as a member of Company A, when they were not. (See attached image.)

So, when reviewing Ancestry.com’s collection of muster rolls, it is vitally important that researchers not take the transcribed data found on any of the Record Detail pages of 47th Pennsylvania muster rolls at face value. Instead, researchers should double check the data found on those muster rolls for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry against the data for individual soldiers published by Samuel P. Bates in his History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, volume 1, and should also then re-check that data against the information of individual soldiers that is contained in the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Index Card File, 1861-1866.

* Note: This is particularly important if you are a family historian who is hoping to identify the specific company in which your ancestor served. (And you will definitely want to know which company your ancestor served with because each company of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was assigned to different duties in different locations at different times during the regiment’s service.)

Caveat Regarding “Deserters”

Private Milton P. Cashner, Company B, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, was incorrectly labeled as a deserter on this regimental muster roll from the American Civil War (Pennsylvania State Archives, public domain; click to enlarge).

If a muster roll entry for your ancestor noted that he was a deserter, it’s also important that you not take that label at face value, either, because that data may also be incorrect. Military records from the Civil War era contained a surprising number of errors, a fact that is understandable when considering what the average army clerk was expected to do — keep track of more than a thousand men, many of whom ended up becoming separated from their regiment and confined to Union Army hospitals after being wounded in battle. (Wounded too severely to identify themselves to army personnel, they were then often mis-identified by army hospital personnel and then also incorrectly labeled as “deserters” by their own regiments because they hadn’t shown up for post-battle roll calls.) So, it’s important to double and triple check the data for any ancestor who was labeled as a “deserter” because he might actually have been convalescing at a hospital and not absent without leave.

Honoring Our Ancestors 

One of the best ways to honor ancestors who fought to preserve America’s Union is to pass their stories along to future generations. No embellishment required. Their willingness to volunteer for military service and the bravery they displayed as they ran toward danger and certain death during one of America’s darkest times speaks for itself.

Our job, as students of American History, educators and family historians is to ensure that their stories are told as accurately and thoroughly as possible so that their valor and love of community and country are never forgotten.

Remember their names. Tell and re-tell their stories. Honor the sacrifices that they made.

 

Sources:

  1. “Ancestry Pennsylvania,” in “Agencies: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,” in “Pennsylvania State Archives.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, retrieved online October 25, 2025.
  2. “Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records” (resource description). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives, retrieved online October 30, 2025.
  3. “Pennsylvania,” in Collections. Lehi, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2021 (retrieved online October 25, 2025).

 

Finding Your 47th Pennsylvanian: Using the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Card File, 1861-1866

The index card of Field Musician James Geidner, Company G, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Card File, 1861-1866, courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives).

The Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Index Card File, 1861-1866 is one of three resources that beginning, medium and advanced researchers frequently turn to for help in determining which Pennsylvania military unit(s) a soldier served with during the American Civil War. Physically housed at the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as part of the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs’ archives (Series RG-019-ADJT-12), this collection of individual index cards was preserved on microfilm decades ago by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and then later digitized and made available, free of charge, on the State Archives’ website via a user-friendly portal, enabling researchers nationwide to search or browse, alphabetically, through each of the index cards that had been created for the majority of Pennsylvanians who had served with the Union Army (as well as the non-Pennsylvanians who had also served with Pennsylvania units). According to Pennsylvania State Archives personnel:

“These 3 x 5 cards were initially prepared to serve as an index to Samuel Penniman Bates’ History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865, (Harrisburg, 1869-1871). The Office of the Adjutant General later expanded the scope of the cards by transcribing onto them data found on the original documents. Among the information generally found are the soldiers’ names, military units, and ages at enrollment, the dates and places where enrolled, the dates and places where mustered in, and the dates of discharge. Physical descriptions (complexion, height, color of hair and eyes), residences, birthplaces, promotions and wounds also are sometimes included. The listing is not comprehensive.”

That last sentence is an important caveat because, while this index card system can be a helpful primary source for basic data about individual soldiers, it does not contain the name of every single Pennsylvanian who served with the Union Army during the Civil War. In addition, a significant number of the index cards contain errors (incorrect spellings of soldiers’ names, soldiers labeled as deserters when they had actually been honorably discharged or hospitalized to due battle wounds or illness, etc.).

* Note: Those faults are understandable, however, when considering that the index cards were based on data compiled by Samuel Bates for his History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5 — a five-volume series of books that included rosters of soldiers for each Pennsylvania regiment that served during the American Civil War. The errors in Bates’ History are also understandable as you come to understand that Samuel Bates was assigned the task, during the mid-1860s, of summarizing thousands and thousands of muster rolls generated by Pennsylvania military units during the war — many of which were also filled with errors because the army clerks assigned to maintain those rolls were often unable to create accurate records as their regiments were being marched into battle or from one duty station to another.

Another more recent issue with this system is that its portal to the digitized index cards that was so easy to browse and search for free is now no longer available on the Pennsylvania State Archives’ website. The index cards are still available, however, to researchers who travel to Harrisburg to view the microfilmed version at the State Archives, as well as to online researchers via Ancestry.com as “Pennsylvania, U.S., Veterans Card Files, 1775-1948.” (Although Ancestry.com is a subscription-based genealogy service that generally requires users to pay for access to its records collections, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania entered into a partnership with Ancestry.com several years ago “to digitize family history records in the State Archives and make them available online.” As part of that agreement, Ancestry.com created Ancestry.com Pennsylvania to provide free access to Pennsylvania residents to the Pennsylvania State Archives records it has digitized. If you reside in Pennsylvania and want to learn more about how you may obtain free access to those records, please contact the Pennsylvania State Archives for guidance. If you reside elsewhere, check with your local library to see if it offers access to Ancestry.com as part of its service to library users.)

Despite those issues, the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Index Card File, 1861-1866 remains a useful tool for finding your 47th Pennsylvanian because it may help you confirm your ancestor’s place of residence during the early 1860s and may also provide you with an approximate year of birth for him.

Additional Important Tips for Using This Resource

The index card of William H. Egle, M.D. shows that this soldier served with the 47th Pennsylvania Militia, Emergency of 1863 and not the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Card File, 1861-1866, courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives).

If you are able to find an index card for your ancestor in the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Index Card File, 1861-1866, pay particular attention to the top line of that card’s data. That data identifies the regiment number and company letter of his military unit. Then also look at the lines of data below. (Those lines of text note the start and dates of his service.) If you see dates of service indicating that your ancestor served between mid-April 1861 and the end of July 1861, you will realize that the regiment number in the top line was not “47.” This means that your ancestor performed what is known as “Three Months’ Service,” that he actually served with a different regiment during the first months of the war, and that he then may also have served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at a later date (because the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was not established until August 5, 1861). So, you’re one of those 47th Pennsylvania descendants who needs to look for two or more index cards in the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans Index Card File, 1861-1866 — one for your ancestor’s “Three Month Service” and one for his service with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (which was initially most likely a three-year term of enlistment, but may have been a one or two-year term, depending on how late he was enrolled for service).

HOWEVER, if you see dates of service indicating that your ancestor served at any point during 1863 — AND, if the top line indicates that his regiment was “47 I Mil 63” — this means that your ancestor DID NOT serve with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He served with the 47th Pennsylvania Militia, Emergency of 1863. (The soldiers who served with that militia group were also brave and honorable men, but they were part of a very different unit that had a very different mission. Learn more about that militia unit here.)

Regardless of whether or not your ancestor “performed Three Months’ Service” during the earliest part of the Civil War, if you see dates of service indicating that your ancestor served at any point between August 5, 1861 and early January 1866 — AND if the top line indicates that his regiment was “47 I” — then you can be reasonably confident that your ancestor actually did serve with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (also known as the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers or the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers). So, you should make yourself a cup of coffee or tea, find a comfy chair, and spend some quality time exploring our website to learn more about the history-making 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Best wishes for success with your research! Let us know what you learn about your ancestor!!

 

Sources:

  1. “Ancestry Pennsylvania,” in “Agencies: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,” in “Pennsylvania State Archives.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, retrieved online October 25, 2025.
  2. “Civil War Veterans Card File, 1861-1866” (resource description). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives, retrieved online October 25, 2025.
  3. “Pennsylvania,” in Collections. Lehi, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2021 (retrieved online October 25, 2025).

 

Remembering the Red River Campaign Prisoners of War on National POW/MIA Recognition Day

This POW/MIA Recognition Flag designed by Newt Heisley was formally recognized by U.S. House of Representatives Resolution No. 467 on September 21, 1990 (public domain).

During the Army of the United States’ 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana in the American Civil War, multiple members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were declared as “Missing in Action” (MIA) — largely due to the confusion caused by a series of engagements with the enemy in which Union soldiers were repeatedly required to retreat, regroup and resume the fight as they faced down wave after wave of Confederate troops attempting to outflank and perform end runs around the outer edges of Union Army lines.

Each time the cannon smoke began to clear from those battles, many of those MIA members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry found their way back to the regiment, carrying word to senior officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers that members of the regiment had been captured by Confederate troops. By mid-May of 1864, it was clear that at least twenty-three 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were being held as prisoners of war (POWs) by the Confederate States Army.

Regimental leaders would later learn that many of those men had been force marched roughly one hundred and fifty miles to Camp Ford, which was located outside of Tyler, Texas and would become the largest Confederate POW camp west of the Mississippi River by the summer of 1864. Once there, they were starved, given minimal to no medical care for any wounds they had sustained, exposed to extreme variations in temperature and weather, due to inadequate shelter, and sickened by dysentery and other diseases that were spread by living in the cramped, overcrowded conditions that became increasingly unsanitary, due to the placement of latrine facilities near water supplies meant for drinking or bathing. As their days dragged on, their treatment by Confederate soldiers grew more and more harsh. According to representatives of the Smith County Historical Society who have been working on documenting the history of Camp Ford:

On April 8th and 9th 1864 at the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, Confederate forces captured more than 2,000 Union soldiers, who were quickly marched to Tyler…. The existing stockade did not have sufficient area to house them, and an emergency enlargement was undertaken. Local slaves were again impressed, the north and east wall was dug up and the logs cut in half, and the top ten feet of the logs of the south and west walls were cut off. The resulting half logs gave sufficient timber to quadruple the area of the stockade, and it was expanded to about eleven acres.

With additional battles in Arkansas and Louisiana, the prison population had grown to around 5,000 by mid-June. Hard-pressed CS officials had no ability to provide shelter for the new prisoners, and their suffering was intense. The number of tools was inadequate, and many men could only dig holes in the ground for shelter. Rations were often insufficient and the death rate soared…. Of 316 total deaths at the camp, 232 occurred between July and November 1864….

At least three 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers are confirmed to have died while imprisoned at Camp Ford. Another member of the regiment was later removed from that prison and moved to Andersonville, the most notorious of all American Civil War POW camps. Two others died as POWs who were confined to a Confederate hospital.

In recognition of National POW/MIA Recognition Day, which is observed on the third Friday each September in the United States of America, we pay tribute to those twenty-three brave souls.

DeSoto and Sabine Parishes (Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana)

Possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Privates Solomon Powell and Jonathan Wantz of Company D were captured during that battle on April 9, 1864. Private Powell died either that same day or on June 7, 1864, while still being held by Confederate troops as a POW at Pleasant Hill. Private Wantz also died while still being held as a POW at Pleasant Hill; his death was reported as having occurred on June 17, 1864. Their exact burial locations remain unidentified.

Confederate Hospital (Shreveport, Louisiana)

G Company Private Joseph Clewell — who had only been a member of the 47th Pennsylvania since mid-November 1863, fell ill sometime after being captured by Confederate troops during one of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Red River Campaign engagements in the spring of 1864. Suffering from chronic diarrhea due to the poor water quality and unsanitary living conditions that he endured while being held as a POW, he was subsequently confined to the Confederate States Army Hospital No. 59 in Shreveport, Louisiana sometime in May or early June. Held at that hospital as a POW, his health continued to decline until he died there on June 18, 1864, according to the U.S. Army’s Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers. His exact burial location also remains unidentified.

This illustration presented a rosier view of life at Camp Ford, the largest Confederate Army prison camp west of the Mississippi River, than was the actual situation for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confined there (Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1865, public domain).

Camp Ford or Camp Groce (Texas)

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confirmed to have been released from Camp Ford or Camp Groce in Texas during a series of prisoner exchanges between the Army of the United States and the Confederate States Army were:

  • Private Charles Frances Brown, Bugler of Company D and Regimental Band No. 2 (date of release: July 22, 1864; discharged after receiving medical treatment; re-enlisted with the 7th New York Volunteers in October 1864);
  • Private Charles Buss/Bress of Company D (fell ill with dysentery while confined as a POW at Camp Ford and developed chronic diarrhea and severe hemorrhoids — conditions that would plague him for the remainder of his life, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment and was honorably discharged from a Union Army medical facility in Philadelphia in May 1865);
  • Private Ephraim Clouser of Company D (captured after being shot in the right knee, date of release: November 25, 1864; placed on Union Army sick rolls after being diagnosed as being too traumatized to remain on duty, he was transferred to the Union Army’s Jefferson Barracks Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, then to a Union Army hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio and then to the Union Army’s general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he remained until the end of the war; still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the war, he was declared by the Pennsylvania court system to be unable to care for himself, and was confined to the Harrisburg State Hospital for the remainder of his life);
  • Sergeant James Crownover of Company D (captured after being shot in the right shoulder, date of release: November 25, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private James Downs of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment and returned to duty; possibly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he fell from a window of the Brookville Memorial Home in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania in 1921);
  • Private Conrad P. Holman, of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Corporal James Huff of Company E (captured after being wounded, date of release: August 29, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty; captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864, was transported and force marched to North Carolina, where he was held as a POW at the Salisbury Prison Camp until his death there from starvation and harsh treatment on March 5, 1865; he was subsequently buried somewhere on the POW camp grounds in an unmarked mass trench grave of Union soldiers);
  • Private John Lewis Jones of Company F (captured after being wounded, date of release: September 24, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Edward Mathews of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Adam Maul/Moll/Moul of Company C (captured on May 3, 1864, while away from his regiment’s encampment in Alexandria, Louisiana — possibly while assigned to duties related to the construction of Bailey’s Dam, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and was assigned to detached duty at Hilton Head, South Carolina on January 3, 1865, but was reportedly not given discharge paperwork by his regiment; his exact burial location remains unidentified);
  • Private John W. McNew of Company C (captured after being wounded, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Corporal John Garber Miller of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Samuel W. Miller of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private John Wesley Smith of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty;
  • Private William J. Smith of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty; and
  • Private Benjamin F. Wieand/Weiand of Companies B and D (captured after being wounded; received medical treatment after his release from captivity and was honorably discharged on July 21, 1865.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confirmed to have died on the grounds of Camp Ford were:

  • Private Samuel M. Kern of Company D (date of death: June 12, 1864);
  • Private Frederick Smith of Company I (date of death: May 4, 1864); and
  • Private John Weiss, Company F (captured after being severely wounded, he was initially confined to Camp Ford, but was then transferred to a “Rebel hospital” for treatment of his wounds, according to regimental records; died at that Confederate hospital on July 15, 1864).

The burial locations of Privates Samuel Kern, Frederick Smith and John Weiss remain unidentified. (The Confederate hospital where Private John Weiss died may have been the Confederate Army Hospital No. 59 in Shreveport, Louisiana — the same Confederate hospital where G Company Private Joseph Clewell died on June 18, 1864.)

Issuing Rations at the Andersonville POW Camp, August 17, 1864 (view from Main Gate, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andersonville (Fort Sumter, Georgia)

According to an article in the April 12, 1911 edition of the Reading Eagle, Private Ben Zellner of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company K had also begun his imprisonment as a POW at Camp Ford, but was later transported to Georgia, where he was confined to Andersonville, the most notorious Confederate prison camp of them all.

Benjamin Zellner, who was one of the youngest soldiers during the Civil War, was captured by the Confederates at Pleasant Hill, La., April 8, 1864. He was a member of Co. K, 47th Regiment, with Gen. Banks’ army on the Red River expedition. Comrade Zellner was wounded in a charge to the left of the lines and fell on the field. The Union forces being driven back, he, with a number of others was captured. After being kept at Pleasant Hill two weeks, they were removed to Mansfield, La., on a Saturday night and kept over night [sic] in the Court House until Sunday morning. Thence they were removed to Shreveport, La., and again kept in the Court House. From thence they were marched 110 miles to Unionville prison at Tyler, Tex…. The 47th was the only Penn’a Regiment to participate in the Red River campaign.

Although POW records from Camp Ford that are maintained by the Smith County Historical Society note that a “Ben Cellner” was released in that camp’s July 22, 1864 prisoner exchange with the Union Army, interviews by several different newspaper reporters of Zellner in his later life contradict those records. According to Zellner and the Reading Eagle, he had been transported to Camp Sumter near Anderson, Georgia sometime in May or June 1864:

In about a month [after arriving at Camp Ford in Texas, following their 8 April capture in Louisiana] 300 or 400 of the strongest were brought back to Shreveport and then transported down the Red River to an old station and marched four days, when they were taken by train to Andersonville….

At the time of Private Zellner’s internment, Andersonville was under the command of Henry Wirz, who would later be convicted of war crimes for his brutal treatment of Union prisoners. According to the September 21, 1864 edition of The Soldiers’ Journal:

Those Union prisoners recently released from Camp Sumter, at Andersonville, Ga., have made affidavit of the condition of the 35,000 prisoners confined there. The horrors of their imprisonment, plainly and unaffectedly narrated, have no parallel outside of Taeping or Malay annals. Twenty-five acres of human beings – so closely packed that locomotion is made obsolete, compelled to drink from sewers, and to eat raw meat like cannibals – are dwelling under vigilant espionage, hopeless, helpless, and Godless. Some are lunatic, and others have become desperately wicked; all are living, loathing, naked, starved fellow-men.

Reportedly held as a POW for six months and fourteen days, according to the March 26, 1915 edition of The Allentown Leader, Zellner was freed from captivity during a Union and Confederate army prisoner exchange in September 1864 (per a report in the April 12, 1911 edition of the Reading Eagle). The April 8, 1911 Allentown Leader noted that, after this prisoner exchange, which took place “along the James River,” he was then sent with a number of his fellow former POWs “to Washington, to Fortress Monroe, to New York and home.” Following a period of recovery, he then returned to service with his regiment just in time to participate in a key portion of Union Major-General Phillip Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

Read their stories. Remember their names. Honor their individual sacrifices.

 

Sources:

  1. “47 Years Today Since Rebels Caught Him: This Is a Memorable Anniversary for Comrade Ben Zellner.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, April 8, 1911.
  2. Allentown’s Youngest Civil War Veteran (profile of Private Ben Zellner). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, April 12, 1911.
  3. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  4. “Camp Ford,” in “Texas Beyond History.” Austin, Texas: Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, retrieved online January 24, 2025.
  5. Camp Ford Prison Records (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1864). Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society.
  6. “Camp Sumter,” in “Editorial Jottings.” Washington, D.C.: The Soldiers’ Journal, September 21, 1864.
  7. Civil War Muster Rolls (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  8. Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  9. Gilbert, Randal B. A New Look at Camp Ford, Tyler, Texas: The Largest Confederate Prison Camp West of the Mississippi River, 3rd Edition. Tyler, Texas: The Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  10. “His Glorious Record as a Soldier: Fought at Gettysburg, Red River and Shenandoah Valley and Besides Enduring the Horrors of Andersonville, Carries Bullet to This Day.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, March 26, 1917.
  11. Horwitz, Tony. “Did Civil War Soldiers Have PTSD?“, in Smithsonian Magazine, January 2015. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
  12. Lawrence, F. Lee. “Camp Ford,” in “Hand Book of Texas.” Austin, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, retrieved online January 24, 2025.
  13. “Newport: Special Correspondence” (notice documenting Ephraim Clouser’s confinement for mental illness and later death at the asylum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Daily Independent, March 18, 1899.
  14. “POW/MIA Recognition Day.” Indianapolis, Indiana: The American Legion National Headquarters, retrieved online September 19, 2025.
  15. Registers of Deaths of Volunteers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1864-1865.
  16. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  17. Simmons, G. W. “Camp Ford, Texas” (sketch, Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1865; retrieved June 9, 2015, via University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Star of the Republic Museum, Washington, Texas).
  18. Slattery, Joe. “Confederate Soldiers Who Died at the Confederate General Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana,” in The Genie, vol. 37, no. 1 (First Quarter, 2003), p. 12. Shreveport, Louisiana: Ark-La-Tex Genealogical Association.
  19. “The Exchange of Prisoners; The Cartel Agreed Upon by Gen. Dix for the United States, and Gen. Hill for the Rebels,” in “Supplementary Articles.” New York, New York: The New York Times, October 6, 1862.
  20. Thoms, Alston V., principal investigator and editor, and David O. Brown, Patricia A. Clabaugh, J. Philip Dering, et. al., contributing authors. Uncovering Camp Ford: Archaeological Interpretations of a Confederate Prisoner-of-War Camp in East Texas. College Station, Texas: Center for Ecological Archaelogy, Department of Anthropology, Texas A & M University.
  21. “Union Army Deaths in Shreveport 1864-1865.” Shreveport, Louisiana: Sons of Union Veterans, Brig. Gen. Joseph Bailey Camp No. 5, retrieved April 29, 2021.
  22. “Up in Perry” (notice of Ephraim Clouser’s arrest and sanity hearing). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Telegraph, September 22, 1892.
  23. Wharton, Henry D. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1866. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

 

 

National Poetry Month: The Meaning of Life During War and Peace

“Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and — of course — poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.”

— American Academy of Poets

 

As we come to the close of National Poetry Month in 2025, we take a look back at poems that were written during the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Gilded Age, Progressive, World War I, and Roaring Twenties eras of American History by the famous (Thomas Buchanan Read and Walt Whitman) and less famous (Martha A. John), as well as by members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and their families who penned poems to express their insights about life and death during and after the war.

Read, reflect, remember, and share because humanities education programs really still do matter.

  • “A Comet” (Martha A. John, a sister of Private George Dillwyn John, in A Souvenir: Incidents, Experiences, and Reflections,” 1902);
  • “An Evening in Camp” (in The Sunbury American, December 28, 1861);
  • “Drum-Taps” (Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, October 1865);
  • “The Battle of Cedar Creek” (Private H. B. Robinson, October 1864);
  • “The Friendly Trio” (Jesse L. Bernheisel, a son of Private Luther Bernheisel, in Berny’s Poems; Hints Towards Happiness, 1927); and
  • “Sheridan’s Ride” (Thomas Buchanan Read, in The Daily Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 9, 1864).

Inkwell and book (excerpt of an illustration by F. Y. Cory, in Memoirs of a Baby, Josephine Daskam, author, 1893, public domain).

 

Sources:

  1. “An Evening in Camp.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, December 28, 1861; and West Chester, Pennsylvania: The West Chester (Pa.) Times.
  2. Bernheisel, Jesse L. Berny’s Poems; Hints Towards Happiness. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1927.
  3. John, Martha A. “A Comet, in A Souvenir: Incidents, Experiences, and Reflections. Sterling, Illinois: Sterling Gazette Print, 1902-3.
  4. Robinson, H. B. “The Battle of Cedar Creek.” Cedar Creek, Virginia: Composed following the October 19, 1864 battle; preserved in The H. B. Robinson Collection, in The Maurer Family Archives, Amy Lowers Maurer, curator).
  5. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Daily Evening Telegraph, November 9, 1864; Cleveland, Ohio: The Evening Post, November 17, 1864; Davenport, Iowa: The Democrat, November 25, 1864; Brownsville, Nebraska Territory: Nebraska Advertiser, December 1, 1864; and Sacramento, California: The Sacramento Bee (in “Entertainment”), December 17, 1864.
  6. Whitman, Walt. “Drum-Taps,” in Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: David McKay, 1891 (first published by Whitman in Drum-Taps, New York, October 1865).

 

April 12th: This Date in 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry History

April 12th would prove to be an important date for the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras. This abridged timeline illustrates why:

1861

The bombardment of Fort Sumter 12-14 April 1861 (Currier & Ives, public domain).

At 4:30 a.m., on April 12, 1861, artillery batteries of the Confederate States Army open fire on United States Army troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. A long and disastrous period of civil war begins in America.

The majority of Pennsylvanians and residents of other states throughout America who will ultimately serve with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry are at home, asleep in their beds — or just rising and readying themselves for their work days on family farms, as canal boatmen, in iron foundries, silk mills, tanneries or tobacco factories, as quarrymen toiling away in the slate industry, or as miners tunneling deeper inside of the Earth in poorly-lighted coal mines, along with countless other blue collar laborers who are risking their own health and safety just to keep their families housed and fed.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry isn’t even “a glimmer” in anyone’s eyes — yet. (It won’t be founded until August 5, 1861.)

1862

In 1862, The Gazette, one of two hometown newspapers read by the majority of men serving with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s C Company, carries the following news in its April 12th edition:

Jeff. Davis is becoming desperate. He has issued an extraordinary Message ordering the enrollment of all citizens of the Confederate States between the ages of 18 and 35, for military service, the residue of the fighting population, above 35 to form a fighting force.

Although that particular edition of the newspaper has not yet reached the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who are stationed in Florida, a warning about the Confederate Conscription Act’s pending passage has likely been telegraphed by the U.S. War Department to senior officers at the 47th Pennsylvania’s headquarters at Fort Taylor in Key West in order to prepare them for the increased threat they and their troops will face.

1864

On April 12, 1864, Captain Charles William Abbott, commanding officer of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s K Company, pens a brief report from his regiment’s camp at Grand Ecore, Louisiana to his superior officers in the United States Army of the Gulf, which partially documents the losses in soldiers and supplies sustained by his regiment during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864. That report also contains details about the regiment’s movements during this phase of duty.

Sergeant John Gross Helfrich then describes this same battle in a letter to his parents on May 5th, in which he notes:

I have learned additional news of the late fight of our boys of the “Nineteenth Corps”…. The casualties of our boys amounted to a great deal more than at first reported. The Lt. Col. of our Forty-seventh Regt. is missing, and supposed he is wounded or perhaps killed. Lt. Swoyer is dead.

1865

In a letter that he is writing to the Sunbury American on April 12, 1865 from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s camp near Summit Point, Virginia, 47th Pennsylvanian Henry D. Wharton describes a celebration that took place following the surrender at Appomattox by Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his army on April 9, 1865:

Since yesterday a week we have been on the move, going as far as three miles beyond Winchester. There we halted for three days, waiting for the return or news from Torbett’s cavalry who had gone on a reconnoisance [sic] up to the valley. They returned, reporting they were as far up as Mt. Jackson, some sixty miles, and found nary an armed reb. The reason of our move was to be ready in case Lee moved against us, or to march on Lynchburg, if Lee reached that point, so that we could aid in surrounding him and [his] army, and with Sheridan and Mead capture the whole party. Grant’s gallant boys saved us that march and bagged the whole crowd. Last Sunday night our camp was aroused by the loud road of artillery. Hearing so much good news of late, I stuck to my blanket, not caring to get up, for I suspected a salute, which it really was for the ‘unconditional surrender of Lee.’ The boys got wild over the news, shouting till they were hoarse, the loud huzzas [sic, huzzahs] echoing through the Valley, songs of ‘rally round the flag,’ &c., were sung, and above the noise of the ‘cannons opening roar,’ and confusion of camp, could be heard ‘Hail Columbia’ and Yankee Doodle played by our band. Other bands took it up and soon the whole army let loose, making ‘confusion worse confounded.’

The next morning we packed up, struck tents, marched away, and now we are within a short distance of our old quarters. – The war is about played out, and peace is clearly seen through the bright cloud that has taken the place of those that darkened the sky for the last four years. The question now with us is whether the veterans after Old Abe has matters fixed to his satisfaction, will have to stay ‘till the expiration of the three years, or be discharged as per agreement, at the ‘end of the war.’ If we are not discharged when hostilities cease, great injustice will be done.

The members of Co. ‘C,’ wishing to do honor to Lieut. C. S. Beard, and show their appreciation of him as an officer and gentleman, presented him with a splendid sword, sash and belt. Lieut. Beard rose from the ranks, and as one of their number, the boys gave him this token of esteem.

A few nights ago, an aid [sic] on Gen. Torbett’s staff, with two more officers, attempted to pass a safe guard stationed at a house near Winchester. The guard halted the party, they rushed on, paying no attention to the challenge, when the sentinel charged bayonet, running the sharp steel through the abdomen of the aid [sic], wounding him so severely that he died in an hour. The guard did his duty as he was there for the protection of the inmates and their property, with instruction to let no one enter.

The boys are all well, and jubilant over the victories of Grant, and their own little Sheridan, and feel as though they would soon return to meet the loved ones at home, and receive a kind greeting from old friends….

1866

On April 12, 1866, members of the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers who survived the American Civil War are three months into their post-war civilian lives. Many are back home in Pennsylvania, trying to regain some sense of their old selves with normal work and family routines. Others have already left their pre-war and war lives behind, choosing to migrate west in search of better opportunities — or a certain peace of mind they hope to find in knowing they will be far away from any decision-makers who might drag their communities and nation back down into another disastrous war in the future.

 

Sources:

  1. Abbott, Charles W. Report from Captain Charles W. Abbott, Captain, Company K, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, to Senior Officers of the U.S. Army of the Gulf’s XIX Corps (19th Corps), Grand Ecore, Louisiana, April 12, 1864. Nazareth, Pennsylvania: Personal Collection of Julian Burley.
  2. “Agriculture and Rural Life,” in “Stories from PA History.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2023.
  3. “Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Park.” Washington, D.C.: National Park Foundation, retrieved online April 12, 2025.
  4. Harris, Howard and Perry K. Blatz. Keystone of Democracy: A History of Pennsylvania Workers. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1999.
  5. Helfrich, John Gross. Letter to His Parents, May 5, 1864. Mesa, Arizona: Personal Collection of the Colin Cofield Family Archives.
  6. Miller, Randall M. and William A. Pencak. Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
  7. “Mining Anthracite,” in “Stories from PA History.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2023.
  8. Montgomery, Morton L. Early Furnaces and Forges of Berks County, Pennsylvania, in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1884. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1884.
  9. News Regarding the Confederate States’ New Conscription Order. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Gazette, April 12, 1862.
  10. Palladino, Grace. Another Civil War: Labor, Capital, and the State in the Anthracite Regions of Pennsylvania, 1840-1868. New York, New York: Fordham University Press, March 30, 2006.
  11. Sacher, John M. Confederate Conscription and the Struggle for Southern Soldiers. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: LSU Press, 2021.
  12. “The Industrial Age,” in “Stories from PA History: Science and Invention.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2023.
  13. “The Pennsylvania Iron Industry: Furnace and Forge of America,” in “Stories from PA History.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2023.
  14. “The Railroad in Pennsylvania,” in “Stories from PA History.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2023.
  15. “Timeline of Labor History in Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Labor History Society, retrieved online April 12, 2025.

 

Women’s History Month: A Look Back at the Mothers, Wives, Widows, Daughters, and Granddaughters of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers

Leanna (Diehl) Hornbeck (1851-1934).

Leanna (Diehl) Hornbeck (1851-1934).

As Women’s History Month 2025 comes to a close, we take a look back at the mothers, wives, widows, daughters, and granddaughters of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen who helped to preserve America’s Union and rebuild their shattered nation following the end of the American Civil War.

The backbones of their respective families, they not only kept the home fires burning while their husbands were engaged in combat far from their loving arms, they each left their own marks on the communities where they lived, and deserve to be remembered and celebrated for their own courage and resilience. Learn more about these remarkable women by watching our YouTube video, “Faces of the 47th: Wives, Widows and Daughters of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers,” and by reading the following biographies:

Remember their names. Be inspired by their strength. Honor the sacrifices they made for community and country.

 

Sources: 

  1. “Allen and Nona Albert’s Retirement a Loss to Long-Time Customers.” Tremont, Pennsylvania: The Press-Herald and The Pine Grove Herald, 12 February 1970.
  2. “Allentown Woman on the Roll of Honor: Gov. Brumbaugh Retires Mrs. Anna S. Leisenring, Factory Inspector, with Half Pay.” Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, 20 January 1918.
  3. “Allentown Woman to Come to Reading to Inspect Bake Shops and Textile Establishments: Mrs. Annie Leisenring Is Lineal Descendant of Conrad Weiser, the Great Colonial Pioneer Who Lived Near Womelsdorf. Was First Appointed to Factory Inspection Service in 1893.” Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, 20 May 1914.
  4. Baptismal, marriage, military, death, and burial records of the Snyder family. Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, etc.: Snyder Family Archives, 1650-present and Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records (baptismal, marriage, death, and burial records of various churches across Pennsylvania). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1905-1956; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1776-1956.
  5. Beyerle, Emma; and Snyder, H. Corinne [sic, Corrine], Catharine R. and Lillian E., in U.S. Census (City of Reading, Fourteenth Ward, City of Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1930). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  6. Breneman, Christian K. and Margaret J., in U.S. Civil War Pension Index (application no.: 432815, certificate no.: 307318, filed by the widow from Pennsylvania on 7 July 1891). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  7. Breneman, Margaret A., Wm. L. Gardner, and Margaret J. Breneman; Victor L., Carrie I. Landis, Christian and Margaret J. Breneman, and R. M. Landis; Benj. C Breneman, Lena M. Rupley, Christian K. and Margaret J. Breneman, and Henry M. and Phoebe Rupley; Harry S. Breneman, Anna May Gebhard, C. K. and M. J. Breneman, and Jacob and Anna Gebhard, in Applications for Marriage Licenses. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Clerk of the Orphans’ Court of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, 21 December 1897; 21 November 1906; 17 June 1911; and 3 October 1914.
  8. “Catharine Courtney, 89, Private Secretary” (obituary). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Intelligencer Journal, 28 August 1995.
  9. Catharine S. Courtney, in “Clubs: York Woman Heads State Secretaries.” Lancaster, Pennsylvania: New Era, 23 April 1956.
  10. Chalkley John, in Portrait and Biographical Album of Whiteside County, Illinois, Containing Full-Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with the Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and the Presidents of the United States. Chicago, Illinois: Chapman Brothers, 1863.
  11. Charles Magill and “Julian Ruston” [sic], in Certificate of Marriage. Camden, New Jersey: St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, 18 January 1887.
  12. Courtney, Charles F. and Catharine R., in Polk’s Lancaster City Directory, 1950. Boston, Massachusetts: R. L. Polk & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1950.
  13. Davis, William W. History of Whiteside County, Illinois from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908: Illustrated, with Biographical Sketches of Some Prominent Citizens of the County, vols. 1 and 2. Chicago, Illinois: Pioneer Publishing Co., 1908.
  14. “Death of a Highly Esteemed Citizen.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 5 October 1898.
  15. Edwin Minnich, Juliann (Kuehner) Minnich, and George Minnich, in U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1865-1901.
  16. “Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap: A Report by The Council of Economic Advisors.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, June 1998.
  17. “Funeral of Mrs. Mary B. Moyer from Her Late Home on East Market Street,” in “Green Ridge Items.” Scranton, Pennsylvania: The Scranton Tribune, 9 December 1901.
  18. Fusselman, Daniel, Catherine, Celistia [sic, Salista], Catherine, John W. R., Caroline, Mary E., and Sarah, in U.S. Census (East Waterford, Tuscarora Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, 1860). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  19. Fusselman, Daniel (father), Kate, John, Caroline, Emna Sarah, Daniel (son), Amanda, Rosa, and Josiah, in U.S. Census (McCullochs Mills, Tuscarora Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, 1870). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  20. Fusselman, Daniel and Catharine, in U.S. Civil War Pension Files (application no.: 254530, certificate no.: 315939, filed from Pennsylvania by the veteran, 8 May 1878; application no.: 250052, certificate no.: 347812, filed by the veteran’s widow, 20 August 1879). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  21. Gordon, Elizabeth Putnam. Women Torch-Bearers: The Story of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Evanston, Illinois: National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Publishing House, 1924.
  22. “Holland Farmer Passed Away Friday.” Abilene, Kansas: Abilene Daily Reflector, 29 August 1914.
  23. “John Family Papers, 1775-1951” (RG5/077). Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
  24. John, Clark E. History and Family Record of the “John” Family, 1683 to 1964: The Descendants of John Phillips and Ellen, His Wife, from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of the Church of Latter Day Saints, 1967.
  25. John, Don D. and Helen Doup John. “Eliza John Diary from 1839 to 1863: An Historical and Genealogical Record of the Quakers in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania and What Befell Them,” in Historical Collections of the John Family in America, 1950. Louisville, Kentucky: J. D. John, Self-published, 1951.
  26. John, George D., Mary Alice John, Elida P. John, Sarah Hughes, and Sidney A. John, in Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947 (database via Public Board of Health, Archives, Springfield, Illinois, Family History Library microfilm 1,614,419, 1,786,728 and 1,818,801; dates: 1928, 1937, 1938). Salt Lake City, Utah: Family History Library.
  27. Leanna D. Hornbeck, in Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916–1947. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 1934.
  28. Leanna D. Hornbeck, in U.S. Passport Applications (No. 5492 on Roll No. 184). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Citizenship and U.S. National Archives, 10 May 1913.
  29. Lecture Presentation by Annie E. Leisenring, in “Addresses and Discussions: Fourth Annual Welfare and Efficiency Conference, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, November 21, 22, 23, 1916.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Monthly Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, William Stanley Ray, State Printer, March 1917.
  30. Leisenring, Annie, in U.S. Census of Union Veterans and Widows of the Civil War. Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania: 1890.
  31. Leisenring, Annie E., in United States Veterans Administration Pension Payment Cards (Certificate No.: 240043). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1887-1920.
  32. “Letter from Key West” (from “W. D. C. R., Chaplain, Forty-seventh Regiment, P. V.”; dated 13 March 1862). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Press, 31 March 1862, front page.
  33. Lewis, Jim. “Not Forgotten: She Was Both Pediatrician and Pioneer” (obituary of Sandra Rowan, MD, one of the children cared for by Lillie May Snyder). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, 16 July 2016.
  34. “Lillian Snyder, 92, Was Registered Nurse” (obituary of H. Corrine Snyder’s younger sister, Lillian Estelle Snyder). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Intelligencer Journal, 9 June 2001.
  35. “Local Group Returns from Tour of Orient” (photo with article about the travels of Catharine R. (Snyder) Courtney and friends). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Intelligencer Journal, 2 April 1963.
  36. “Many Attend Funeral of Stephen J. Moyer.” Scranton, Pennsylvania: The Scranton Tribune, 9 August 1915.
  37. Maurer, Russ. “Lavelle Telegraph Telephone Company Charted in 1908,” in “Memories of Russ Maurer.” Hegins, Pennsylvania: The Citizen-Standard, circa 1990s.
  38. “Minick, Julia A. (nee) Megill, Julia A.” [sic], in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards, 1896. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  39. Minnich, Capt. Edwin G. and Mrs. Julia (Kuehner) Minnich (images and military paperwork). Pennsylvania: Personal Collection of Chris Sapp.
  40. “Miss Nona Snyder Is Married Today to Pine Grove Man” (article describing the wedding ceremony of Nona M. Snyder and Allen A. Albert). Lebanon, Pennsylvania: Lebanon Daily News, 23 September 1953.
  41. Mrs. Julia Magill, in “Prominent Army Nurses,” in “The National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War.” Washington, D.C.: The Evening Times, Wednesday, October 8, 1902.
  42. “Mrs. Margaret J. Breneman” (obituary). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Telegraph, 20 March 1930.
  43. “Nona Albert” (obituary). Lebanon, Pennsylvania: The Daily News, 3 June 1960.
  44. Notice of Mrs. Henry Hornbeck’s Return from Chicago. Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 23 September 1909.
  45. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 1959 Edition, pp. 239-249, in Bulletin No. 1255. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Labor, 1959.
  46. Rodrock, William D. C. and Julia M. Rodrock, in U.S. Civil War Pension Index (application no.: 296549, certificate no.: 260499, filed by the veteran on 17 July 1879; application no.: 793449, certificate no.: 574458, filed by the veteran’s widow from New Jersey on 24 October 1903). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  47. “Shopping Nights Are Agreed Upon.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, 17 December 1917.
  48. Smalser, Robert. Letter of Mary Barbara (Nyhart) Moyer to her husband, Stephen J. Moyer, and photographs of Stephen J. and Mary Moyer and their children. Seabeck, Washington: Personal Collection of Col. Bob Smalser (used with permission).
  49. Snyder, Catharine, John, Timothy, Lillie, and Salome, in A Directory of the Eleventh Census of the Population of Schuylkill County, Giving the Names and Ages of Males and Females, Published by Cities, Boroughs, Wards, Townships, Precincts or Towns, in Connection with a Business Directory of the Same for Advertising Purposes. Lebanon, Pennsylvania: E. A. Schartel, Publisher, 1891.
  50. Snyder, Catharine R. and Courtney, Charles F., in “Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages” (documentation of the marriage of H. Corrine Snyder’s younger sister, Catharine, in Boston in 1947). Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society.
  51. Snyder, Catharine R. and Lillian, E., in The Boston Directory for the Year Commencing July 1, 1942 (Boston Massachusetts, 1942). Chicago, Illinois: R. L. Polk Publishers, 1942.
  52. Snyder, Corrine and Catharine, in Reading City Directory, 1926. Reading, Pennsylvania: Boyd’s City Directories.
  53. Snyder, Corrine, Lillian E. and Catharine R., in U.S. Census (City of Reading, Fourteenth Ward, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1940). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  54. Snyder, H. Corrine, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  55. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Timothy P. and Nona M., in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1900). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  56. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Timothy P., Nona M., H. Corrine, John S., Catharine R., and Lillian E., in U.S. Census (Lavelle, Northwest Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1910). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  57. Snyder, John H., Minnie, Nona M., John S., and Willard E. in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1930). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  58. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Nona, Corrine, John S., Catharine R., Lillian E., Chester H., and Willard E. in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1920). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  59. Snyder, Lillie May, in Gibson & Sanders Funeral Home Records (1956). Reading, Pennsylvania: Sanders Funeral Home, retrieved in 2011.
  60. Snyder, Miss Lillie (obituary and funeral notice). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, 16 and 18 May 1956.
  61. “Stephen J. Moyer,” in “Deaths.” Scranton, Pennsylvania: The Scranton Tribune, 6 August 1915.
  62. “Veterans Who Will Be at the G.A.R. Celebration Owe Their Lives to the Heroic Self-Sacrifice of These Wgomen Nurses.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Philadelphia Times, Sunday, 20 August 1899.
  63. “Violate Child Labor Law: One Employer Heavily Fined and Others to Be Arrested. Special to The Telegraph.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Telegraph, 8 September 1911.
  64. Wattenberg, Ben. “FMC Program Segments 1900-1930: Infant and Maternal Mortality,” in “The First Measured Century.” Washington, D.C.: PBS, 2000 (retrieved online 14 February 2025).
  65. “W.C.T.U. Convention,” in “Frackville News.” Shenandoah, Pennsylvania: Evening Herald, 30 September 1950.
  66. “Will of Henry J. Hornbeck.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 19 October 1898.

 

Music of the American Civil War Era

“The Songs of the War,” Homer Winslow (Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain; click image to enlarge).

“Music has done its share, and more than its share, in winning this war.” — Major-General Philip H. Sheridan

 

“The Civil War played an instrumental role in the development of an American national identity,” according to historians at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “Specifically for American folk music, the war inspired songwriting on both sides of the conflict, as amateurs and professionals wrote new, timely lyrics to old English, Scottish, and Irish ballads as well as original compositions.”

That new music, in turn, inspired one American artist, Winslow Homer, to capture the support he was witnessing and hearing for the United States government and its Union Army defenders during the mid-nineteenth century — support that was conveyed through the enthusiastic singing of pro-Union songs by soldiers, abolitionists and others who had dedicated themselves to the preservation of America’s Union and the eradication of the brutal practice of chattel slavery.

His sketch, “The Songs of the War,” which first appeared in print in the November 23, 1861 edition of Harper’s Weekly, featured seven of the most popular songs during the first year of the American Civil War: “The Bold Soldier Boy,” “Hail to the Chief,” “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” “Rogue’s March,” “Glory Hallelujah,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and “Dixie.”

“The Bold Soldier Boy,” excerpt from the illustration, “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“The Bold Soldier Boy” was an old folk song that had been arranged by multiple composers in different ways throughout the nineteenth century prior to Homer’s first hearing of it. The specific variant of the tune that sparked Homer’s imagination as he drew the scene in the upper left corner of “The Songs of the War” was most likely the version that had been arranged by S. Lover and William Dressler. Published by Wm. Hall & Son of New York in 1851, that variant was one of the selections that was included in book one of Dressler’s Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists.

According to Dressler’s obituary in the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, William Dressler had created this arrangement shortly after his emigration to the United States. A native of Nottingham, England, he was a son of the “court flutist to the King of Saxony” and an 1847 graduate of the Cologne Conservatory of Music in Germany, and had become well-known across the United States as an “organist and professor of music.”

“Hail to the Chief,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861).

“Hail to the Chief,” has since become familiar to generations of Americans as the triumphal tune performed by the United States Marine Band (“The President’s Own“) to herald the arrival of presidents of the United States at State of the Union addresses presented to the United States Congress, as well as other functions of the United States government. According to military music historian Jari Villaneuva, this particular piece of music “was already very popular when the Marine Band played it from a barge for the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on July 4, 1828, in the presence of President John Quincy Adams.”

During the American Civil War, “Hail to the Chief” was frequently performed by the bands of state and federal military regiments to announce the arrival of Union Army generals at special events, including the often well-attended public ceremonies when generals reviewed their troops. On September 17, 1861, for example, the Lancaster Intelligencer noted that Major-General George B. McClellan was greeted with a performance of “Hail to the Chief” as he arrived with a group of dignitaries at the camp of the Seventy-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry on September 10.

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

With his scene, “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” Homer was referencing a song that had been promoted in broadside advertisements in London, England as far back as 1832. The song had been made popular thanks to its frequent performance in music halls across Great Britain during the 1840s.

According to historians at the U.S. Library of Congress, the melody was included as “Free and Easy,” in a medley of songs for cornet that was arranged by David L. Downing circa 1861 for concert band performance, and had been included in one of the manuscript books of the Manchester Cornet Band.

The source for the tune appears to have been the chorus of “‘Gay and Happy.’ Composed and sung by Miss Fanny Forrest (with unbounded applause) (Baltimore: Henry McCaffrey [1860])…. This version, or one similar to it, was almost certainly what Winslow Homer had in mind:

I’m the lad that’s free and easy,
Wheresoe’er I chance to be;
And I’ll do my best to please ye,
If you will but list to me.

Chorus.–So let the world jog along as it will,
I’ll be free and easy still….

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still” had become so popular by the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, that composer Stephen Foster referenced it in his 1866 song, “The Song of All Songs.

“Rogue’s March,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Rogue’s March can be traced to an even earlier time — the mid-eighteenth century. It “was one of the most widespread and recognized melodies in martial repertory of the era,” according to Andrew Kuntz and Valerio Pelliccioni, creators of The Traditional Tune Archive. Also known as “Poor Old Robinson Crusoe,” this English march in G Major “was played in the British and American armies when military and civil offenders and other undesirable characters were drummed from camps and cantonments, sometimes with a halter about their necks, sometimes with the final disgrace of a farewell ritual kick from the regiment’s youngest drummer.” Also according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni:

[T]he actual ceremony consisted of as many drummers and fifers as possible (to make it the more impressive) [who] would parade the prisoner along the front of the regimental formation to this tune, and then to the entrance of the camp. The offender’s coat would be turned inside out as a sign of disgrace, and his hands were bound behind him…. The sentence would then be published in the local paper.

The fifers and drummers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were actually called upon to play the “Rogue’s March” during the punishment and dismissal of one of their regiment’s own while the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were preparing for the regiment’s departure for America’s Deep South. According to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt, the public shaming of Private James C. Robinson of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company I began at 10 a.m. on Monday, January 27, 1862, at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where the regiment was briefly stationed.

The regiment was formed and instructed by Lt. Col. Alexander ‘that we were about drumming out a member who had behaved himself unlike a soldier.’ …. The prisoner, Pvt. James C. Robinson of Company I, was a 36 year old miner from Allentown who had been ‘disgracefully discharged’ by order of the War Department. Pvt. Robinson was marched out with martial music playing and a guard of nine men, two men on each side and five behind him at charge bayonets. The music then struck up with ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as the procession was marched up and down in front of the regiment, and Pvt. Robinson was marched out of the yard.

“Glory Hallelujah,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“Glory Hallelujah” was almost certainly a reference to the chorus verse of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the song which quickly became an anthem for the Union Army after the lyrics were written by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe during November 1861. Set to the melody (and partially derived from the lyrics) of “John Brown’s Body,” a song sung often by Union soldiers during the earliest months of the war, Howe’s “Battle Hymn” was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862 and remains one of the most popular patriotic songs in the United States.

The chorus of “Glory Hallelujah” was also then employed by Mrs. M. A. Kidder in an arrangement for piano by Augustus Cull of “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!“, which was published by Horace Waters of New York in 1862.

“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” excerpt from “The Songs of War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Dating back to the 1700s, “The Girl I Left Behind Me” was derived from a popular Irish folk tune that reportedly served as the melody for multiple popular and military songs during the eighteenth and ninetenth centuries, according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni.

There are a few literary references to the song or melody. For example, “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” clearly a reference to the military use of the song, was the title of a chapter (XXX) in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848)…. The English novelist Thomas Hardy, himself an accordianist and fiddler, mentioned the tune in scene notes to The Dynasts….

James Fenimore Cooper mentions the tune in his novel of the sea, The Pilot (1824)….

“The Girl I Left Behind Me” has a long and illustrious history in America…. [I]t appears in Riley’s Flute Melodies, published in several volumes in New York beginning in 1814…. The melody appears in Bruce and Emmett’s Drummers’ and Fifers’ Guide, published in 1862 to help codify and train the hordes of new musicians needed for service in the Union Army early in the American Civil War. Therein it is remarked: “This air and (drum) beat is generally played at the departure of the soldiers from one city (or camp) to another….

“Dixie,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

The final song that Homer chose to include in his pro-Union music montage, “Dixie” (an anthem of the Confederacy), might seem to have been an odd choice on his part, were in not for the way in which he chose to illustrate it. In the foreground, a free Black man looks thoughtfully off into the distance as he sits atop a barrel labeled with the word, “Contraband,” while a still-enslaved Black man struggles to move a heavy bale of cotton in the background, his body buckling from the burden he shoulders. That image was Homer’s powerful way of reminding Harper’s Weekly readers that, although some progress had already been made in the fight against the brutal practice of chattel slavery in parts of the United States, that fight was not yet won in “Dixie,” where many who were still enslaved continued to suffer greatly.

 

Sources:

  1. “Band Instruments,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  2. “Band Music,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  3. Baxter, John. “Free and Easy,” in “Folk Song and Music Hall.” Self-published, John Baxter, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  4. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “New Music,” in “Local Items.” Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Times, 9 February 1862.
  5. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  6. “Civil War Music: Dixie.” Washington, D.C.: American Battlefield Trust, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  7. “Free and Easy,” in “A Concert for Brass Band Voice and Piano,” in “Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  8. Homer, Winslow. “The Songs of the Civil War.” New York, New York: Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861.
  9. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “Rogue’s March.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, November 14, 2024.
  10. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, December 22, 2024.
  11. McCollum, Sean. “Battle Hymn of the Republic: The Story Behind the Song.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, September 17, 2019.
  12. “Pennsylvanians at Washington” (performance of “Hail to the Chief” to honor Major-General George B. McClellan). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster Intelligencer, September 17, 1861.
  13. “Songs of the Civil War,” in “Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.” Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  14. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  15. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists, in “New Music.” Cleveland Ohio: Morning Daily True Democrat, December 25, 1861.
  16. “The Civil War Bands,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  17. Thomas, Anne Elise. “Music of the Civil War.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  18. Thompson, Beth. in “The Song of All Songs,” in “Beth’s Notes: Supporting and Inspiring Music Educators.” Self-published: Beth Thompson, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  19. Villanueva, Jari. “Hail to the Chief.” Catonsville, Maryland: TapsBugler, January 17, 2025.
  20. “William Dressler” (obituary). Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1914.

 

Through a War Correspondent’s Eyes: The Art of Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer, 1880 (public domain).

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was a Boston native who became one of the most important artists in nineteenth-century America. Best known for his pastoral landscapes and seascapes, he was also a notable chronicler of the lives of average American Civil War-era soldiers.

Apprenticed to Boston lithographer J. H. Bufford during the mid-1850s, he subsequently turned down a job offer by Harper’s Weekly later that same decade to become a staff illustrator, choosing, instead, to make his living as a freelancer and founder of his own art studio in New York City.

American Civil War

“The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field,” Winslow Homer, 12 July 1862 (National Library of Medicine, public domain).

During the early 1860s, however, Winslow Homer was ultimately persuaded to serve as a war correspondent for Harper’s Weekly, leading him to create some of the most evocative illustrations of the American Civil War era.

In 1862, for example, he showed Americans what it was like to be “The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field” by sketching a group of Union Army surgeons and wounded soldiers and then turning that sketch into a powerful illustration for a July edition of Harper’s Weekly. In November of that same year, he documented “A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty,” perched high up in a tree in the Virginia countryside, protecting his fellow members of the Army of the Potomac.

“Thanksgiving in Camp” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 29 November 1862, public domain).

That same month, he also preserved, for all time, a Thanksgiving celebration of one pensive group of Union Army soldiers who were stationed far from the arms of loved ones.

Why Was His Work So Popular?

Homer’s work captured the hearts and minds of Harper’s Weekly readers for three simple reasons. He had a great eye and great instincts to match his great skills as an illustrator.

“Sleeping on Their Arms” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 21 May 1864, public domain).

According to a 2015 Yale News article about Homer by Amy Athey Mcdonald, “Artist-reporters” of the Civil War era “had to be more than merely good draftsmen. They had to be astute observers, have an instinct for story and drama, the ability to sketch quickly and accurately, and no small amount of daring, as they faced battles, injuries, starvation, and disease first hand.”

Post-War Life

After the Civil War ended, Winslow put a fair amount of distance between himself and the United States. In 1866, he traveled to France, where he spent ten months studying and honing his skills. According to the late H. Barbara Weinberg, a renowned American art scholar and former curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, “While there [was] little likelihood of influence from members of the French avante-garde” during this phase of Homer’s life, “Homer shared their subject interests, their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to incorporate into their works outdoor light, flat and simple forms (reinforced by their appreciation of Japanese design principles), and free brushwork.”

Recognized as a master of oil painting in the United States by the 1870s (while still just in his thirties), he also began to explore his talent as a watercolor artist.

“The Cotton Pickers” (Winslow Homer, 1876, public domain).

And, he began to document the post-war lives of men and women who had been freed from chattel enslavement. Painted in oil in 1876, “The Cotton Pickers” illustrated the harsh reality of the Reconstruction era–that many Freedmen and Freedwomen were still engaged in the same backbreaking work that they had endured while enslaved before the war. According to author Carol Strickland, “Although the artist left scant record of his convictions about race, his paintings of Black people are unlike those of his contemporaries.”

“The Gulf Stream” (Winslow Homer, 1899, public domain).

When speaking to Strickland for a 2022 profile of Homer, Associate Professor Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw observed that “before Emancipation, artists had elicited sympathy for enslaved people by portraying them on the auction block, for example. But the market for such work evaporated after the 1860s…. Caricatures derived from minstrel shows appeared in paintings, but ‘it was really unusual for Homer to stake so much on Black subjects connected to Reconstruction.'” His work in this regard, however, was not only limited to the Reconstruction era; in later years, he depicted the struggles of the Black men, women and children that he met while visiting the Bahamas.

“The Life Line” (Winslow Homer, 1884, public domain).

But it was, perhaps, through his paintings of the sea that he became best known to a wider audience across America. According to Weinberg:

He enjoyed isolation and was inspired by privacy and silence to paint the great themes of his career: the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature.

 

Sources:

  1. McDonald, Amy Athey. “As Embedded Artist with the Union Army, Winslow Homer Captured Life at the Front of the Civil War.” New Haven, Connecticut: Yale News, 20 April 2015.
  2. Strickland, Carol. “Not Just Seascapes: Winslow Homer’s Rendering of Black Humanity.” Boston, Massachusetts: The Christian Science Monitor, 7 June 2022.
  3. “Thanksgiving in Camp (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
  4. “The Army of the Potomac — A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
  5. Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Winslow Homer (1836-1910).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004.

 

 

 

The Thanksgiving Messages of Pennsylvania’s Civil War-Era Governor, Andrew Gregg Curtin

Andrew Gregg Curtin, Governor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, circa 1860 (public domain).

Proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving. – 1862.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin.

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, It is a good thing to render thanks unto God for His Mercy and loving kindness:

Therefore, I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do recommend that Thursday the 27th day of November next, be set apart by the people of this Commonwealth, as a day of solemn Prayer and Thanksgiving to the Almighty: – Giving Him thanks that He has been graciously pleased to protect our free institutions and Government, and to keep us from sickness and pestilence; and to cause the earth to bring forth her increase, so that our garners are choked with the harvest; and to look so favorably on the toil of His children, that industry has thriven among us and labor had its reward; and also that He hath delivered us from the hands of our enemies, and filled our officers and men in the field with a loyal and intrepid spirit and given them victory; and that He has poured out upon us (albeit unworthy) other great and manifold blessings:

Beseeching Him to help and govern us, in his steadfast fear and love, and to put into our minds good desires, so that by His continued help we may have a right judgement in all things:

And especially praying Him to give to Christian churches grace to hate the thing which is evil, and to utter the teachings of truth and righteousness, declaring openly the whole counsel of God:

And most heartily entreating Him to bestow upon our Civil Rulers, wisdom and earnestness in council and upon our military leaders zeal and vigor in action, that the fires of rebellion may be quenched, that we, being armed with His defense, may be preserved from all perils, and that hereafter our people living in peace and quietness, may, from generation to generation, reap the abundant fruits of His mercy; and with joy and thankfulness praise and magnify His holy name.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the State at Harrisburg, this twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and the Commonwealth, the eighty-seventh.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Thanksgiving Proclamation. – 1863.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, The President of the United States, by his proclamation, bearing, date on the third day of this month, has invited the citizens of the United States to set apart Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, now I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do hereby recommend, that the people of Pennsylvania do set apart and observe the said day accordingly, and that they do especially return thanks to Almighty God, for the gathered harvests of the fruits of the earth;

For the prosperity with which He has blessed the Industry of our people;

For the general health and welfare which He has graciously bestowed upon them;

And for the crowning mercy by which the blood-thirsty and devastating enemy was driven from our soil by the valor of our brethren freemen of this and other States;

And that they do especially pray for the continuance of the blessings which have been heaped upon us by the Divine Hand;

And for the safety and welfare and success of our brethren in the field, that they may be strengthened to the overthrow and confusion of the rebels now in arms against our beloved country;

So that peace may be restored to all our borders, and the Constitution and laws of the land be everywhere within them re-established and sustained.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the State at Harrisburg, this twenty-eighth day of October in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three and of the Commonwealth, the eighty-eighth.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Thanksgiving Proclamation. – 1864.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin.

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, It is the honored custom of Pennsylvania to set apart, on the recommendation of the Executive, a day for returning thanks to the Giver of all Good, the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls: Now, therefore,

I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor as aforesaid, do recommend that the people throughout the Commonwealth observe Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of November instant, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God,

For the gathered fruits of the earth;

For the continuance of health;

For the prosperity of industry;

For the preservation of good order and tranquility throughout our borders;

For the victories which He has vouchsafed to us over armed traitors,

And for the manifold blessings which he has heaped upon us, unworthy.

And that they do, moreover, humbly beseech Him to renew and increase his merciful favor to us during the year to come, so that rebellion being overthrown, peace may be restored to our distracted country, and, in every State, with grateful and loving accord, the incense of Praise and Thanksgiving may be offered by all the people unto His Holy Name.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the Commonwealth at Harrisburg, this second day of [L. S.] November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four and of the Commonwealth, the eighty-ninth.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Proclamation By the Governor.
The 7th of December Appointed a State Thanksgiving Day.

PROCLAMATION.

With feelings of the most profound gratitude to Almighty God, I invite the good people of the Commonwealth to meet in their places of public worship, on Thursday, the seventh day of December next, and raise their hearts and voices in praise and thanksgiving to Him, not only for the manifest ordinary blessings which, during the past year, He has continued to heap upon us,

For abundant and gathered harvests;

For thriving industry;

For general health;

For domestic good order and government;

But also most expressly and fervently for His unequalled goodness in having so strengthened and guarded our people during the last four years that they have been able to crush to the earth the late wicked rebellion–to exterminate the system of human slavery, which caused it.

As we wrestled in prayer with Him in the dark time of our trouble, when our brothers and sons were staking life and limb for us on a bloody field, or suffering by torture or famine in the hells of Andersonville or the Libby, so now, when our supplications have been so marvellously [sic, marvelously] and graciously answered, let us not withhold from Him the homage of our thanksgiving.

Let us say to all, “Choose, ye, this day, whom he will serve, but for us and our house, we will serve the Lord.”

Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (public domain).

Come, then, ye people whom He hath so helped and led; come, ye war-worn and mutilated men whom He hath spared to return to your dear homes, let us throng the gates of His temples; let us throw ourselves on the knees of our hearts with a wilful joy at the foot of His throne, and render aloud our praise and thanksgiving to Him, because He hath made the right to prevail; because He hath given us the victory; because he has cleansed our land from the stain of human slavery, and because He hath graciously shown forth in the eyes of all men the great truth that no government is so strong as a republic controlled under His guidance by an educated, moral and religious people.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Harrisburg, November 7, 1865.

 

Sources:

  1. Curtin, Andrew Gregg. Proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving – 1862, in Pennsylvania Archives: Fourth Series, Vol. VIII: Papers of the Governors, 1858-1871, Samuel Hazard, John Blair Lynn, William Henry Egle, et. al., editors. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Wm. Stanley Ray, State Printer, 1902.
  2. “Thanksgiving Proclamation.” Reading, Pennsylvania: Gazette and Democrat, November 21, 1863.
  3. “In the Name and by the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of Said Commonwealth: A Proclamation.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Daily Telegraph, November 10, 1864.
  4. “Proclamation by the Governor.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The American Presbyterian, November 10, 1865.