Category Archives: Humanities and the Arts

Building Bailey’s Dam on the Red River, Alexandria, Louisiana, Late April to Mid-May, 1864

 

The Union’s Army of the Gulf marched into Alexandria, Louisiana, during the weekend of April 22, 1864 (Harper’s Weekly, public domain; click to enlarge).

Resupplied with ammunition and food by the Union Navy’s fleet of quartermaster ships after reaching Alexandria, Louisiana on April 26, 1864, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers and other Union infantry and artillery troops were placed temporarily under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey and assigned to the hard labor of fortification work. Throwing their backs into erecting “Bailey’s Dam,” they helped to create a timber dam that was designed by Bailey to enable the Union Navy’s gunboats and other vessels to be able to travel along the Red River without fear of running aground. This construction was undertaken, according to C Company Musician Henry D. Wharton, because:

The water in the Red river had fallen so much that it prevented the gunboats from operating with us, and kept our transports from supplying the troops with rations, (and you know soldiers, like other people, will eat) so Banks was compelled to relinquish his designs on Shreveport and fall back to the Mississippi. To do this a large dam had to be built on the falls at Alexandria to get the ironclads down the river.

Brigadier-General Joseph Bailey, shonw here circa 1865, was responsible for designing and overseeing the construction of Bailey’s Dam nexr Alexandria, Louisiana during the spring of 1864 (public domain).

Historian Steven Clay notes that, by this point in the Red River Campaign, “The depth of the river was only between three and four feet; it took seven feet of water to get the gunboats over the rocky bottom at the rapids.” To make that happen, Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey had initially floated the idea to build a dam while also sinking “several stone-laden barges to block the passage of water and cause the river to pool up behind them.”

There would be three narrow chutes constructed in the middle to allow passage of the largest gunboats. Then when the depth was sufficient, the boats would steam over the rocks, through the passageways, and into safe and deep waters below the dam.

According to archaeologist and military historian Steven D. Smith, Ph.D. and staff of the Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission, “Military engineer Joseph Bailey’s presence with the Red River expedition was, in a sense, one of those coincidences of history that sometimes result in turning the course of events.”

His knowledge of engineering was not acquired through formal study at West Point. Instead, he had learned practical engineering on the Wisconsin frontier, where damming was a skill perfected by lumbermen to float logs to their sawmills.

Born in Ashtabula County, Ohio on May 6, 1827, Bailey grew up in Illinois. In 1850 he moved to Wisconsin, where for the next 20 years he was involved in the construction of dams, mills, and bridges. At the beginning of the war, Bailey formed a company of lumbermen and became a captain. Soon, though, his construction genius was recognized and he was supervising various engineering projects for the North, including construction at Fort Dix in Washington D.C….

In 1863 Bailey won distinction at the battle of Port Hudson. There, despite the scoffs of formally trained military engineers, he constructed a gun emplacement in full sight of rebel fortifications and proceeded to silence the Confederate guns. He also built a dam during the siege to refloat two grounded steamboats.

Christened “Bailey’s Dam” in reference to the Union officer who designed and oversaw its construction, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, this timber dam was built by the Union Army on the Red River near Alexandria, Louisiana in May 1864 to facilitate Union gunboat passage (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

The construction of Bailey’s Dam near Alexandria during the spring of 1864 was described by Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey in a post-construction report to his superiors as follows:

…. Immediately after our army received a check at Sabine Cross-Roads and the retreat commenced I learned through reliable sources that the Red River was rapidly falling. I became assured that by the time the fleet could reach Alexandria there would not be sufficient water to float the gun-boats over the falls. It was evident, therefore, that they were in imminent danger. Believing, as I did, that their capture or destruction would involve the destruction of our army, the blockade of the Mississippi, and even greater disasters to our cause, I proposed to Major-General Franklin on the 9th of April, previous to the battle of Pleasant Hill, to increase the depth of water by means of a dam, and submitted to him my plan of the same. In the course of the conversation he expressed a favorable opinion of it.

During the halt of the army at Grand Ecore on the 17th of April, General Franklin, having heard that the iron-clad gun-boat Eastport had struck a snag on the preceding day and sunk at a point 9 miles below, gave me a letter of introduction to Admiral Porter and directed me to do all in my power to assist in raising the Eastport, and to communicate to the admiral my plan of constructing a dam to relieve the fleet, with his belief in its practicability; also that he thought it advisable that the admiral should at once confer with General Banks and urge him to make the necessary preparations, send for tools, &c. Nothing further was done until after our arrival at Alexandria. On the 26th, the admiral reached the head of the falls. I examined the river and submitted additional details of the proposed dam. General Franklin approved of them and directed me to see the admiral and again urge upon him the necessity of prevailing upon General Banks to order the work to be commenced immediately. There was no doubt that the entire fleet then above the rapids would be lost unless the plan of raising the water by a dam was adopted and put into execution with all possible vigor. I represented that General Franklin had full confidence in the success of the undertaking, and that the admiral might rely upon him for all the assistance in his power. The only preliminary required was an order from General Banks. On the 29th, by order of General Franklin, I consulted with Generals Banks and Hunter, and explained to them the proposed plan in detail. The latter remarked that, although he had little confidence in its feasibility, he nevertheless thought it better to try the experiment, especially as General Franklin, who is an engineer, advised it. Upon this General Banks issued the necessary order for details, teams, &c., and I commenced the work on the morning of the 30th.

I presume it is sufficient in this report to say that the dam was constructed entirely on the plan first given to General Franklin, and approved by him.

During the first few days I had some difficulty in procuring details, &c., but the officers and men soon gained confidence and labored faithfully. The work progressed rapidly, without accident or interruption, except the breaking away of two coal barges which formed part of the dam. This afterward proved beneficial. In addition to the dam at the foot of the falls, I constructed two wing-dams on each side of the river at the head of the falls.

The width of the river at the point where the dam was built is 758 feet, and the depth of the water from 4 to 6 feet. The current is very rapid, running about 10 miles per hour. The increase of depth by the main dam was 5 feet 4 inches; by the wing-dams, 1 foot 2 inches; total, 6 feet 6 inches. On the completion of the dam, we had the gratification of seeing the entire fleet pass over the rapids to a place of safety below, and we found ample reward for our labors in witnessing their result. The army and navy were relieved from a painful suspense, and eight valuable gunboats saved from destruction. The cheers of the masses assembled on the shore when the boats passed down attested their joy and renewed confidence. To Major-General Franklin, who, previous to the commencement of the work, was the only supporter of my proposition to save the fleet by means of a dam, and whose persevering efforts caused its adoption, I desire to return my grateful thanks. I trust the country will join with the Army of the Gulf and the Mississippi Squadron in awarding to him due praise for his earnest and intelligent efforts in their behalf. Major-General Banks promptly issued all necessary orders and assisted me by his constant presence and co-operation. General Dwight, his chief of staff, Colonel Wilson and Lieutenant Sargent, aides-de-camp, also rendered valuable assistance by their personal attention to our wants. Admiral Porter furnished a detail from his ships’ crews, under command of an excellent officer, Captain Langthorne, of the Mound City. All his officers and men were constantly present, and to their extraordinary exertions and to the well-known energy and ability of the admiral much of the success of the undertaking is due….

The crib dam designed by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey to improve the water levels of the Red River near Alexandria, Louisiana, spring 1864 (Joseph Bailey, “Report on the Construction of the Dam Across the Red River,” 1865, public domain).

According to Smith, “Historical documents indicate that Bailey first built his dam just above the lower, downstream rapids.”

By constructing the dam at that particular location, he hoped the water would rise enough behind the dam to allow the gunboats to float over the upper rapids. Then, with the built-up water pressure, the dam could be broken through at the proper time and the gunboats could rush over the lower rapids, carried by the force of the released water.

Following Bailey’s practical nature, the dam was built with any locally available material readily at hand. To do so, he used different methods of construction for each riverbank. On the west (Alexandria) bank, he built the dam of large wooden boxes called cribs. Bailey constructed a number of cribs which were placed side by side from the bank out into the river.

Historical accounts indicate that lumber from Alexandria mills, homes, and barns was quickly stripped for use in building the cribs. Bricks, stone, and even machinery were used to fill and anchor the cribs. Additionally, historical illustrations show that iron bars were placed vertically in the four corners of each crib, to provide a supporting framework….

On the east (Pineville) bank, there were no town buildings to strip for lumber but there was, quite conveniently, a forest. With abundant trees available, Bailey constructed a ‘self-loading’ tree dam. According to historical diagrams, trees were stacked lengthwise with the flow of the stream. The upstream treetops were anchored to the river bottom with stones. The downstream trunks were raised higher than the upstream tops by alternating layers of other logs running perpendicular to, or across, the stream. This technique presented a dam face of logs angled upward with the stream flow. As the river was held back by the log face, the water pressure actually made the dam stronger or ‘self-loading.’

The tree dam designed by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey for the Red River near Alexandria, Louisiana, spring 1864 (Joseph Bailey, “Report on the Construction of the Dam Across the Red River,” 1865, public domain).

Putting readers into the shoes of the Union Army troops on the ground during those days, the 1868 publication, The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, noted that:

Oak, elm, and pine trees … were falling to the ground under the blows of the stalwart pioneers of Maine, bearing with them in their fall trees of lesser growth; mules and oxen were dragging the trees, denuded of their branches, to the river’s bank; wagons heavily loaded were moving in every direction; flat-boats carrying stone were floating with the current, while others were being drawn up the stream in the manner of canal boats. Meanwhile hundreds of men were at work at each end of the dam, moving heavy logs to the outer end of the tree-dam, … wheeling brick out to the cribs, carrying bars of railway iron to the barges, … while on each bank of the river were to be seen thousands of spectators, consisting of officers of both services, groups of sailors, soldiers, camp-followers, and citizens of Alexandria, all eagerly watching our progress and discussing the chances of success.

Initially, according to Smith, the “dam complex” worked well. “By May 6, the water held by the dam had risen 4 feet. By May 8, the water level was up 5 feet 4 inches.” But then the water levels continued to increase to such an extent that “the pressure against the dam became tremendous,” causing the dam to burst.

Two of the barges used in the dam had broken loose, and the water was gushing through. Porter, seeing the crisis, quickly ordered the gunboat Lexington to run the gap….

The Lexington’s run was followed by the three gunboats waiting behind the dam. Had the rest of the fleet been prepared, all of the boats might have escaped at that time. However … valuable time was wasted as the fleet gathered steam to attempt the run. Eventually, the water behind the dam fell and six gunboats still remained trapped.

But the Lexington’s adventure had proven that the dam could work, and troops confidently went back to work. Bailey worried that the dam would break again and decided to leave the 70-foot gap in the dam as it was. But this time he added smaller, lighter dams near the upper rapids. Like the dam sections at the lower rapids, both crib and tree dam methods were employed. These dams helped channel the water while reducing the pressure on the main dam. Thus, instead of relying on one dam to hold back the water until another run could be made, a series of dams were built to create a deep channel of water along the whole course of the shoals in that part of the Red River.

And, at that point, “Bailey’s Dam” became “Bailey’s Dams.”

“Passage of the Fleet of Gunboats Over the Falls at Alexandria, Louisiana, May 1864 (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 16, 1864, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

“While the army labored to build the upper dam, the navy … worked to lighten the loads on the trapped gunboats,” according to Smith.

From May 10 through 12, the remaining gunboats above the rapids struggled through the upper shoals to the pool behind the main dam. Yet another dam had to be built to refloat a gunboat that got stuck during this passage. Then on the twelfth of May, the Mound City, the largest gunboat of the fleet, ran for the gap in the main dam. The previous scene was repeated, with thousands lining the banks to watch the excitement. Marching bands played the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and the ‘Battle Cry for Freedom [sic, ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’].’ Like the Lexington before it, as the Mound City hit the gap, it ground against the rocky river bottom, and then shot through. The next day all of the trapped vessels lay safely below the rapids.

Through it all, members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry put their backs into their work, along with multiple other Union Army soldiers, including men from the 16th and 23rd Ohio Volunteers, the 19th Kentucky, the 23rd and 29th Wisconsin Volunteers, the 24th Iowa, the 24th and 27th Indiana, the 29th Maine, the 77th and 130th Illinois Volunteers, and the 97th and 99th U.S. Colored Infantry.

Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey later stated that his “details labored patiently and enthusiastically by day and night, standing waist deep in the water, under a broiling sun,” adding:

Their reward is the consciousness of having performed their duty as true soldiers, and they deserve the gratitude of their countrymen.

The massive construction project lasted roughly two weeks, according to 47th Pennsylvanian Henry Wharton, but proved to be worth it.

After a great deal of labor this was accomplished and by the morning of May 13th the last one was through the shute [sic], when we bade adieu to Alexandria, marching through the town with banners flying and keeping step to the music of ‘Rally around the flag,’ and ‘When this cruel war is over.’

The Army of the Gulf’s departure, however, also brought shock and heartache; according to Major-General Banks:

Rumors were circulated freely throughout the camp at Alexandria that upon the evacuation of the town it would be burned. To prevent this destruction of property – part of which belonged to loyal citizens – General Grover, commanding the post, was instructed to organize a thorough police, and to provide for its occupation by an armed force until the army had marched for Simmsport [sic, Simmesport]. The measures taken were sufficient to prevent a conflagration in the manner in which it had been anticipated. But on the morning of the evacuation, while the army was in full possession of the town, a fire broke out in a building on the levee, which had been occupied by refugees or soldiers, in such a manner as to make it impossible to prevent a general conflagration. I saw the fire when it was first discovered. The ammunition and ordnance transports and the depot of ammunition on the levee were within a few yards of the fire. The boats were floated into the river and the ammunition moved from the levee with all possible dispatch [sic]. The troops labored with alacrity and vigor to suppress the conflagration, but owing to a high wind and the combustible material of the buildings it was found impossible to limit its progress, and a considerable portion of the town was destroyed.

According to Smith, “It is unclear who started the fires, as some accounts describe soldiers looting and setting fires, while other accounts note that army guards shot looters.” What is known for certain is that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers could not possibly have taken part in Alexandria’s destruction because they had actually left the city before the fire had even begun. According to Henry Wharton:

The next morning, at our camping place, the fleet of boats passed us, when we were informed that Alexandria had been destroyed by fire – the act of a dissatisfied citizen and several negroes. Incendiary acts were strictly forbidden in a general order the day before we left the place, and a cavalry guard was left in the rear to see the order enforced.

Injured or Sick:

Private Abraham Wolf, Company B, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1861 (public domain).

Wolf, Abraham: Private, Company B; developed first signs of rheumatism, a condition that would last for the remainder of his life; also fell ill with chronic diarrhea during the construction of Bailey’s Dam due to poor water quality; subsequently developed hemorrhoids as a direct result of that illness.

Captured and Held as Prisoner of War (POW):

Maul, Adam (alternate spellings: Moll, Moul): Private, Company C; captured by Confederate forces at the Cane River on May 3, 1864 while assigned to duties away from the regiment’s Alexandria, Louisiana encampment—possibly during the construction of Bailey’s Dam; held as a prisoner of war (POW) at Camp Ford, a Confederate Army prison camp near Tyler, Texas until being released as part of a prisoner exchange between the Union and Confederate armies on July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered from his experience, and returned to duty with Company C.

Smith, Frederick: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; captured by Confederate States Army troops during that battle and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until his death on May 4, 1864.

 

Sources:

  1. Bailey, Joseph. “Report on the construction of the dam across the Red River,” in Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, at the Second Session Thirty-Eighth Congress, Red River Expedition, Fort Fisher Expedition, Heavy Ordnance. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1865.
  2. “Bailey’s Dam.” Washington, D.C.: American Battlefield Trust, retrieved online May 6, 2024.
  3. “Bailey’s Dam,” in Anthropological Study No. 8. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission, Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, March 1986.
  4. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  5. Clay, Steven E. The Staff Ride Handbook for the Red River Campaign, 7 March-19 May 1864. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Centers, 2023.
  6. Dollar, Susan E. “The Red River Campaign, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana: A Case of Equal Opportunity Destruction,” in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 43, no. 4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 411-432, accessed April 22, 2024. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana Historical Association.
  7. Moore, Frank, editor. “The Red River Dam,” in The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, vol. 11, pp. 11-12. New York, New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868.
  8. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  9. “Report of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, U. S. Army, Commanding Expedition and Department of the Gulf” (to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War), in Annual Report of the Secretary of War, in Message of the President of the United States, and Accompanying Documents, to the Two Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866.
  10. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  11. The History of the Forty-Seventh Regt. P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, July 20, 1870.

 

The Lieber Code: President Abraham Lincoln Formalizes the Code of Conduct for the Union Army (April 24, 1863)

 

Professor Francis Lieber, circa 1860s (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Issued by President Abraham Lincoln on April 24, 1863 as “General Orders, No. 100: Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field,” the “Lieber Code” defined how regular and volunteer military personnel in service to the United States were expected to behave toward one another, toward civilians and toward those they considered to be the enemy—Confederate States government officials, sailors, soldiers, spies, and others supporting the Confederacy.

Those instructions were researched and drafted by Francis Lieber, a native of the Kingdom of Prussia who became a professor of American history and political science in South Carolina roughly a decade after arriving as an immigrant in the United States. Professor Lieber, who later joined the faculty of what is, today, Columbia University, also became known for his creation of the maxim, “Nullum jus sine officio, nullum officium sine jure” (translation: “No right without its duties, no duty without its rights”), which was inscribed on his personal stationery.

According to Jenny Gesley, Ph.D., a legal specialist at the United States Library of Congress, Professor Lieber “had been imprisoned as an ‘enemy of the state,’” while still a resident of Prussia “due to his liberal nationalist views and his opposition to Prussia’s political system.”

His book “On Civil Liberty and Self Government” (1853) was a bestseller and was eventually adopted as a standard college textbook. Even though he was widely known and respected in the academic community, he felt like an outsider in South Carolina, in particular because of his opposition to slavery. In 1857, he therefore accepted a position in the department of history and political science at Columbia College, the future Columbia University, and subsequently a position in Columbia Law School.

…. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, President Lincoln wanted to provide instructions to Union officers on the particularly complicated legal issues arising from non-international armed conflicts. Among these issues were whether to treat captured Confederate soldiers as traitors subject to the death penalty or as prisoners of war (POWs) and the treatment of fugitive or freed slaves…. Lieber and a committee of four generals were therefore asked to draw up a manual for Union soldiers….

By the time that the Lieber Code was finalized, it contained one hundred and fifty-seven provisions, including several that addressed “the treatment of fugitive and freed slaves that entered the Union territory.” According to Dr. Gesley:

Lieber took the view that international law did not distinguish between people based on color (Art. 58) and that the law of nature and nations has never acknowledged slavery (Art. 42). He therefore included provisions that held that fugitive slaves that escaped to the North became free (Arts. 42, 43) and that all soldiers no matter their skin color must be awarded POW status (Art.57).

The Lieber Code also spelled out how civilians and miliary prisoners of war (POWs) should be treated. The following were among the most enlightening provisions of this new code of conduct:

Article 15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy’s country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.

Article 16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty—that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

Article 17 (no longer permitted under present-day international laws). War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy….

Article 21. The citizen or native of a hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of the war.

Article 22. Nevertheless, as civilization has advanced during the last centuries, so has likewise steadily advanced, especially in war on land, the distinction between the private individual belonging to a hostile country and the hostile country itself, with its men in arms. The principle has been more and more acknowledged that the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit.

Article 23. Private citizens are no longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts, and the inoffensive individual is as little disturbed in his private relations as the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overruling demands of a vigorous war….

Article 26. Commanding generals may cause the magistrates and civil officers of the hostile country to take the oath of temporary allegiance or an oath of fidelity to their own victorious government or rulers, and they may expel everyone who declines to do so. But whether they do so or not, the people and their civil officers owe strict obedience to them as long as they hold sway over the district or country, at the peril of their lives….

Article 35. Commanding generals may cause the magistrates and civil officers of the hostile country to take the oath of temporary allegiance or an oath of fidelity to their own victorious government or rulers, and they may expel everyone who declines to do so. But whether they do so or not, the people and their civil officers owe strict obedience to them as long as they hold sway over the district or country, at the peril of their lives.

Article 36. If such works of art, libraries, collections, or instruments belonging to a hostile nation or government, can be removed without injury, the ruler of the conquering state or nation may order them to be seized and removed for the benefit of the said nation. The ultimate ownership is to be settled by the ensuing treaty of peace. In no case shall they be sold or given away, if captured by the armies of the United States, nor shall they ever be privately appropriated, or wantonly destroyed or injured.

Article 37. The United States acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; strictly private property; the persons of the inhabitants, especially those of women: and the sacredness of domestic relations. Offenses to the contrary shall be rigorously punished. This rule does not interfere with the right of the victorious invader to tax the people or their property, to levy forced loans, to billet soldiers, or to appropriate property, especially houses, lands, boats or ships, and churches, for temporary and military uses.

Article 38. Private property, unless forfeited by crimes or by offenses of the owner, can be seized only by way of military necessity, for the support or other benefit of the army or of the United States. If the owner has not fled, the commanding officer will cause receipts to be given, which may serve the spoliated owner to obtain indemnity….

Article 42.  Slavery, complicating and confounding the ideas of property, (that is of a thing,) and of personality, (that is of humanity,) exists according to municipal or local law only. The law of nature and nations has never acknowledged it. The digest of the Roman law enacts the early dictum of the pagan jurist, that “so far as the law of nature is concerned, all men are equal.” Fugitives escaping from a country in which they were slaves, villains, or serfs, into another country, have, for centuries past, been held free and acknowledged free by judicial decisions of European countries, even though the municipal law of the country in which the slave had taken refuge acknowledged slavery within its own dominions.

Article 43. Therefore, in a war between the United States and a belligerent which admits of slavery, if a person held in bondage by that belligerent be captured by or come as a fugitive under the protection of the military forces of the United States, such person is immediately entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. To return such person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free person, and neither the United States nor any officer under their authority can enslave any human being. Moreover, a person so made free by the law of war is under the shield of the law of nations, and the former owner or State can have, by the law of postliminy, no belligerent lien or claim of service.

Article 44. All wanton violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of property not commanded by the authorized officer, all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense. A soldier, officer or private, in the act of committing such violence, and disobeying a superior ordering him to abstain from it, may be lawfully killed on the spot by such superior….

Article 47. Crimes punishable by all penal codes, such as arson, murder, maiming, assaults, highway robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, forgery, and rape, if committed by an American soldier in a hostile country against its inhabitants, are not only punishable as at home, but in all cases in which death is not inflicted, the severer punishment shall be preferred.

Article 48. Deserters from the American Army, having entered the service of the enemy, suffer death if they fall again into the hands of the United States, whether by capture, or being delivered up to the American Army; and if a deserter from the enemy, having taken service in the Army of the United States, is captured by the enemy, and punished by them with death or otherwise, it is not a breach against the law and usages of war, requiring redress or retaliation.

Article 49. A prisoner of war is a public enemy armed or attached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation. All soldiers, of whatever species of arms; all men who belong to the rising en masse of the hostile country; all those who are attached to the army for its efficiency and promote directly the object of the war, except such as are hereinafter provided for; all disabled men or officers on the field or elsewhere, if captured; all enemies who have thrown away their arms and ask for quarter, are prisoners of war, and as such exposed to the inconveniences as well as entitled to the privileges of a prisoner of war.

Article 50. Moreover, citizens who accompany an army for whatever purpose, such as sutlers, editors, or reporters of journals, or contractors, if captured, may be made prisoners of war, and be detained as such. The monarch and members of the hostile reigning family, male or female, the chief, and chief officers of the hostile government, its diplomatic agents, and all persons who are of particular and singular use and benefit to the hostile army or its government, are, if captured on belligerent ground, and if unprovided with a safe conduct granted by the captor’s government, prisoners of war.

Article 51. If the people of that portion of an invaded country which is not yet occupied by the enemy, or of the whole country, at the approach of a hostile army, rise, under a duly authorized levy en masse to resist the invader, they are now treated as public enemies, and, if captured, are prisoners of war.

Article 52. No belligerent has the right to declare that he will treat every captured man in arms of a levy en masse as a brigand or bandit. If, however, the people of a country, or any portion of the same, already occupied by an army, rise against it, they are violators of the laws of war, and are not entitled to their protection.

Article 53. The enemy’s chaplains, officers of the medical staff, apothecaries, hospital nurses and servants, if they fall into the hands of the American Army, are not prisoners of war, unless the commander has reasons to retain them. In this latter case; or if, at their own desire, they are allowed to remain with their captured companions, they are treated as prisoners of war, and may be exchanged if the commander sees fit….

Article 56. A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death or any other barbarity.

Article 57. So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign government and takes the soldier’s oath of fidelity, he is a belligerent; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are not individual crimes or offenses. No belligerent has a right to declare that enemies of a certain class, color, or condition, when properly organized as soldiers, will not be treated by him as public enemies.

Article 58. The law of nations knows no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint. The United States cannot retaliate by enslavement; therefore death must be the retaliation for this crime against the law of nations.

Article 59. A prisoner of war remains answerable for his crimes committed against the captor’s army or people, committed before he was captured, and for which he has not been punished by his own authorities. All prisoners of war are liable to the infliction of retaliatory measures.

Article 60. It is against the usage of modern war to resolve, in hatred and revenge, to give no quarter. No body of troops has the right to declare that it will not give, and therefore will not expect, quarter; but a commander is permitted to direct his troops to give no quarter, in great straits, when his own salvation makes it impossible to cumber himself with prisoners.

Article 61. Troops that give no quarter have no right to kill enemies already disabled on the ground, or prisoners captured by other troops.

Article 62. All troops of the enemy known or discovered to give no quarter in general, or to any portion of the army, receive none.

Article 63. Troops who fight in the uniform of their enemies, without any plain, striking, and uniform mark of distinction of their own, can expect no quarter….

Article 65. The use of the enemy’s national standard, flag, or other emblem of nationality, for the purpose of deceiving the enemy in battle, is an act of perfidy by which they lose all claim to the protection of the laws of war….

Article 67. The law of nations allows every sovereign government to make war upon another sovereign state, and, therefore, admits of no rules or laws different from those of regular warfare, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, although they may belong to the army of a government which the captor may consider as a wanton and unjust assailant.

Article 68. Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war. Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful.

Article 69. Outposts, sentinels, or pickets are not to be fired upon, except to drive them in, or when a positive order, special or general, has been issued to that effect.

Article 70. The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the law and usages of war.

Article 71. Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death, if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the Army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed.

Article 72. Money and other valuables on the person of a prisoner, such as watches or jewelry, as well as extra clothing, are regarded by the American Army as the private property of the prisoner, and the appropriation of such valuables or money is considered dishonorable, and is prohibited. Nevertheless, if large sums are found upon the persons of prisoners, or in their possession, they shall be taken from them, and the surplus, after providing for their own support, appropriated for the use of the army, under the direction of the commander, unless otherwise ordered by the government. Nor can prisoners claim, as private property, large sums found and captured in their train, although they have been placed in the private luggage of the prisoners.

Article 73. All officers, when captured, must surrender their side arms to the captor. They may be restored to the prisoner in marked cases, by the commander, to signalize admiration of his distinguished bravery or approbation of his humane treatment of prisoners before his capture. The captured officer to whom they may be restored can not wear them during captivity.

Article 74. A prisoner of war, being a public enemy, is the prisoner of the government, and not of the captor. No ransom can be paid by a prisoner of war to his individual captor or to any officer in command. The government alone releases captives, according to rules prescribed by itself.

Article 75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement or imprisonment such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity according to the demands of safety.

Article 76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and wholesome food whenever practicable, and treated with humanity. They may be required to work for the benefit of the captor’s government, according to their rank and condition.

Article 77. A prisoner of war who escapes may be shot, or otherwise killed in his flight; but neither death nor any other punishment shall be inflicted upon him simply for the attempt to escape, which the law of war does not consider a crime. Stricter means of security shall be used after an unsuccessful attempt at escape. If, however, a conspiracy is discovered, the purpose of which is a united or general escape, the conspirators may be rigorously punished, even with death; and capital punishment may also be inflicted upon prisoners of war discovered to have plotted rebellion against the authorities of the captors, whether in union with fellow prisoners or other persons.

Article 78. If prisoners of war, having given no pledge nor made any promise on their honor, forcibly or otherwise escape, and are captured again in battle after having rejoined their own army, they shall not be punished for their escape, but shall be treated as simple prisoners of war, although they will be subjected to stricter confinement.

Article 79. Every captured wounded enemy shall be medically treated, according to the ability of the medical staff.

Article 80. Honorable men, when captured, will abstain from giving to the enemy information concerning their own army, and the modern law of war permits no longer the use of any violence against prisoners in order to extort the desired information or to punish them for having given false information.

Article 81. Partisans are soldiers armed and wearing the uniform of their army, but belonging to a corps which acts detached from the main body for the purpose of making inroads into the territory occupied by the enemy. If captured, they are entitled to all the privileges of the prisoner of war.

Article 82. Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers—such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

Article 83. Scouts, or single soldiers, if disguised in the dress of the country or in the uniform of the army hostile to their own, employed in obtaining information, if found within or lurking about the lines of the captor, are treated as spies, and suffer death.

Article 84. Armed prowlers, by whatever names they may be called, or persons of the enemy’s territory, who steal within the lines of the hostile army for the purpose of robbing, killing, or of destroying bridges, roads or canals, or of robbing or destroying the mail, or of cutting the telegraph wires, are not entitled to the privileges of the prisoner of war.

Article 85. War-rebels are persons within an occupied territory who rise in arms against the occupying or conquering army, or against the authorities established by the same. If captured, they may suffer death, whether they rise singly, in small or large bands, and whether called upon to do so by their own, but expelled, government or not. They are not prisoners of war; nor are they if discovered and secured before their conspiracy has matured to an actual rising or armed violence….

Article 88. A spy is a person who secretly, in disguise or under false pretense, seeks information with the intention of communicating it to the enemy. The spy is punishable with death by hanging by the neck, whether or not he succeeds in obtaining the information or in conveying it to the enemy.

Article 89. If a citizen of the United States obtains information in a legitimate manner, and betrays it to the enemy, be he a military or civil officer, or a private citizen, he shall suffer death.

Article 90. A traitor under the law of war, or a war-traitor, is a person in a place or district under Martial Law who, unauthorized by the military commander, gives information of any kind to the enemy, or holds intercourse with him.

Article 91. The war-traitor is always severely punished. If his offense consists in betraying to the enemy anything concerning the condition, safety, operations, or plans of the troops holding or occupying the place or district, his punishment is death.

Article 92. If the citizen or subject of a country or place invaded or conquered gives information to his own government, from which he is separated by the hostile army, or to the army of his government, he is a war-traitor, and death is the penalty of his offense….

Article 94. No person having been forced by the enemy to serve as guide is punishable for having done so.

Article 95. If a citizen of a hostile and invaded district voluntarily serves as a guide to the enemy, or offers to do so, he is deemed a war-traitor, and shall suffer death.

Article 96. A citizen serving voluntarily as a guide against his own country commits treason, and will be dealt with according to the law of his country.

Article 97. Guides, when it is clearly proved that they have misled intentionally, may be put to death.

Article 98. An unauthorized or secret communication with the enemy is considered treasonable by the law of war. Foreign residents in an invaded or occupied territory, or foreign visitors in the same, can claim no immunity from this law. They may communicate with foreign parts, or with the inhabitants of the hostile country, so far as the military authority permits, but no further. Instant expulsion from the occupied territory would be the very least punishment for the infraction of this rule.

Article 99. A messenger carrying written dispatches or verbal messages from one portion of the army, or from a besieged place, to another portion of the same army, or its government, if armed, and in the uniform of his army, and if captured, while doing so, in the territory occupied by the enemy, is treated by the captor as a prisoner of war. If not in uniform, nor a soldier, the circumstances connected with his capture must determine the disposition that shall be made of him.

Article 100. A messenger or agent who attempts to steal through the territory occupied by the enemy, to further, in any manner, the interests of the enemy, if captured, is not entitled to the privileges of the prisoner of war, and may be dealt with according to the circumstances of the case.

Article 101. While deception in war is admitted as a just and necessary means of hostility, and is consistent with honorable warfare, the common law of war allows even capital punishment for clandestine or treacherous attempts to injure an enemy, because they are so dangerous, and it is difficult to guard against them.

Article 102. The law of war, like the criminal law regarding other offenses, makes no difference on account of the difference of sexes, concerning the spy, the war-traitor, or the war-rebel.

Article 103. Spies, war-traitors, and war-rebels are not exchanged according to the common law of war. The exchange of such persons would require a special cartel, authorized by the government, or, at a great distance from it, by the chief commander of the army in the field….

Article 105. Exchanges of prisoners take place—number for number—rank for rank wounded for wounded—with added condition for added condition—such, for instance, as not to serve for a certain period.

Article 106. In exchanging prisoners of war, such numbers of persons of inferior rank may be substituted as an equivalent for one of superior rank as may be agreed upon by cartel, which requires the sanction of the government, or of the commander of the army in the field.

Article 107. A prisoner of war is in honor bound truly to state to the captor his rank; and he is not to assume a lower rank than belongs to him, in order to cause a more advantageous exchange, nor a higher rank, for the purpose of obtaining better treatment. Offenses to the contrary have been justly punished by the commanders of released prisoners, and may be good cause for refusing to release such prisoners.

Article 108. The surplus number of prisoners of war remaining after an exchange has taken place is sometimes released either for the payment of a stipulated sum of money, or, in urgent cases, of provision, clothing, or other necessaries. Such arrangement, however, requires the sanction of the highest authority.

Article 109. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of convenience to both belligerents. If no general cartel has been concluded, it cannot be demanded by either of them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners of war. A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has violated it.

Article 110. No exchange of prisoners shall be made except after complete capture, and after an accurate account of them, and a list of the captured officers, has been taken.

Article 111. The bearer of a flag of truce cannot insist upon being admitted. He must always be admitted with great caution. Unnecessary frequency is carefully to be avoided.

Article 112. If the bearer of a flag of truce offer himself during an engagement, he can be admitted as a very rare exception only. It is no breach of good faith to retain such flag of truce, if admitted during the engagement. Firing is not required to cease on the appearance of a flag of truce in battle.

Article 113. If the bearer of a flag of truce, presenting himself during an engagement, is killed or wounded, it furnishes no ground of complaint whatever.

Article 114. If it be discovered, and fairly proved, that a flag of truce has been abused for surreptitiously obtaining military knowledge, the bearer of the flag thus abusing his sacred character is deemed a spy. So sacred is the character of a flag of truce, and so necessary is its sacredness, that while its abuse is an especially heinous offense, great caution is requisite, on the other hand, in convicting the bearer of a flag of truce as a spy.

Article 115. It is customary to designate by certain flags (usually yellow) the hospitals in places which are shelled, so that the besieging enemy may avoid firing on them. The same has been done in battles, when hospitals are situated within the field of the engagement….

Article 119. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity by exchange, and, under certain circumstances, also by parole.

Article 120. The term Parole designates the pledge of individual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain acts after he who gives his parole shall have been dismissed, wholly or partially, from the power of the captor….

Article 122. The parole applies chiefly to prisoners of war whom the captor allows to return to their country, or to live in greater freedom within the captor’s country or territory, on conditions stated in the parole.

Article 123. Release of prisoners of war by exchange is the general rule; release by parole is the exception.

Article 124. Breaking the parole is punished with death when the person breaking the parole is captured again. Accurate lists, therefore, of the paroled persons must be kept by the belligerents.

Article 125. When paroles are given and received there must be an exchange of two written documents, in which the name and rank of the paroled individuals are accurately and truthfully stated.

Article 126. Commissioned officers only are allowed to give their parole, and they can give it only with the permission of their superior, as long as a superior in rank is within reach.

Article 127. No noncommissioned officer or private can give his parole except through an officer. Individual paroles not given through an officer are not only void, but subject the individuals giving them to the punishment of death as deserters. The only admissible exception is where individuals, properly separated from their commands, have suffered long confinement without the possibility of being paroled through an officer.

Article 128. No paroling on the battlefield; no paroling of entire bodies of troops after a battle; and no dismissal of large numbers of prisoners, with a general declaration that they are paroled, is permitted, or of any value.

Article 129. In capitulations for the surrender of strong places or fortified camps the commanding officer, in cases of urgent necessity, may agree that the troops under his command shall not fight again during the war, unless exchanged.

Article 130. The usual pledge given in the parole is not to serve during the existing war, unless exchanged. This pledge refers only to the active service in the field, against the paroling belligerent or his allies actively engaged in the same war. These cases of breaking the parole are patent acts, and can be visited with the punishment of death; but the pledge does not refer to internal service, such as recruiting or drilling the recruits, fortifying places not besieged, quelling civil commotions, fighting against belligerents unconnected with the paroling belligerents, or to civil or diplomatic service for which the paroled officer may be employed.

Article 131. If the government does not approve of the parole, the paroled officer must return into captivity, and should the enemy refuse to receive him, he is free of his parole.

Article 132. A belligerent government may declare, by a general order, whether it will allow paroling, and on what conditions it will allow it. Such order is communicated to the enemy.

Article 133. No prisoner of war can be forced by the hostile government to parole himself, and no government is obliged to parole prisoners of war, or to parole all captured officers, if it paroles any. As the pledging of the parole is an individual act, so is paroling, on the other hand, an act of choice on the part of the belligerent.

Article 134. The commander of an occupying army may require of the civil officers of the enemy, and of its citizens, any pledge he may consider necessary for the safety or security of his army, and upon their failure to give it he may arrest, confine, or detain them….

Article 144. So soon as a capitulation is signed, the capitulator has no right to demolish, destroy, or injure the works, arms, stores, or ammunition, in his possession, during the time which elapses between the signing and the execution of the capitulation, unless otherwise stipulated in the same….

Article 146. Prisoners taken in the act of breaking an armistice must be treated as prisoners of war, the officer alone being responsible who gives the order for such a violation of an armistice. The highest authority of the belligerent aggrieved may demand redress for the infraction of an armistice….

Article 148. The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

Article 149. Insurrection is the rising of people in arms against their government, or a portion of it, or against one or more of its laws, or against an officer or officers of the government. It may be confined to mere armed resistance, or it may have greater ends in view.

Article 150. Civil war is war between two or more portions of a country or state, each contending for the mastery of the whole, and each claiming to be the legitimate government. The term is also sometimes applied to war of rebellion, when the rebellious provinces or portions of the state are contiguous to those containing the seat of government.

Article 151. The term rebellion is applied to an insurrection of large extent, and is usually a war between the legitimate government of a country and portions of provinces of the same who seek to throw off their allegiance to it and set up a government of their own….

Article 153. Treating captured rebels as prisoners of war, exchanging them, concluding of cartels, capitulations, or other warlike agreements with them; addressing officers of a rebel army by the rank they may have in the same; accepting flags of truce; or, on the other hand, proclaiming Martial Law in their territory, or levying war-taxes or forced loans, or doing any other act sanctioned or demanded by the law and usages of public war between sovereign belligerents, neither proves nor establishes an acknowledgment of the rebellious people, or of the government which they may have erected, as a public or sovereign power. Nor does the adoption of the rules of war toward rebels imply an engagement with them extending beyond the limits of these rules. It is victory in the field that ends the strife and settles the future relations between the contending parties.

Article 154. Treating, in the field, the rebellious enemy according to the law and usages of war has never prevented the legitimate government from trying the leaders of the rebellion or chief rebels for high treason, and from treating them accordingly, unless they are included in a general amnesty.

Article 155. All enemies in regular war are divided into two general classes—that is to say, into combatants and noncombatants, or unarmed citizens of the hostile government. The military commander of the legitimate government, in a war of rebellion, distinguishes between the loyal citizen in the revolted portion of the country and the disloyal citizen. The disloyal citizens may further be classified into those citizens known to sympathize with the rebellion without positively aiding it, and those who, without taking up arms, give positive aid and comfort to the rebellious enemy without being bodily forced thereto.

Article 156. Common justice and plain expediency require that the military commander protect the manifestly loyal citizens, in revolted territories, against the hardships of the war as much as the common misfortune of all war admits. The commander will throw the burden of the war, as much as lies within his power, on the disloyal citizens, of the revolted portion or province, subjecting them to a stricter police than the noncombatant enemies have to suffer in regular war; and if he deems it appropriate, or if his government demands of him that every citizen shall, by an oath of allegiance, or by some other manifest act, declare his fidelity to the legitimate government, he may expel, transfer, imprison, or fine the revolted citizens who refuse to pledge themselves anew as citizens obedient to the law and loyal to the government. Whether it is expedient to do so, and whether reliance can be placed upon such oaths, the commander or his government have the right to decide.

Article 157. Armed or unarmed resistance by citizens of the United States against the lawful movements of their troops is levying war against the United States, and is therefore treason.

 

Sources:

  1. “A Maxim” (letter to the editor explaining the origins of Francis Lieber’s maxim, “Nullum jus sine officio”), in The American Historical Record, vol. 1, no. 2 (February 1872), pp. 80-81. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Chase & Town Publishers, 1872.
  2. Carnahan, Burrus. “Global Impact: The Lincoln Administration and the Development of International Law.” Washington, D.C.: President Lincoln’s Cottage, May 9, 2016.
  3. “General Orders 100: The Lieber Code,” in “The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy.” New Haven, Connecticut: Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, Yale University, retrieved online April 3, 2024.
  4. Gesley, Jenny. “The ‘Lieber Code’—the First Modern Codification of the Laws of War,” in “In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online April 3, 2024.
  5. Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., editors. “Lieber, Francis,” in New International Encyclopedia (first edition). New York, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905.
  6. Lieber, Francis. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1898.
  7. “The Laws of War: The Lieber Codes.” Andersonville, Georgia: Andersonville National Historic Site, U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 3, 2024.

 

 

Battle of Monett’s Ferry/Cane River, Louisiana, April 23, 1864

 

Breastworks manned by the 1st Missouri Artillery, Grand Ecore, Louisiana (C. E. H. Bonwill, illustrator, public domain).

As seventeen 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen were being spirited away to Texas for imprisonment by Confederate troops at Camp Ford, following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana in mid-April 1864, the remaining members of their regiment were receiving orders to march for the village of Grand Ecore as part of a massive retreat by the Union’s Army of the Gulf that was commanded by Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks. Upon their arrival, the Union infantry and artillery troops reconnected with the Union Navy’s fleet of quartermaster ships that were carrying food and fresh ammunition for them. They then “immediately began entrenching,” according to military historian Lieutenant-Colonel Steven E. Clay (U.S. Army, retired).

On 11 April, two days after the battle at Pleasant Hill, Banks’ engineer officers supervised the layout and construction of a three-mile, semicircular line of entrenchments around the little hamlet. The works were substantial and utilized, in part, existing works previously prepared by [Confederate General Richard] Taylor’s men. The infantry troops felled large trees to build breastworks and reinforce the earthworks. The engineers constructed abatis and other obstacles, while the artillerymen built battery positions along likely avenues of approach. Each location was chosen to take advantage of the high ground and maximize kill zones. Though there was some skirmishing around Grand Ecore and later at Alexandria, the works were never seriously challenged by Taylor’s forces. The Confederate commander simply did not have enough men to make costly frontal assaults against entrenched troops.

* Note: Prior to that return to Grand Ecore, Banks was initially planning to continue with his original Red River Campaign objective to march his Army of the Gulf to Shreveport. According to historian Steven Clay:

Apparently buoyed by the army’s performance at Chapman’s Bayou and Pleasant Hill, Banks’ confidence had returned. Indeed, he even dispatched a message to Lee to turn around the trains and bring them back. Smith was in agreement with commanding general’s decision and rode off to tend to his troops and prepare them for the advance. All this, however, was before Banks met with other generals later that evening.

That plan changed, however, when three of Banks’ senior generals—Emory, Franklin and Mower—expressed their concerns about the feasibility of the proposed march “for several reasons.”

First, on the army’s present route there was no easy access to Porter’s naval support until arrival at Shreveport. Also, Banks’ next resupply of food and ammunition was located on the transports moving with Porter. Additionally, Emory’s division was almost out of food.

Second, no one knew the status of Porter’s flotilla, whether it was still moving north or if it had been captured or destroyed. There was no word even on whether Porter could reach Shreveport given the falling water level. Third, Banks had not heard anything regarding Steele’s progress in Arkansas. Was that column still en route, or had it met disaster? Fourth, it was now 10 April and Banks only had five days to capture Shreveport before Smith’s troops had to depart for Memphis. Was it possible to reach the city and take it in five days? Finally, there was still the lack of water in the pine barrens and precious little remained at Pleasant Hill. What was remaining would be gone by the morrow. Franklin offered that the army should march for Blair’s Landing to link there with Porter and be resupplied. From there a decision could be made about what to do next. Emory concurred. Dwight, Banks’ closest confidant, suggested that the army return to Grand Ecore since nothing had been heard from Porter. After considering the three options, Banks gave in, but selected the advice of the most junior general, Dwight.

Scrapping most of his original campaign objectives on 20 April 1864, Banks ordered the Army of the Gulf to retreat further—this time to Alexandria. That move unfolded over a period of several days, beginning with the departure of one of the Union’s cavalry units at 5 p.m. on 21 April.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers departed the next day. While marching toward Alexandria, they were attacked again—this time at the rear of their retreating brigade but were able to quickly end the encounter and continue on, reaching Cloutierville at 10 p.m. that same night—after a forty-five-mile trek.

Battle of Monett’s Ferry and the Cane River Crossing

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were stationed just to the left of the “Thick Woods” with Emory’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Division as shown on this map of Union troop positions for the Battle of Cane River Crossing at Monett’s Ferry, Louisiana, April 23, 1864 (Major-General Nathaniel Banks’ official Red River Campaign Report, public domain; click to enlarge).

The next morning (23 April 1864), episodic skirmishing with Confederate troops quickly roared into the flames of a robust fight. As part of the advance party led by Union Brigadier-General William Emory, the 47th Pennsylvanians took on the Confederate cavalry of Brigadier-General Hamilton P. Bee in the Battle of Monett’s Ferry (also known as “the Affair at Monett’s Ferry” or the “Battle of Cane River/the Cane River Crossing”).

Responding to a barrage from the Confederate artillery’s twenty-pound Parrott guns and raking fire from enemy troops situated near a bayou and on a bluff, Brigadier-General Emory directed one of his brigades to keep Bee’s Confederates busy while sending his other two brigades to find a safe spot where his Union troops could ford the Cane River. As part of the “beekeepers,” the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers supported Emory’s artillery.

Meanwhile, other troops serving with Emory’s brigade attacked Bee’s flank to force a Rebel retreat, and then erected a series of pontoon bridges that enabled the 47th and other remaining Union soldiers to make the Cane River Crossing by the next day. As the Confederates retreated, the Rebels torched their own food stores, as well as the cotton supplies of their fellow southerners.

U.S. Army of the Gulf crosses the Cane River following the Battle of Monett’s Ferry, April 23, 1864 (Harper’s Weekly, public domain; click to enlarge).

In a letter penned from Morganza, Louisiana on 29 May, Henry Wharton described what had happened to the 47th Pennsylvanians during and immediately after making camp at Grand Ecore:

Our sojourn at Grand Ecore was for eleven days, during which time our position was well fortified by entrenchments for a length of five miles, made of heavy logs, five feet high and six feet wide, filled in with dirt. In front of this, trees were felled for a distance of two hundred yards, so that if the enemy attacked we had an open space before us which would enable our forces to repel them and follow if necessary. But our labor seemed to the men as useless, for on the morning of 22d April, the army abandoned these works and started for Alexandria. From our scouts it was ascertained that the enemy had passed some miles to our left with the intention of making a stand against our right at Bayou Cane, where there is a high bluff and dense woods, and at the same attack Smith’s forces who were bringing up the rear. This first day was a hard one on the boys, for by ten o’clock at night they made Cloutierville, a distance of forty-five miles. On that day the rear was attacked which caused our forces to reverse their front and form in line of battle, expecting too, to go back to the relief of Smith, but he needed no assistance, sending word to the front that he had ‘whipped them, and could do it again.’ It was well that Banks made so long a march on that day, for on the next we found the enemy prepared to carry out their design of attacking us front and rear. Skirmishing commenced early in the morning and as our columns advanced he fell back towards the bayou, when we soon discovered the position of their batteries on the bluff. There was then an artillery duel by the smaller pieces, and some sharp fighting by the cavalry, when the ‘mule battery,’ twenty pound Parrott guns, opened a heavy fire, which soon dislodged them, forcing the chivalry to flee in a manner not at all suitable to their boasted courage. Before this one cavalry, the 3d Brigade of the 1st Div., and Birges’ brigade of the second, had crossed the bayou and were doing good service, which, with the other work, made the enemy show their heels. The 3d brigade done some daring deeds in this fight, as also did the cavalry. In one instance the 3d charged up a hill almost perpendicular, driving the enemy back by the bayonet without firing a gun. The woods on this bluff was so thick that the cavalry had to dismount and fight on foot. During the whole of the day, our brigade, the 2d was supporting artillery, under fire all the time, and could not give Mr. Reb a return shot.

While we were fighting in front, Smith was engaged some miles in the rear, but he done his part well and drove them back. The rebel commanders thought by attacking us in the rear, and having a large face on the bluffs, they would be able to capture our train and take us all prisoners, but in this they were mistaken, for our march was so rapid that we were on them before they had thrown up the necessary earthworks. Besides they underrated the amount of our artillery, calculating from the number engaged at Pleasant Hill. The rebel prisoners say it ‘seems as though the Yankees manufacture, on short notice, artillery to order, and the men are furnished with wings when they wish to make a certain point.

The damage done to the Confederate cause by the burning of cotton was immense. On the night of the 22d our route was lighted up for miles and millions of dollars worth of this production was destroyed. This loss will be felt more by Davis & Co., than several defeats in this region, for the basis of the loan in England was on the cotton of Western Louisiana.’

After the rebels had fled from the bluff the negro troops put down the pontoons, and by ten that night we were six miles beyond the bayou safely encamped. The next morning we moved forward and in two days were in Alexandria. Johnnys followed Smith’s forces, keeping out of range of his guns, except when he had gained the eminence across the bayou, when he punished them (the rebs) severely.

* Note: According to historian Steven Clay, sometime before or during this engagement, engineers from the Army of the Gulf were sent back to the Cane River (on 23 April) in order to lay out a pontoon bridge near Monett’s Ferry, an objective they completed by or before 7 p.m.

All that night, the army retreated over the river and completed the crossing by noon the following day. The pontoon bridge was laid twice more during the retreat of the Army of the Gulf toward Simmesport [giving] the Army of the Gulf a significant mobility capacity that enabled it to easily cross what might otherwise have been major impediments to the movement of the force.

Killed or Wounded in Action:

Private Reuben Moyer Sheaffer, Company H, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (shown circa 1860s-1870s, public domain).

Sheaffer, Reuben Moyer (alternate spellings: Schaeffer, Schaffer, Shaffer): Private, Company H; reported as wounded in action during either the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield on April 8, 1864 or the Battle of Pleasant Hill on April 9, he marched with his regiment to Grand Ecore. Although reported in U.S. Army records to have died at Grand Ecore on April 22, 1864, Private Sheaffer actually died sometime during the forty-five-mile march toward Cloutierville, according to a letter subsequently written by his commanding officer, Captain James Kacy, to First Lieutenant William Wallace Geety on May 29. According to Captain Kacy, “Schaffer died on the march of excessive fatigue. We marched in retreat from 1 AM to 11 PM 49 miles, and several died of it.” Prior to his death, Private Sheaffer had been in poor health. According to historian Lewis Schmidt, Private Sheaffer had been “hospitalized for five days with dysentery at Fort Jefferson on January 25, 1863; and again on February 18 with ‘Debiletas’ (rheumatism) for almost two weeks, as he was returned to duty on March 2.”

Captured and Held as Prisoner of War (POW):

Maul, Adam (alternate spellings: Moll, Moul): Private, Company C; captured by Confederate forces at the Cane River on May 3, 1864 while assigned to duties away from the regiment’s Alexandria, Louisiana encampment; held as a prisoner of war (POW) at Camp Ford, a Confederate Army prison camp near Tyler, Texas until being released as part of a prisoner exchange between the Union and Confederate armies on July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered from his experience, and returned to duty with Company C.

How Did Union Army Leaders Communicate During the 1864 Red River Campaign

Union Navy gunboats, Alexandria, Louisiana, 1864 (public domain).

According to Clay, “Banks’ strategic line of communication was by way of courier boat down the Red and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.”

From there, ocean-going ships took messages directly to Washington, DC, or to another port which had telegraphic communications with the capital. It was usually about a month-long process under the best of conditions. Thus, Lincoln, Halleck, and Grant were forced to provide suggestions, instructions, and orders that were broad in nature and allowed Banks to manage the details.

At the tactical level, Banks and his subordinates typically communicated by horse-mounted courier, both up and down the chain of command and laterally. Though Banks possessed trained signal teams in his army, the nature of the terrain precluded effective use of flag and light signals. The only time the Signal Corps was able to function in battle with flag teams was briefly at the battle of Monett’s Ferry and at Alexandria, after the retreat from Grand Ecore. At Alexandria, Capt. Frank W. Marston, Chief Signal Officer for the department, was later able to set up a line of signal stations to facilitate communications between Banks’ headquarters with the outlying headquarters of the army’s major commands and Porter’s gunboats.

Additionally, the Army of the Gulf possessed a tactical telegraph capability during the Red River Campaign. It consisted of a telegraph train of five wagons, three of which carried large reels of wire. There were four civilian telegraph operators and several other teamsters and support personnel, all under the command of Capt. Charles S. Bulkley.

Entry into Alexandria, Louisiana

The Union’s Army of the Gulf marched into Alexandria, Louisiana, during the weekend of April 22, 1864 (Harper’s Weekly, public domain; click to enlarge).

After reaching Alexandria on April 26, 1864, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers and other Union artillery and infantry troops reconnected once again with the Union Navy’s fleet of quartermaster ships, which provided them with additional ammunition and food. When Confederate States Army troops “closed off the Red River below the city,” shortly thereafter, according to Clay, Major-General Banks ordered his troops “out on forays into rebel-held areas outside the city” to ensure that the U.S. Army of the Gulf would have enough food and other supplies to last a planned two-week occupation of the city.

Taylor responded by ordering his troops to take or burn anything the Federals could possibly use within miles of Alexandria. Eventually, however, Porter’s gunboats reopened the river and forage arrived in enough quantities for the horses to pull their loads southward. Soon after, Banks ordered the surplus stores, tools, and equipment loaded on army transports and sent down river. On 12 May, the army started its return trip back to Simmesport. The train was now up to 976 wagons, 105 ambulances, and 12,000 horses and mules. Few supply problems were encountered en route. Indeed, in actions which presaged Sherman’s forthcoming Savannah Campaign, many soldiers, especially A. J. Smith’s men, helped themselves to whatever foodstuffs (and other things) they wanted from the homes and farms along the way.

 

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. “Battle Detail: Monett’s Ferry,” in “The Civil War.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 21, 2024.
  3. Clay, Steven E. The Staff Ride Handbook for the Red River Campaign, 7 March-19 May 1864. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Centers, 2023.
  4. Dollar, Susan E. “The Red River Campaign, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana: A Case of Equal Opportunity Destruction,” in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 43, no. 4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 411-432, accessed April 22, 2024. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana Historical Association.
  5. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  6. “Report of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, U. S. Army, Commanding Expedition and Department of the Gulf” (to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War), in Annual Report of the Secretary of War, in Message of the President of the United States, and Accompanying Documents, to the Two Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866.
  7. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  8. “The History of the Forty-Seventh Regt. P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, July 20, 1870.
  9. “War on the Red: A look at the Red River Campaign of 1864,” in “News.” Natchitoches, Louisiana: Cane River National Heritage Area, retrieved online April 22, 2024.
  10. Wharton, Henry D. “Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Sunbury American.

 

April 17, 1865: A Nation in Mourning Begins to Move Forward

Andrew Johnson, photographed by Matthew Brady sometime between 1860 and 1875, was sworn in as president of the United States on April 15, 1865 (Matthew Brady Collection, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, is now President of the United States. The mysterious purposes of Divine Providence, far beyond the extremest perception of man’s mere judgment, in shaping the ends his wisdom deems to be wisest for our chastisement or in promoting our good, will chasten us while humbling us in the dust in the bereavement the People have sustained through that most wicked act, the bold and daring assassination of the President of the United States. Such an act of perfidy and atrocity has no parallel in the annals of deep and damning crime. The world will stand aghast in horror and detestation of the brutal murder, when the terrible tidings will have reached earth’s remotest extremity.

— The Constitutional Union newspaper, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday, April 17, 1865

 

That opening paragraph of Philadelphia’s Constitutional Union article, “The New President,” illustrates both the State of the Union and the state of mind of the average American during the first days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—the collective and individual states of bewilderment and grief while looking back and reflecting on Lincoln’s life and death while also worrying about what the future held as a new leader was introduced to the nation.

That new leader—President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who had been quietly sworn in as the seventeenth president of the United States on the same day that Lincoln died—April 15, 1865—had worked his way up from an early-career job as mayor of a local town in Tennessee to a later-life election to the United States Senate, becoming the only senator from America’s Deep South to remain in service with the Senate when southern states began their secession from the Union in December 1860. Subsequently appointed by Lincoln as Tennessee’s military governor in March 1862, he had then been placed on the Republican ticket as Lincoln’s running mate during the pivotal presidential election of November 1864, and had been sworn in as the nation’s vice president in March 1865—just forty-two days before he succeeded Lincoln.

Like Lincoln and Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, Andrew Johnson had also been the target of the assassination conspiracy that unfolded on April 14, 1865. But Johnson was luckier. George Atzerodt, the man who had been assigned to assassinate him, changed his mind as he reached Kirkwood House, the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel where Johnson lived, and, instead, left Washington, D.C., hoping to evade capture.

Shortly before sunrise, while still the sitting vice president, Johnson visited the unconscious, dying president at his bedside at the Petersen House, spent a few moments consoling Lincoln’s family, and then walked the short distance back to his residence to prepare for the possibility of being sworn in as the nation’s next president.

Depiction of Andrew Johnson being sworn as the seventeenth president of the United States, April 15, 1865. The ceremony, attended by only a handful of senior government officials, was a subdued affair due to the death earlier that day of President Lincoln. It was held at Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C., where Johnson had resided since his inauguration as vice president forty-two days earlier (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 6, 1866).

Less than four hours after Lincoln’s death, Johnson was administered the Oath of Office by Chief Justice Salmon Chase of the United States Supreme Court, as several members of Lincoln’s former cabinet and Johnson’s former fellow senators looked on:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

After speaking those words, President Andrew Johnson told the small group:

The duties of the office are mine; I will perform them—the consequences are with God. Gentlemen, I shall lean upon you; I feel I shall need your support. I am deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the responsibilities of the duties of the office I am assuming.

It was at that moment, during the morning of April 15, 1865, that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry entered its tenure of Reconstruction Era service under a new commander-in-chief.

Members of the regiment began that new phase of duty with heavy hearts and hope for a brighter day, according to C Company’s Henry Wharton. Writing to the editor of his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American, from an unidentified “Camp Near Washington, D.C.” on April 24, Wharton mused:

It is true we have sustained a great loss in the death of our much beloved President, but as it has pleased Divine Power to remove him from our midst, we should be thankful that He has given us such a great and determined man in his stead (Andrew Johnson) to drive on the machinery of the Government. It was a wise thing in the framers of the Constitution when they put in that clause, where if we lose our President the wheels of the Government can never be stopped. This is done by the Vice President, a plain unpretending citizen, on the death of the Chief Magistrate, stepping forward so to take the oath administered by the Chief Justice, and at once takes the responsibility of the office. No flourish of trumpets, nor convulsion of nations, but by the simple power vested in a Judge, a fellow citizen assumes power. This little fact proves that our Republic can never die.

I cannot describe to you the feeling of the army when the news reached us that Abraham Lincoln had been murdered by the assassin. I will not attempt it, for in doing so, I would work myself into a state to make me miserable. One thing – if the boys had gone into a fight that morning no prisoners would have been taken – no quarters given.

In Washington, the train containing the remains of our late President, passed us near the Annapolis Junction. There was [sic, were] nine cars heavily draped in mourning. Our train stopped on a siding. It was a solemn time. The men all uncovered in respect, and stout men wept as the last of him they loved, passed them, to be conveyed to its resting place. Along the whole route, houses were draped in mourning, and the American flag hung at half mast [sic, half-mast] with mourning. This showed the deep hold Mr. Lincoln had in the hearts of our people.

 

Sources:

  1. “Andrew Johnson’s Inauguration.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  2. “Andrew Johnson: The 17th President of the United States.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  3. “The New President” (announcement of President Andrew Johnson’s recent inauguration). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Constitutional Union, April 17, 1865.
  4. “The Swearing in of Andrew Johnson.” Washington, D.C.: Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) and the United States Senate, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  5. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

 

April 16, 1865: U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant Inform the Union Army About President Lincoln’s Assassination and the Proper Procedures for Mourning the Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States

Broadside showing the text of General Orders, No. 66 issued by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant on 16 April 1865 to inform Union Army troops about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and provide instructions regarding the appropriate procedures for mourning (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

General Orders, No. 66
War Department, Adjutant-General’s Office
Washington, April 16, 1865

The following order of the Secretary of War announces to the Armies of the United States the untimely and lamentable death of the illustrious ABRAHAM LINCOLN, late President of the United States:

WAR DEPARTMENT,
WASHINGTON, CITY, April 16, 1865

The distressing duty has devolved upon the Secretary of War to announce to the armies of the United States, that at twenty-two minutes after 7 o’clock, on the morning of Saturday, the 15th day of April, 1865, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, died of a mortal wound inflicted upon him by an assassin.

The Armies of the United States will share with their fellow-citizens the feelings of grief and horror inspired by this most atrocious murder of their great and beloved President and Commander-in-Chief, and with profound sorrow will mourn his death as a national calamity.

The Headquarters of every Department, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal will be draped in mourning for thirty days, and appropriate funeral honors will be paid by every Army, and in every Department, and at every Military Post, and at the Military Academy at West Point, to the memory of the late illustrious Chief Magistrate of the Nation and Commander-in-Chief of its Armies.

Lieutenant-General Grant will give the necessary instructions for carrying this order into effect.

EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War

On the day after the receipt of this order at the Headquarters of each Military Division, Department, Army, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal and at the Military Academy at West Point the troops and cadets will be paraded at 10 o’clock a. m. and the order read to them, after which all labors and operations for the day will cease and be suspended as far as practicable in a state of war.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of thirty-six guns.

The officers of the Armies of the United States will wear the badge of mourning on the left arm and on their swords and the colors of their commands and regiments will be put in mourning for the period of six months.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:
W. A. NICHOLS, Assistant Adjutant-General.

 

Sources:

  1. “General Orders No. 66: War Department, Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, April 16, 1865.” Washington, D.C.: United States Library of Congress, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
  2. “Stanton, Edwin McMasters (1814-1869) General Orders No. 66.” New York, New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
  3. Wooley, John and Gerhard Peters. “Announcement to the Army of the Death of President Lincoln,” in “The American Presidency Project.” Santa Barbara, California: Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, retrieved online April 16, 2024.

 

Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, April 9, 1864 — Casualties and POWs from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, April 9, 1864 (Harper’s Weekly, May 7, 1864, public domain).

Arriving at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana around 8:30 a.m. on April 9, 1864, after having retreated from the scene of the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads just before midnight on April 8, and with the enemy believed to be in pursuit, Union Major-General Nathaniel Banks ordered his troops (including the (47th Pennsylvania Volunteers) to regroup and ready themselves for a new round of fighting. That fight would later be known as the Battle of Pleasant Hill.

In his official Red River Campaign Report penned a year later, Banks described how the day unfolded:

A line of battle was formed in the following order: First Brigade, Nineteenth Corps, on the right, resting on a ravine; Second Brigade in the center, and Third Brigade on the left. The center was strengthened by a brigade of General Smith’s forces, whose main force was held in reserve. The enemy moved toward our right flank. The Second Brigade [including the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers] withdrew from the center to the support of the First Brigade. The brigade in support of the center moved up into position, and another of General Smith’s brigades was posted to the extreme left position on the hill, in echelon to the rear of the left main line.

Light skirmishing occurred during the afternoon. Between 4 and 5 o’clock it increased in vigor, and about 5 p.m., when it appeared to have nearly ceased, the enemy drove in our skirmishers and attacked in force, his first onset being against the left. He advanced in two oblique lines, extending well over toward the right of the Third Brigade, Nineteenth Corps. After a determined resistance this part of the line gave way and went slowly back to the reserves. The First and Second Brigades were soon enveloped in front, right, and rear. By skillful movements of General Emory the flanks of the two brigades, now bearing the brunt of the battle, were covered. The enemy pursued the brigades, passing the left and center, until he approached the reserves under General Smith, when he was met by a charge led by General Mower and checked. The whole of the reserves were now ordered up, and in turn we drove the enemy, continuing the pursuit until night compelled us to halt.

First State Color, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (issued September 20, 1861, retired May 11, 1865).

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers had been ordered into a critically important defensive position at the far right of the Union lines that day (April 9, 1864), their right flank spreading up onto a high bluff. According to Bates, after fighting off a charge by the troops of Confederate Major-General Richard Taylor, the 47th was forced to bolster the buckling lines of the 165th New York Infantry—just as the 47th was shifting to the left of the massed Union forces.

Nearly two decades later, First Lieutenant James Hahn recalled his involvement (as a sergeant in that battle) for a retrospective article in the January 31, 1884 edition of The National Tribune:

A PENNSYLVANIA SOLDIER’S EXPERIENCE.

Lieutenant James Hahn, of the 47th Pennsylvania infantry, writing from Newport, Pa., refers as follows to the engagements at Sabine Cross-roads and Pleasant Hill:

‘The 19th Corps had gone into camp for the evening about four miles from Sabine Cross-Roads. The engagement at Mansfield had been fought by the 13th Corps, who struggled bravely against overwhelming odds until they were driven from the field. I presume the rebel Gen. Dick Taylor knew of the situation of our army, and that the 19th was in the rear of the 13th, and the 16th still in rear of the 19th, some thirteen miles away, encamped at Pleasant Hill. They thought it would be a good joke to whip Banks’ army in detail: first, the 13th corps, then 19th, then finish up on the 16th. But they counted without their hosts; for when the couriers came flying back to the 19th with the news of the sad disaster that had befallen the 13th corps, we were double-quicked a distance of some four miles, and just met the advance of our defeated 13th corps – coming pell-mell, infantry, cavalry, and artillery all in one conglomerated mass, in such a manner as only a defeated and routed army can be mixed up – at Sabine Cross-roads, where our corps was thrown into line just in time to receive the victorious and elated Johnnies with a very warm reception, which gave them a recoil, and which stopped their impetuous headway, and gave the 13th corps time to get safely to the rear. I do not know what would have been the consequence if the 19th had been defeated also, that evening of the 8th, at Sabine Cross-roads, and the victorious rebel army had thrown themselves upon the ‘guerrillas’ then lying in camp at Pleasant Hill. It was just about getting dark when the Johnnies made their last assault upon the lines of the 19th. We held the field until about midnight, and then fell back and left the picket to hold the line while we joined the 16th at Pleasant Hill the morning of the 9th of April, soon after daybreak. It was not long until the rebel cavalry put in an appearance, and soon skirmishing commenced. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon the engagement become general all along the line, and with varied success, until late in the afternoon the rebels were driven from the field, and were followed until darkness set in, and about midnight our army made a retrograde movement, which ended at Grand Ecore, and left our dead and wounded lying on the field, all of whom fell into rebel hands. I have been informed since by one of our regiment, who was left wounded on the field, that the rebels were so completely defeated that they did not return to the battlefield till late the next day, and I have always been of the opinion that, if the defeat that the rebels got at Pleasant Hill had been followed up, Banks’ army, with the aid of A. J. Smith’s divisions, could have got to Shreveport (the objective point) without much left or hindrance from the rebel army.’

According to Major-General Banks, “The battle of the 9th was desperate and sanguinary. The defeat of the enemy was complete, and his loss in officers and men more than double that sustained by our forces.”

Even so, casualties for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry that day were high. The abridged lists below partially documents the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who were declared as wounded in action, killed in action, missing in action, or captives of the Confederate States Army (POWs) after the Battle of Pleasant Hill:

Killed or Wounded in Action:

Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1861 (public domain).

Alexander, George Warren: Lieutenant-Colonel and second in command of the regiment; struck in the left leg near the ankle by a shell fragment which fractured his leg; recovered and returned to duty; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 23, 1864.

Baldwin, Isaac: Corporal, Company D; twice wounded in action in 1864, he was first wounded during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company D; wounded in action the second time during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company D; subsequently promoted to the rank of sergeant on January 20, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Buss, Charles (alternate spelling: Bress): Private, Company F; initially declared missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, Union Army leaders ultimately determined that he had been captured by Confederate States Army troops during that battle; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas; held captive there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: This was likely the “Charles Bress” shown on Camp Ford prisoner records as a private from Company D.) After recovering from his POW experience, he remained on the Company F rosters until he was honorably discharged in January 1865.

Clouser, Ephraim: Private, Company D; shot in the right knee and then captured by Confederate Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on November 25, 1864; date of discharge unknown.

Crownover, James: Sergeant, Company D; survived slight breast wound during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; sustained gunshot wound to the right shoulder and was captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Groce or Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held until he was released during a prisoner exchange on November 25, 1864; while he was being held as a POW, he was commissioned, but not mustered as a second lieutenant on August 31, 1864; recovered following medical treatment; returned to duty with Company C and was promoted to the rank of first sergeant on July 5, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Dingler, John: Private, Company E; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company E; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of enlistment on September 18, 1864; later re-enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania’s B Company on February 13, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Dumm, William F. (alternate spellings: Drum or Drumm): Private, Company H; killed in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864.

Fink, Edward: Private, Company B; killed in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864.

Frack, William: Corporal, Company I; declared missing in action and “supposed dead” following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; was ultimately declared as killed in action.

Hagelgans, Nicholas: Private, Company K; killed in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864.

Hahn, Richard: Private, Company E; killed in action by a musket ball during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864.

Haltiman, William (alternate spellings: Haldeman or Halderman): Second Lieutenant, Company I; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company I; promoted to the rank of sergeant on January 1, 1865; promoted to the rank of second lieutenant on May 27, 1865; felled by sunstroke while on duty in mid-July 1865, he died in Pineville, South Carolina on July 21, 1865.

Hangen, Granville D.: Private, Company I; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company I; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Hartshorn, John (alternate spelling: Hartshorne): Private, Company H; initially listed as missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, Union Army officials ultimately determined that he had been captured by Confederate States Army troops and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: His surname was spelled as “Hartshorne” in Camp Ford’s prisoner records, which also described him as “illiterate” and incorrectly listed his company as “K.”) He subsequently died at a Union Army hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 8, 1864.

Huff, James: Corporal, Company E; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on August 29, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company E; was captured again by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864; was marched or was transported to the Salisbury Prison Camp in Salisbury, North Carolina, where he was again held captive as a POW—this time, until his death on March 5, 1865. Per historian Lewis Schmidt, it was “reported [by a fellow soldier that] ‘he got his throat cut with a ball and I sott him up against stump to die.’” He was subsequently buried by Confederate States Army soldiers in one of the unmarked trench graves at the Salisbury Prison Camp.

Jones, John L.: Private, Company F; wounded in action and captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas; promoted by his regiment on September 18, 1864 while he was still being held as a POW at Camp Ford, he was finally released during a prisoner exchange on September 24, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company F, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant on June 2, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Kennedy, James: Private, Company C; sustained gunshot fracture of the arm and gunshot wound to his side during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; was transported to the Union Army’s St. James Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he died from his battle wounds on April 27, 1864.

Kern, Samuel M.: Private, Company D; wounded in action and captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held in captivity as a prisoner of war (POW) until he died on June 12, 1864.

Kramer, Cornelius: Private, Company C; wounded in the leg during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; was honorably discharged on December 16, 1865.

Matter, Jacob (alternate spelling: Madder): Private, Company K; initially reported as missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, his status was subsequently updated to “died of wounds” from that battle.

Mayers, William H. (alternate spellings: Mayer, Mayers, Meyers, Moyers; shown on regimental muster rolls as “Mayers, William H.” and “Meyers, William H.”; listed in Samuel P. Bates’ History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5 and various other records as “Moyers I, William H.”): Corporal, Co. I; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company I; promoted to the rank of sergeant on September 19, 1864; was subsequently wounded in action again—this time during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864; recovered and returned to duty; promoted to the rank of first sergeant on May 27, 1865; was commissioned, but not mustered as a second lieutenant on July 25, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

McNew, John: Private, Company C; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1964; marched to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas and held captive there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: Camp Ford records incorrectly listed him as a member of Company D and also described him as “illiterate.”) Promoted to the rank of corporal on December 1, 1864; reduced to the rank of private on April 22, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Miller, George: Private, Company C; wounded in the side during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; was honorably mustered out upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864; died suddenly in his hometown in 1867.

Miller, John Garber: Corporal, Company D; wounded in action and captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: Camp Ford records incorrectly listed him as a member of Co. G.) Recovered and returned to duty with Company D, he was subsequently promoted to the rank of sergeant on September 19, 1864; was honorably mustered out on December 25, 1865.

Moser, Peter (alternate spelling: “Moses”): Private, Company F; survived arm wound sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; was honorably discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on February 24, 1863; recovered and re-enlisted with Company F on December 19, 1863; initially declared missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864. Union Army officers subsequently determined that he had been captured in battle at Pleasant Hill and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: His surname was listed on Camp Ford prisoner records as “Moses,” which also described him as “illiterate.”) Transported to New Orleans for treatment at a Union Army hospital, he remained “Absent and sick at New Orleans since 22 July 1864,” according to his Civil War Veterans’ Card File entry in the Pennsylvania State Archives, which also noted that he was “Supposed to be Dis. Under G.O. A.G.O. W.D. Series 1865.” He ultimately survived the war and died in Pennsylvania in 1905.

O’Brien, William H.: Private, Company H; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company H; was honorably discharged on December 6, 1864.

Offhouse, William: Private, Company F; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company F; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Private Nicholas Orris, Company H, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

Orris, Nicholas: Private, Co. H; killed in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; burial location remains unknown.

Petre, Pete: Private, Company D; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company D; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Powell, Solomon: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action, he was captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; he then died from his battle wounds at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana either that same day or on June 7, 1864 while still being held by Confederate troops as a prisoner of war (POW). According to historian Lewis Schmidt, “Privates Powell and Wantz were probably buried in a cemetery at Pleasant Hill, ‘at the rear of the brick building used for a hospital,’ and after the war reinterred at Alexandria National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana in unknown graves.”)

Pyers, William: Sergeant, Company C; wounded in the arm and side while saving the flag from fallen C Company Color-Bearer Benjamin Walls; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; killed in action during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864.

Reinert, Griffin (alternate spelling: Reinhart, Griffith; known as “Griff”): Private, Company F; sustained a gunshot wound to his jaw during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; was transported to the Union Army Hospital in York, Pennsylvania for more advanced medical care; was discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on December 28, 1864.

Reinsmith, Tilghman: Private and Field Musician—Bugler, Company B; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company B; promoted to the rank of corporal on October 1, 1864; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Scheetz, Robert (alternate spelling Sheats): Private, Company F; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company F; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Schleppy, Llewellyn J. (alternate spelling “Sleppy”): Private, Company F; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company F; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Shaver, Joseph Benson: Private, Company D; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company D; was honorably discharged at Washington, D.C. on June 1, 1865.

Smith, Frederick: Private, Co. D; possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; captured by Confederate States Army troops during that battle and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until his death on May 4, 1864.

Sterner, John C.: Private, Company C; killed in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864.

Stewart, Cornelius Baskins: Corporal, Company D; after surviving a wound sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862, he recovered, was released to the regiment on December 15, 1862, and returned to active duty on March 1, 1863; shot in the right hip during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he recovered and returned to duty again with Company D; he was honorably discharged upon completion of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Wagner, Samuel: Private, Company D; wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was lost at sea while being transported for medical care aboard the USS Pocahontas when that steam transport foundered off of Cape May, New Jersey after colliding with the City of Bath on June 1, 1864.

Walls, Benjamin: Regimental Color-Sergeant, Company C; sustained gunshot wound to his left shoulder while trying to mount the 47th Pennsylvania’s flag on a piece of Confederate artillery that had been re-captured by the regiment; recovered and attempted to re-enlist, but was denied permission due to his age. (At sixty-seven, he was the oldest man to serve in the entire regiment.) Was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Wantz, Jonathan: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1863; captured by Confederate States Army troops during that battle, he was then held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he died at Pleasant Hill—either the same day or on June 17, 1864 while he was still being held as a POW by Confederate troops. According to historian Lewis Schmidt, “Privates Powell and Wantz were probably buried in a cemetery at Pleasant Hill, ‘at the rear of the brick building used for a hospital,’ and after the war reinterred at Alexandria National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana in unknown graves.”)

Weiss, John: Private, Co. F; Wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until his death on July 15, 1864; his burial location remains unknown.

Wieand, Benjamin: Private, Company D; Survived wound to his right thigh during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; recovered and transferred to Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers on December 15, 1863; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange (possibly after July 1864); was honorably discharged on July 21, 1865.

Wolf, Samuel: Private, Company K; initially declared as missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was ultimately declared as having been killed in action during that battle after having been absent from muster rolls for a substantial period of time.

Zellner, Benjamin (alternate spelling: Cellner): Private, Company K; wounded in action four times in 1864; was shot in the leg and lost an eye during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; captured during that same battle by Confederate States Army troops, he was confined initially at Pleasant Hill and Mansfield before being marched or transported to Camp Ford near Tyler Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW). Note: Although Camp Ford records (under surname of “Cellner”) stated in 2010 that he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864, Zellner stated in multiple newspaper accounts after war’s end that he was one of a group of three to four hundred men who had been deemed well enough by Camp Ford officials to be shipped to Shreveport, Louisiana, where they were then processed and sent by rail to Andersonville, the notorious Confederate POW camp in Georgia. Finally released from Andersonville in September 1864, he recovered and returned to duty with Company K. He was then wounded in the leg and also suffered a bayonet wound during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1964; recovered from those wounds and returned to duty with Company K; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865. During a newspaper interview in later life, he told the reporter that his bayonet wound had never healed properly.

 

Captured and Held as Prisoners of War (POWs):

This image depicts life at Camp Ford, the largest Confederate Army prison camp west of the Mississippi River (Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1865, public domain).

Brown, Francis: Private, Company D; captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864 and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864; subsequently awarded a furlough, he allegedly deserted while on leave on September 16, 1864.

Buss, Charles (alternate spelling: Bress): Private, Company F; initially declared missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, Union Army leaders ultimately determined that he had been captured by Confederate States Army troops during that battle; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, he was held captive there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: This was likely the “Charles Bress” shown on Camp Ford prisoner records as a Private from Company D.) After recovering from his POW experience, he remained on the Company F rosters until he was honorably discharged in January 1865.

Clouser, Ephraim: Private, Company D; shot in the right knee and then captured by Confederate Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on November 25, 1864; date of discharge unknown.

Crownover, James: Sergeant, Company D; survived slight breast wound during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; sustained gunshot wound to the right shoulder and was captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Groce or Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive until he was released during a prisoner exchange on November 25, 1864; while he was being held as a POW, he was commissioned, but not mustered as a second lieutenant on August 31, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; promoted to the rank of first sergeant on July 5, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

James Downs (circa 1880s, public domain).

Downs, James: Private, Company D; captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864 and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company D; promoted to the rank of corporal on July 5, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Fisher, Charles B.: Private, Company K; captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: Camp Ford’s prisoner records described him as “illiterate.”) Recovered and returned to duty with Company K; was honorably discharged upon expiration of his three-year term of service on September 18, 1864.

Hartshorn, John (alternate spelling: Hartshorne): Private, Company H; initially listed as missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, Union Army officials ultimately determined that he had been captured by Confederate States Army troops and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: His surname was spelled as “Hartshorne” in Camp Ford’s prisoner records, which also described him as “illiterate” and incorrectly listed his company as “K.”) He subsequently died at a Union Army hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 8, 1864.

Huff, James: Corporal, Company E; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on August 29, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company E; was captured again by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864; was marched or transported to the Salisbury Prison Camp in Salisbury, North Carolina, where he was again held captive as a POW—this time, until his death on March 5, 1865. Per historian Lewis Schmidt, it was “reported [by a fellow soldier that] ‘he got his throat cut with a ball and I sott him up against stump to die.’” was buried by Confederate States Army soldiers in one of the unmarked trench graves at the Salisbury Prison Camp.

Jones, John L.: Private, Company F; wounded in action and captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW); promoted by his regiment on September 18, 1864 while he was still being held as a POW at Camp Ford, he was finally released during a prisoner exchange on September 24, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company F, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant on June 2, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Kern, Samuel M.: Private, Company D; wounded in action and captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he died on June 12, 1864.

McNew, John: Private, Company C; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1964; marched to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas and held captive there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: Camp Ford records incorrectly listed him as a member of Company D and also described him as “illiterate.) Promoted to the rank of corporal on December 1, 1864; reduced to the rank of private on April 22, 1865; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Miller, John Garber: Corporal, Company D; wounded in action and captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: Camp Ford records incorrectly listed him as a member of Co. G.) Recovered and returned to duty with Company D, he was subsequently promoted to the rank of sergeant on September 19, 1864; was honorably mustered out on December 25, 1865.

Moser, Peter (alternate spelling: “Moses”): Private, Company F; survived arm wound sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; was honorably discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on February 24, 1863; recovered and re-enlisted with Company F on December 19, 1863; initially declared missing in action following the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, Union Army officers subsequently determined that he had been captured in battle at Pleasant Hill and marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864. (Note: His surname was listed on Camp Ford prisoner records as “Moses,” which also described him as “illiterate.”) Transported to New Orleans for treatment at a Union Army hospital, he remained “Absent and sick at New Orleans since 22 July 1864,” according to his Civil War Veterans’ Card File entry in the Pennsylvania State Archives, which also noted that he was “Supposed to be Dis. Under G.O. A.G.O. W.D. Series 1865.” He ultimately survived the war and died in Pennsylvania in 1905.

Powell, Solomon: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action, he was also captured during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; he then died from his battle wounds at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana either that same day or on June 7, 1864 while still being held by Confederate troops as a POW. According to historian Lewis Schmidt, “Privates Powell and Wantz were probably buried in a cemetery at Pleasant Hill, ‘at the rear of the brick building used for a hospital,’ and after the war reinterred at Alexandria National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana in unknown graves.”)

Smith, Frederick: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; captured during that battle by Confederate States Army troops, he was marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until his death on May 4, 1864.

Smith, John Wesley: Private, Company C; captured by Confederates during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865.

Smith, William J.: Private, Company D; captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1874. (Note: Camp Ford’s prisoner records described him as “illiterate.”) Honorably mustered out on December 25, 1865, he died in Pennsylvania in 1891.

Wantz, Jonathan: Private, Company D; possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1863, he was then captured by Confederate States Army troops and held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he died at Pleasant Hill—either the same day or on June 17, 1864 while he was still being held as a POW by Confederate troops. According to historian Lewis Schmidt, “Privates Powell and Wantz were probably buried in a cemetery at Pleasant Hill, ‘at the rear of the brick building used for a hospital,’ and after the war reinterred at Alexandria National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana in unknown graves.”)

Weiss, John: Private, Co. F; Wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until his death on July 15, 1864; his burial location remains unknown.

Wieand, Benjamin: Private, Company D; Survived wound to his right thigh during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; recovered and transferred to Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers on December 15, 1863; wounded in action and captured by Confederate States Army troops during Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was marched or was transported to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange (possibly after July 1864); was honorably discharged on July 21, 1865.

Zellner, Benjamin (alternate spelling: Cellner): Private, Company K; wounded in action four times in 1864; was shot in the leg and lost an eye during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; captured during that same battle by Confederate States Army troops, he was confined initially at Pleasant Hill and Mansfield before being marched or transported to Camp Ford near Tyler Texas, where he was held captive as a prisoner of war (POW). Note: Although Camp Ford records (under surname of “Cellner”) stated in 2010 that he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864, Zellner stated in multiple newspaper accounts after war’s end that he was one of a group of three to four hundred men who had been deemed well enough by Camp Ford officials to be shipped to Shreveport, Louisiana, where they were then processed and sent by rail to Andersonville, the notorious Confederate POW camp in Georgia. Finally released from Andersonville in September 1864, he recovered and returned to duty with Company K. He was then wounded in the leg and also suffered a bayonet wound during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1964; recovered from those wounds and returned to duty with Company K; was honorably discharged on December 25, 1865. During a newspaper interview in later life, he told the reporter that his bayonet wound had never healed properly.

 

Sources:

  1. “A Pennsylvania Soldier’s Experience.” Washington, D.C.: The National Tribune, January 31, 1884.
  2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  3. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  4. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

 

Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana, April 8, 1864 — Casualties and POWs from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 14 May 1864, public domain).

At 4 p.m. Louisiana time on April 8, 1864, during the American Civil War, the left flank of the Confederate States Army, which was commanded by Major-General Richard Taylor, slowly began an echelon formation attack on troops commanded by Union Major-General Nathaniel Banks, forcing the Union’s cavalry line to buckle. During the first fourteen minutes of the opening charge of this combat engagement, which later became known as the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads (by Union troops) and the Battle of Mansfield (by Confederate troops), eleven out of fourteen Confederate officers were killed in action.

Shortly thereafter, Banks’ left Union flank also collapsed, and Taylor’s troops continued forward, puncturing a secondary Union Army position three quarters of a mile behind the Union’s front line.

In response, Banks ordered Brigadier-General William Emory to move his 1st Division, 19th U.S. Army Corps to the front. Among Emory’s 5,859 men were nine New York regiments, three from Maine—and the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Ninety minutes and seven miles of marching later, Emory’s men waited for the Confederates on the ridge above Chapman’s Bayou.

* Note: The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were positioned behind the 161st New York, 29th Maine, and other Union regiments at or near the farm of Joshua Chapman, about five miles southeast of Mansfield, Louisiana. The battles here were termed the “Peach Orchard” fight by Confederates and “Pleasant Grove” by 47th Pennsylvanians—a name attributed by several historians to the live oak trees in front of Chapman’s house. The fighting at the peach orchard was particularly brutal.

19th U.S. Army Map, Phase 3, Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield (8 April 1864, public domain; click to enlarge).

Confederate troops next attacked the center of the Union line, causing the lines of the 161st New York Volunteers to buckle; the 29th Maine stood firm, however, and repulsed the enemy.

In response, Confederates from the 1st, 26th, 36th, and other Texas Cavalry units then attempted an end run on the Union’s right flank, but the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were ready for them. Initially positioned to the right of the 13th Maine Infantry, the 47th Pennsylvania and 13th Maine marched into the fray, pinwheeling to head off an attack by the cavalry group led by Confederate Brigadier-General Thomas Green, halting that flanking maneuver.

As darkness fell on April 8, 1864, the fighting gradually waned and then finally ceased as exhausted troops on both sides collapsed between the bodies of their dead comrades. Although the full scope of the carnage was not immediately evident, Union rosters were eventually updated, confirming that seventy-four men were dead, at least one hundred and sixty-one were wounded, and hundreds more were declared missing in action, including one hundred and eighty-eight soldiers from the 19th U.S. Army (to which the 47th Pennsylvania was attached). Some of these missing men (including men from the 47th Pennsylvania) were subsequently found and declared as wounded or dead; others (including 47th Pennsylvanians) ended up as prisoners of war (POWs), at Camp Ford, which was located near Tyler, Texas and was the largest Confederate prison located west of the Mississippi River.

Sadly, a significant number of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers remain missing to this day, having been hastily interred somewhere on or near the Mansfield battlefield sites by fellow soldiers or local residents. (No remains were found during archaeological excavations of the area during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but one possible answer to the mystery surrounding the burial locations of these men was in provided in 1996 by L. P. Hecht, who reported in Echoes from the Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, that wild hogs had eaten the remains of at least some of the federal soldiers who had been left unburied.)

The abridged lists below partially document the members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who were declared as wounded in action, killed in action, missing in action, or captives of the Confederate States Army (POWs) after the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield:

Killed or Wounded in Action:

Second Lieutenant Alfred Swoyer, Company K, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1862 (public domain)

Barry, William: Private, Company H; killed in action during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864.

Fries, John: Private, Company B: Wounded in action during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; recovered and returned to service with Company B; honorably mustered out from the 47th Pennsylvania on 29 June 1865.

Haas, Jeremiah: Private, Company C; survived breast and face wounds sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on 22 October 1862; killed in action during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864.

Marshall, Charles L. (alias: Lothard, Thomas): Private, Company C; survived gunshot wound(s) to his head and/or body during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on 22 October 1862; sustained additional gunshot wounds to the top of his head, the right side of his body and/or arm, and his left shin during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; recovered and returned to duty a second time; was honorably mustered out on 5 July 1865; lived out his later years at the U.S. National Soldiers’ Home in Marion, Indiana, and was interred at that Soldiers’ Home Cemetery following his death there.

McIntire, John (alternate spelling: McIntyre): Private, Company H; wounded in action during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company H; killed in action during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on 19 October 1864.

Nipple, Thomas: Private, Company C; wounded in the stomach during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; was honorably discharged on 25 December 1865.

Sanders, Francis (alternate spellings: Xander, Xandres): Corporal, Company B; wounded in action during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; died shortly after being carried to the rear by his brother; burial location unknown; his death was documented in the obituary of his widow, Henrietta Susan (Balliet) Sanders, in the 15 May 1916 edition of Allentown’s Morning Call newspaper, which reported that Francis Sanders “enlisted in the Forty-seventh regiment and saw service for two enlistments until the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, La., where he was wounded and carried to the rear by his brother. From that day to this not a word was heard from him and the supposition was that he died from his wounds….” That obituary also stated that Francis Sanders was likely interred in an unknown, unmarked grave.

Seip, Lewis H.: Private, Company B; wounded in the leg during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company B; was promoted to the rank of corporal on 19 September 1864; although reported as having been dishonorably discharged on 4 October 1865 in Samuel P. Bates’ History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, per other records, he mustered out with his regiment on 25 December 1865.

Swoyer, Alfred P.: Second Lieutenant, Company K; killed instantly after being struck by a minié ball in the right temple during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1884; burial location unknown.

 

Captured and Held as Prisoners of War (POW):

This image depicts life at Camp Ford, the largest Confederate Army prison camp west of the Mississippi River (Harper’s Weekly, 4 March 1865, public domain).

Firth, John Wesley (known as “Wesley”): Captured by Confederate forces during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; marched by Confederate States Army troops to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, and held there as a prisoner of war (POW) until released during a prisoner exchange sometime between July and November 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; was honorably discharged on 25 December 1865.

Holman, Conrad: Private, Company C; Survived being hit by a rifle ball to the face during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on 22 October 1862, which destroyed all of his teeth; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty with Company C; was captured by Confederate forces during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield on 8 April 1864 and marched to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas; released during a prisoner exchange on 22 July 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; honorably discharged on 18 September 1864.

Matthews, Edward: Private, Company C; captured by Confederate forces during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; held as prisoner of war (POW) at Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas until being released as part of a prisoner exchange on 22 July 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; honorably discharged on 1 October 1865.

Miller, Samuel W.: Private, Company C; captured by Confederate forces during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April 1864; held as prisoner of war (POW) at Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas until being released as part of a prisoner exchange on 22 July 1864; recovered and returned to duty with Company C; honorably discharged on 25 December 1865.

 

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. “Henrietta Sanders Dies in Her 90th Year” (obituary of Francis Sanders’ widow). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, 15 May 1916.
  3. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  4. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

 

Occupation and Garrison Duties in Florida (March through June 1863)

Second-tier casemates, lighthouse keeper’s house, sallyport, and lean-to structure, Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida, late 1860s (U.S. National Park Service and National Archives, public domain).

As March 1863 arrived and progressed, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who were stationed at Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas became more and more comfortable with their latest garrison assignment. Members of the regiment continued to drill regularly, undergo inspections, march in dress parades, and receive additional training in the use of the fort’s defensive artillery, much as they had done during their first months at the fort.

Their duties were made more palatable by good food and recreational activities. During the early days of that month, Company C’s Henry Wharton penned another letter to his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American, in which he noted that the regiment’s normal rations that were supplied by the federal government were supplemented by “‘pot-pie’ three times a week; apple dumplings, with good milk, semi-occasionally, and for something to remind us of days past and gone, Sgt. Peirs [sic, Pyers,] serves us with apple pie and doughnuts made in a style that would do credit to more than one I know of, who is in the baking business.”

For fun and exercise, many members of the regiment spent time strolling the wooded areas and beaches around both Fort Jefferson and Fort Taylor (Key West), exploring and studying the exotic wonders of nature around them while collecting seashells and other treasures. In a letter penned to family and friends on March 1, Private Alfred Pretz of Company I recounted one such expedition, noting that he and Sergeant-Major William Hendricks had woken up “at an early hour and started off for the south beach [in Key West] before sunrise, or just about sunrise.”

We were going to hunt seashells. It was a splendid morning, clear, still, and warm enough to be pleasant. We soon reached the seashore and commenced picking up samples of the numerous varieties that abound in profusion. We found many small reptiles which we examined so that we did not get to the principal shell grounds before it was time to return in order to be with the mess at breakfast hour. On our way back, we passed through the woods, with which the key is covered. These are little more than bushes, being small trees averaging eight feet in height, growing closely together with thick undergrowth of a beautiful shrub, and then on the ground a low, broad leaved plant. I plucked specimens of their foliage for enclosure with this letter. The smooth, stout, narrow leaf is from the tree. The tiny leaf, with thorns on the branch, is the undergrowth, the third variety is the plant I speak of. The single flower and bud is of a deep orange color and grows on trees the size of the largest trees in the Key West woods. These flower trees (I know no other name for them) are planted around the houses of town. The other flower is of a crimson color and grows in chunks like the cactus…. We never have twilight here. As soon as the sun sets darkness sets in. At present however we have bright moonlight evenings. The weather is charming.

That same evening, Private Pretz played backgammon to occupy his remaining hours before lights out.

Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1861 (public domain).

Around this same time, an alert was sounded one day at Fort Jefferson, causing members of the 47th Pennsylvania to scramble to positions across the fort in order to bolster the Union troops already standing guard. That action was ordered by the fort’s commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, who had spotted a large number of unidentified ships on the horizon. According to Emily Holder, who had been living in a small house within the fort’s walls since 1860 with her husband, who had been assigned to serve as a medical officer for the fort’s engineers:

One day, early in the spring, Colonel Alexander, who was very watchful and always on the alert, was quite alarmed by seeing some twenty vessels hovering just in sight. Extra guard was mounted, the big guns were loaded and the men slept by them all night; but the vessels passed by without coming nearer.

On another day, she noted that “The Inspector-General, after returning to Beaufort, made rather an overturning in Key West which was under the command of Colonel Morgan of the Ninetieth New York, who had been rather playing the tyrant.”

He had perverted a very good order of General Hunter into one that ordered every person who had friends in the rebel service to leave Key West allowing them only fifty pounds of baggage apiece. They protested, plead with him, even threatened, for it would almost depopulate the town, but in vain.

Justice, however, was nearer than he suspected, for just as the vessel was to start with these people who were being set adrift, a steamer came in bringing Colonel Goode [sic, Good] of the Forty-Seventh Pennsylvania to relieve Colonel Morgan.

The people were almost crazy in their excitement. They took the soldiers’ knapsacks as they marched up the street and would have carried the men on their shoulders in their joy over Morgan’s defeat.

Colonel Goode [sic, Good] came to Tortugas a few days afterwards, and while there said he might send the remainder of the Regiment down to us—something very reassuring for the summer as they were acclimated and would be more likely to withstand any epidemic that might occur.

Meanwhile, disease continued to ravage the ranks of the regiment in March—particularly at Fort Jefferson, where a total of five hundred and sixty-eight Union Army soldiers were stationed. According to H Company Corporal John A. Gardner:

One thing appears a little strange with us here, and that is, there are some five or six in each company that get night blind and some of them can’t see very well through the day. We have a Sgt. by the name of Michael C. Lynch, that can’t see but very little at any time, and a couple more that can’t see at night. I do not know the cause of it, unless it is the white sand. It is very bright and it might be possible that the sand is the cause of it. Our Doctor himself don’t know the cause of it. Otherwise, we get along fat, ragged, and saucy.

* Note: Sergeant Michael Lynch, who had officially mustered in with the 47th Pennsylvania’s H Company on September 19, 1862, at the same rank that he held at Fort Jefferson in 1863, was confined to the post hospital at Fort Jefferson on March 22, 1863, due to nyctalopia (night blindness), which progressed to a stage that rendered him unfit for continued service with the regiment. His condition was described the next month in a letter penned in April by Captain James Kacy:

Sgt. Lynch, poor fellow, is worn out and nearly blind, and is to be sent home. Many of our men are so affected, and it takes a strong eye to stand the glare of the sun on this white sand.

Corporal Lynch was subsequently discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on June 30 of that same year. Meanwhile, E Company Corporal Peter Lyner was also confined to the hospital that same day. Suffering from chronic diarrhea, he would be hospitalized three more times before the year was out.

Jacob Henry Scheetz, M.D., assistant surgeon, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

By mid-to-late March 1863, it was clear that an epidemic of dysentery and chronic diarrhea had broken out at Fort Jefferson. Among those trying to bring comfort to the sick were Assistant Regimental Surgeon Jacob H. Scheetz, M.D., who continued to hold the position of post surgeon, and A Company Private Charles Detweiler, who had been assigned to nursing duties at Fort Jefferson’s hospital. Also readmitted for treatment during this time (on March 18) was G Company Private Joseph Hallmeier, who had developed complications related to the back wound he had sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo on October 22, 1862. In addition, E Company Private Leonard Frankenfield had become so ill from the chronic diarrhea he had been suffering after contracting dysentery, that he, too, needed to be hospitalized—an admission that occurred on March 23.

On March 25, the schooner Nonpareil arrived at Fort Jefferson, bringing with it Colonel Good and his senior staff, Regimental Surgeon Elisha W. Baily, M.D., the regiment’s medical director, Regimental Quartermaster Francis Z. Heebner, and the 47th Pennsylvania’s Regimental Band for a short series of meetings and special events. They dined on bean soup, mush, pea soup, rice, vegetable soup, pies, coffee, and tea, and then returned to Fort Taylor four days later.

U.S. Army’s Department of the Gulf, 1864 map (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

As the month of April wore on, more Union ships arrived, carrying supplies and more than one hundred men who were added to Fort Jefferson’s roster of prisoners. During this same period, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was transferred from the command of Brigadier-General John Brannan in the U.S. Army’s Department of the South to the command of Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks in the Department of the Gulf—a change that would ultimately place the regiment in a position of making history in 1864 during the Union’s Red River Campaign across Louisiana.

On Sunday, April 12, 1863, the men from Company H carried out Order No. 31, which directed them to appear for inspection “with haversack and canteens” on a day when the temperature was high. The only members of the company who were excused were those who were hospitalized or assigned to hospital or guard duties.

Six days later, Corporal Albert prepared H Company’s kitchen for inspection, most likely with help from Thomas Haywood, a formerly enslaved Black man who had enlisted with the regiment in November 1862 while it was stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina. Haywood had been assigned to Company H, since that time, as an “Under-Cook.”

Ailing with conjunctivitis, E Company Corporal Peter Lyner was hospitalized at Fort Jefferson on April 21, 1863—during a month that saw forty members of the 47th Pennsylvania and twenty-one prisoners admitted to the post’s hospital. Fourteen of those 47th Pennsylvanians were diagnosed with dysentery and/or chronic diarrhea, with single cases of typhoid fever, asthma, bronchitis, catarrh, conjunctivitis, phlegmon, and phthisis also documented.

On April 23, H Company Captain James Kacy issued Order No. 32:

The members of Company H shall each have his rifle taken apart immediately after breakfast tomorrow morning. The sock and barrel from the stock, the sock not to be taken apart, and the Captain will inspect at 8:30 AM on Saturday [April 25].

Unidentified Union Army artillerymen standing next to one of the fifteen-inch Rodman guns, which were installed on the third level of Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, Florida, beginning in 1862. These smoothbore Rodman weighed twenty-five tons, and was able to fire four hundred and fifty-pound shells more than three miles (U.S. National Park Service, public domain).

Around this same time, records show that the combined total strength of the 47th Pennsylvania (with its forces divided between Forts Taylor and Jefferson) was nine hundred and sixty-eight men—and that none of those men who were classified as enlisted had been paid for their service to the nation for a shocking eight months. The month of April ended with another inspection—and with the members of Companies F and K resuming their practice with the light and heavy artillery equipment at Fort Jefferson.

As the month of May arrived, inspections continued to be a regular part of the 47th Pennsylvanians’ Sunday schedules—even as temperatures in the shady spots of Fort Jefferson were reaching ninety-nine degrees by mid-afternoon. For sustenance, the men were fed either pork or beef for breakfast and supper, depending on the day’s menu, followed by bean soup for their evening meal (dinner) with meals often supplemented by eggs that had been collected by members of the regiment from birds’ nests scattered around the island. The total number of Union troops stationed here during this time was six hundred and sixty-six.

But, once again, disease reared its ugly head with forty-eight members of the 47th Pennsylvania and thirty-seven prisoners confined to the Fort Jefferson hospital—twenty-four of whom had dysentery and/or chronic diarrhea, seven who had bilious or intermittent fever, four who were diagnosed with general debility, three who were diagnosed with abscesses, two who were suffering with hernia issues, and one who had contracted cholera.

First Lieutenant Christian Seiler Beard, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

On May 2, this letter from Sergeant Christian Beard of the 47th Pennsylvania’s C Company, was published in the Sunbury Gazette:

My sentiments are the same as they were when I left home, and let come what will I am ever ready and willing to meet it as a soldier’s fate, and will not grumble, let my lot be ever so hard, for he that can’t suffer something for the good of his country is not worthy of the name of a freeman. Some men say they could not fight as well at present as they could last summer. Such men are traitors and cowards, for we are fighting in the same cause now that we were then, and I should rather suffer death than flinch or say one disrespectful word respecting the government. But at home there is something wrong, and you ought not allow it. Men like Purdy should not be permitted to discourage those men who are willing to do something for the good of the country.

Those papers are continually talking of the troops being so much demoralized, but such things are new to us here, and are really not the case: on the other hand, they are every day becoming better disciplined, and more efficient for the duty they have to perform if only the people at home would not discourage them. I have seen letters written by men not a thousand miles from your town that would make the face of a heathen blush wish shame and indignation. They tell us that we are fighting for nothing but to free n______ [racial epithet deleted], and that our government don’t do as they ought, and the President thinks more of a n_____ [racial epithet deleted] than of a white soldier; all such talk, and some even go as far as to say that a man who would fight for such a man as Lincoln or Hunter was no better than a n_____ [racial epithet deleted]. This talk is put forth with the evident intention of discouraging the men, but such pups don’t discourage me. I am just as willing to fight to-day as ever, and any man who is unwilling to fight for the cause as it now stands is not worth as much powder as would kill him. We don’t fear the rebels, and they can’t whip us; but those rebels at home, lurking in our rear, we have to fear more than the honorable foe in front, who openly stand out with gun in hand to receive us. While such things are permitted at home, we must not look for better success than we have had of late in Virginia. On the other hand, if every man, woman and child would support the Union—stand by her, and not a man give up while there is life, then we would not need to fight half so much. The rebels say that half of the people North are for them, and they expect to get help there ere long. No wonder they keep their heads out of water so long. It is the people at the North—it is their faults that so many of the soldiers have to die on the battle field. They will some day have to account for it in my opinion. There is but two sides, the one is for the Administration and the Union, the other is for the rebellion. He that disagrees with the heads of our government, and everything that us done by them, while they are doing the best they possibly can, is a rebel at heart and dare not deny it. The best thing would be to stop all newspapers, and not allow them to be sent to the army. Letters of a discouraging character should also be forbidden.

Hoping that you are well, I am yours, &c.,
C. S. Beard

May also brought revised duty assignments for a number of 47th Pennsylvanians, including F Company Private John Weiss, who was given additional duties with the post’s Ordnance Department, after having recovered from a February bout of remittent fever, K Company Private Tilghman Boger, who was assigned to kitchen duties in the officers’ mess hall, and G Company Private Cornelius Heist, who was appointed as Company Cook—an assignment that likely brought him into contact with one of the regiment’s Under-Cooks—the group of formerly enslaved Black men who had enlisted with the regiment while it was stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina in October 1862.

Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida, view from the sea, 1946 (vacation photograph collection of President Harry Truman, November 1946, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain).

Another alert was sounded on May 7 when a Union gunboat chased a blockade runner from Great Britain into the harbor at Fort Jefferson, enabling D Company Captain Henry D. Woodruff and a party of his men to capture the British crew. Their prisoners were subsequently transported to Fort Taylor in Key West for processing.

Three days later, G Company Private William Eberhart died at Fort Jefferson’s hospital while being treated there for consumption (tuberculosis). According to Schmidt, he had been ill since Christmas Day of 1862, when he had first been hospitalized with dysentery. After being discharged on January 10, 1863, he had then been hospitalized again on March 3 tuberculosis-related phthisis. Quickly interred at 4 p.m. on the same day of his death (May 10), he was laid to rest with military honors somewhere on the grounds of the fort or on one of its neighboring islands where soldiers with infectious diseases were quarantined.

The next day (May 11), D Company Private Jesse D. Reynolds died from disease-related complications and was also quickly interred on the fort’s grounds or on a neighboring island. He, too, had battled a series of illnesses, having been hospitalized with hemeralopia on March 27, discharged on April 5, and readmitted to the fort’s hospital on May 8 with one of the many fever variants that plagued the regiment during the war. (An alternate date of May 30 was listed in the hospital’s death ledger.)

On May 16, D Company Captain Henry D. Woodruff and his men marched to the wharf at Fort Jefferson and climbed aboard yet another ship—this time for their return to Fort Taylor, where they resumed garrison duties under the command of Colonel Tilghman H. Good.

Two days later, G Company Private Irwin Scheirer also succumbed from tuberculosis-related complications at the fort’s hospital, after having previously been admitted and then discharged for asthma treatment on April 14 and 19, respectively. According to Schmidt, Private Scheirer’s “remains were buried at Bird Key at 2 PM by Sgt. Hutcheson, and the key and the site of the grave have been lost to time and the elements.”

The interment record of the Post Cemetery at Fort Jefferson indicated his grave was inventoried in 1873 and 1879, along with the graves of William Eberhart and Edward Frederick of the 47th, but the wooden markers were … unreadable. In 1879 it was noted that one grave contained seven bodies, and another grave contained bodies whose identification was unknown and which had been washed out to sea and returned by the Ordnance Sergeant and Fort Keeper. The following tribute of respect to Privates Scheirer and Eberhart was published in the Allentown Democrat on June 10, 1863:

‘TRIBUTE OF RESPECT—At a meeting of the members of Company G, 47th Regiment P. V., held at Fort Jefferson, Tortugas, Florida, on the evening of May 17 [sic], 1863, a committee was appointed to draft resolutions expressive of said Company G in regard to the death of two of their fellow members, viz.: William Eberhard of Bucks County, Pa., dec’d May 8, 1863, and Irvin Scheirer of Lehigh County, Pa., dec’d May 18 [sic], 1863. The following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted:

WHEREAS, It has pleased an All-wise Providence to remove from our midst, by the hand of death, within the brief period of a fortnight, two of our fellow members and companions in arms, viz.: William Eberhard and Irvin Scheirer, (who unfortunately became victims of that fell destroyer, consumption) therefore be it

RESOLVED, That by the death of these men we have lost from our ranks characters of true devotion to their country and the government thereof—such as were beloved by each of their fellow members, as well as all who knew them—kind companions and Christians.

RESOLVED, That since the connection of these men with Company G we have found them faithful to the duties they were asked to perform, obedient in all respects to their commanders; and while unfit for duty, either in the company or in the hospital—submissive to the desires of the Almighty God.

RESOLVED, That a copy of these resolutions be sent the families of each deceased, and be published in all the Allentown papers.

COMMITTEE.—Sergt. T. B. Leisenring, Corp. R. M. Fornwalt [sic, Fornwald], John Pratt, and Privates Wm. Hartz and William Steckel.

Bucks County papers please copy.’

On May 20, enlisted members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were finally given eight months’ worth of their back pay—a significant percentage of which was quickly sent home to family members who had been struggling to make ends meet.

Five days later, G Company Private Joseph Hallmeier was honorably discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability when regimental physicians made the determination that his recovery from the back wound he had sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo was not progressing well enough to enable him to perform any meaningful duties.

On the final day of the month, H Company Captain James Kacy issued Company Order No. 33:

Until further notice, card playing for profit or amusement in company quarters or elsewhere is strictly prohibited. Each Sergeant will visit each room twice a day to see that this order is carried out. Any Private found violating will be immediately put on a barrel in front of the guard house, there to remain for ten consecutive hours. Any non-commissioned officer playing with cards will be reduced to ranks and court martialed for disobedience of orders.

The next day, the “dreaded month of June came again and found us in Key West-to break the terrible monotony of island life,” recalled Emily Holder via an article she penned for a history magazine in the 1890s.

The feeling in Key West between the various political factions became more and more intensified as time went on. The sectional spirit had been so strong that it had almost resulted in the residents keeping entirely aloof from each other, although the greater part of them professed to be Unionists.

Those who owned the greatest number of slaves were at times defiant, although made no attempt to join the other side. Society was anything but pleasant, and we felt that the efforts of General Woodbury, who was now Military Governor, to bring people into more friendly relations were most commendable, and were seemingly successful.

Just as we were about ready to go down to the boat [at Fort Jefferson’s wharf] before starting for Key West, someone came for us to go to the ramparts as there was a fight at sea; one of our gun-boats was firing at a big steamer.

Taking the glass we were soon with the others on top of the Fort, and, surely enough, about five miles out was an immense steamer emitting a dense black smoke, which announced its character as only the Confederates used soft coal, and when they were running away, as that one evidently was, they put in pine wood or anything they had.

She was running from a little boat that in comparison was like a pigmy. Two larger steamers were trying to head her off, and they passed out of sight in that position. There were between twenty and thirty guns fired, and all in all it was quite an exciting affair.

We saw nothing of them on our way to Key West, but the day after our arrival a steamer brought into port a large Mississippi River boat, a side wheeler, loaded high upon deck with cotton—a prize valued at half a million dollars.

Colonel Alexander met one of the owners of the steamer who said that the people in the south were hopeless; but, he added, ‘we have nothing now to lose and we are going to fight as long as we can.’

I met at the hotel a lady from Mobile who ran the blockade with her husband on a vessel loaded with cotton. She said she stood on deck all the time they were being fired at, and would avow herself a Secessionist at the cannons’ mouth.

Her husband lost a large amount of property in the steamer. He was going to Europe while she returned to Mobile with her three children.

Officers’ quarters and parade grounds, interior of Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida, 1898 (U.S. National Park Service and National Archives and Records Administration, public domain).

The remainder of the month progressed in much the same manner for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers as the first five months of the year had—drilling, training with the fort’s light and heavy artillery, standing for long periods during weekly inspections, and marching in dress parades—even in the face of the higher temperatures and humidity so common to Florida summers then and now.

During mid-June, Fort Jefferson’s commanding officer and the 47th Pennsylvania’s second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander, negotiated new pay structures for two of his subordinates with his superior officer, Colonel Tilghman Good. Agreeing to pay Musicians Daniel Dachrodt and William A. Heckman an additional four dollars per month for the past pay period of September to December 9, 1862, the two senior officers also agreed to pay them each thirteen dollars per month for their service from December 9, 1862 through April 30, 1863.

And, once again, the grim reaper reared his ugly head—swinging his scythe through the regiment’s ranks to claim E Company Private Leonard Frankenfield, who was laid to rest somewhere on the grounds of Fort Jefferson after succumbing to complications from dysentery on June 22.

The most significant event of the month, which would prove to be one of the more consequential of the entire war for many Union soldiers, was a directive issued by the Office of the Adjutant General in the U.S. War Department on June 25, 1863:

General Orders, No. 191
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
June 25, 1863

In order to increase the armies now in the field, volunteer infantry, cavalry, and artillery may be enlisted at any time within ninety days from this date, in the respective states, under the regulations herein later mentioned. The volunteers so enlisted, and such of the three years’ troops now in the field as may enlist in accordance with the provisions of this order, will constitute a force to be designated Veteran Volunteers. The regulations for enlisting this force are as follows:

I. The period of service for the enlistments and re-enlistments above mentioned shall be for three years, or during the war.

II. All able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, who have heretofore been enlisted, and have served for not less than nine months, and can pass the examination required by the mustering regulations of the United States, may be enlisted under this order as Veteran Volunteers, in accordance with the provisions hereafter set forth.

III. Every volunteer enlisted and mustered into service as a Veteran, under this order, shall be entitled to receive from the United States one month’s pay in advance, and a bounty and premium of four hundred and two ($402) dollars, to be paid as follows:

  1. Upon being mustered into the service, he shall be paid
    one month’s pay in advance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $13.00
    First installment of bounty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25.00
    Premium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     2.00
    Total payment on muster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $40.00
  2. At the first regular pay-day, or two months after
    muster-in, an additional installment of bounty
    will be paid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   $50.00
  3. At the first regular pay-day after six months’
    service, he shall be paid an additional
    installment of bounty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   $50.00
  4. At the first regular pay-day after the end of the
    first years’ service, an additional installment of
    bounty will be paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   $50.00
  5. At the first regular pay-day after 18 months’
    service, an additional installment of bounty will
    be paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   $50.00
  6. At the first regular pay-day after two years’
    service, an additional installment of bounty will
    be paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   $50.00
  7. At the first regular pay-day after two and a
    half years’ service, an additional installment of
    bounty will be paid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $50.00
  8. At the expiration of three years’ service, the
    remainder of the bounty will be paid . . . . . . . . . . . . $75.00

IV. If the government shall not require these troops for the full period of three years, and they shall be mustered honorably out of the service before the expiration of their term of enlistment, they shall receive upon being mustered out, the whole amount of their bounty remaining unpaid, the same as if their whole term has been served. The legal heirs of volunteers who die in service shall be entitled to receive the whole bounty remaining unpaid at the time of the soldier’s death.

V. Veteran Volunteers enlisted under this order will be permitted at their option to enter old regiments now in the field; but their service will continue for the full term of their own enlistment, notwithstanding the expiration of the term for which the regiment was originally enlisted. New organizations will be officered only by persons who have been in service, and have shown themselves properly qualified for command. As a badge of honorable distinction, “service chevrons” will be furnished by the War Department, to be worn by the Veteran Volunteers.

VI. Officers of regiments whose term has expired, will be authorized, on proper application, and approval of their respective Governors, to raise companies and regiments within the period of sixty days; and if the companies and regiments authorized to be raised shall be filled up and mustered in the service within the said period of sixty days, the officers may be recommissioned on the date of their original commissions, and for the time engaged in recruiting they will be entitled to receive the pay belonging to their rank.

VII. Volunteers or Militia, now in service, whose term of service will expire within ninety days, and who then shall have been in service at least nine months, shall be entitled to the aforesaid bounty and premium of $402, provided they re-enlist, before the expiration of their present term, for three years or the war; and said bounty and premium shall be paid in the manner herein provided for other troops re-entering the service. The new term will commence from the date of re-enlistment.

VIII. After the expiration of ninety days from this date, volunteers serving in three year organizations, who may re-enlist for three years or the war, shall be entitled to the aforesaid bounty and premium of $402, to be paid in the manner herein provided for other troops entering the service. The new term will commence from date of re-enlistment.

IX. Officers in service, whose regiments or companies may re-enlist, in accordance with the provisions of this order, before the expiration of their present term, shall have their commission continued, so as to preserve their date of rank as fixed by their original muster into the United States service.

X. As soon after the expiration of their original term of enlistment as the exigencies will permit, a furlough of thirty days will be granted to men who may reenlist in accordance with the provisions of this order.

XI. Volunteers enlisted under this order will be credited as three years’ men in the quotas of their respective states. Instructions for the appointment of recruiting officers and for enlisting Veteran Volunteers will be immediately issued to the Governors of States.

By Order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General

As questions were raised by Union Army officers, who were being asked by their own subordinates for details about this potentially important change for their immediate finances and the financial futures of their families, the War Department’s Veteran Volunteers directive was followed by a clarification, in July 1863, via General Orders, No. 216:

General Orders, No. 216,
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, July 1863

I. All able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, who have heretofore been enlisted and have served for not less than nine months, have been honorably discharged, and can pass the examination required by the Mustering Regulations of the United States, may be enlisted in any Regiment they choose, new or old; and when mustered into the United States service, will be entitled to all the benefits provided by General Orders No. 191, for Recruiting “Veteran Volunteers.”

A Regiment, Battalion, or Company shall bear the title of “Veteran” only in case at least one-half its numbers, at the time of muster into the United States service, are “Veteran Volunteers.”

II. The benefits provided by General Orders, No. 191, for Veteran Volunteers, will be extended to men who re-enlisted prior to the promulgation of that order, provided they have fulfilled the conditions therein set forth.

By Order of the Secretary of War
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General

As word continued to spread regarding the federal government’s new plan to provide improved compensation for soldiers choosing to reenlist with the Union Army, the Office of the Adjutant General at the U.S. War Department issued a series of additional general orders to refine its new policy and procedures with respect to the designation of men as “Veteran Volunteers.”

General Orders, No. 305,
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, September 11, 1863

Par. VIII, of General Orders, No. 191, from this office, relative to recruiting Veteran Volunteers, is hereby amended to read as follows:

After the expiration of ninety days from this date, (June 25,) Volunteers serving in three years’ organizations, who may re-enlist for three years or the war, in Companies or Regiments to which they now belong, and who may have, at the date of re-enlistment, less than one year to serve, shall be entitled to the aforesaid bounty and premium of $402, to be paid in the manner herein provided for other troops re-entering the service. The new term will commence from the date of re-enlistment.

By Order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General

On November 6, 1863, this further clarification was issued:

General Orders, No. 359
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, November 6, 1863

I. To carry out the provisions of paragraphs 8 and 9, General Orders, No. 191, current series, from this office, in reference to volunteers who may come within the limit for re-enlistment as Veteran Volunteers, as fixed by General Orders, No. 305, current series, the following regulations are established:

MUSTERS-OUT OF SERVICE.

  1. The muster-out or discharge of all men who may re-enlist, and their re-enlistments and consequent re-musters, will be under the immediate supervision and direction of the Commissaries and Assistant Commissaries of Musters for the respective Armies and Departments. The said officers will make all musters-out of and re-musters into the service.
  2. All men who desire to take advantage of the benefits of the Veteran Volunteer order, by re-enlistment under it, will be regularly mustered out of service on the prescribed muster-out rolls. The discharges prescribed by paragraph 79, Mustering Regulations, will be furnished in all cases. A remark will be made on the muster-out rolls, over the signature of the Commissary or Assistant Commissary of Musters, as follows: ‘Discharged by virtue of re-enlistment as a Veteran Volunteer, under the provisions of General Orders, No. 191, series of 1863, from the War Department.”RE-ENLISTMENTS AND RE-MUSTERS.
  3. Simultaneously with the muster-out and discharge, but of the date next following it, the Veteran Volunteers will be formally re-mustered into the United States service ‘for three years or during the war.” This will be done on the prescribed muster-in rolls (muster and descriptive rolls of recruits). These rolls will be made out from the re-enlistments and descriptive lists of the men. (See section 4 of this paragraph.) The following remark will be made on the muster-in rolls, over the signature of the Commissary or Assistant Commissary of Musters: ‘Re-mustered as Veteran Volunteers, under G. O., 191, War Department, series of 1863.’
  4. Regimental Commanders, under the direction of Commanders of Brigades, will select and appoint a recruiting officer for their respective commands, and charge him with the re-enlistment of the Veterans thereof. The re-enlistments will be made in duplicate, and on the blank for “Volunteer Enlistment.” A descriptive roll of the men will be made out at the same time. The duplicate re-enlistments and descriptive rolls will be forwarded, or taken, by the recruiting officer, to the Commissary or Assistant Commissary of Musters who may be in charge of the musters for the organization to which the men belong. The mustering officer will countersign the re-enlistment papers, and file the descriptive roll with the records of his office. One copy of the re-enlistment will be delivered by the mustering officer to the Paymaster, to assist him in the examination and verification of the accounts; this copy will be forwarded with the said accounts to the proper accounting officer of the Treasury. The second copy of the re-enlistments will be returned by the mustering officer to the Regimental Commander, and by him forwarded to the Adjutant General of the Army with the Monthly Recruiting Return required by par. 919 Army Regulations, from Superintendents of Regimental Recruiting Service.PAYMENTS.
  5. The Pay Department of the Army is hereby charged with all payments (final due under original enlistments, advanced pay, bounties, and premiums) of the volunteers discharged and re-mustered as directed in this order. The final payments under the original enlistments will be made on the muster-out rolls.The amount of the ‘total payment on Muster,’ (re-muster,) par. II, G. O. 324, A. G. O., current series, will be made under the rules set forth in General Orders, No. 163. The consolidated receipt rolls, referred to in the said order, will be certified to by the Commissary or Assistant Commissary of Musters charged with the re-muster of the Veteran Volunteers into service. The payments on discharge, and those due on re-muster, will be made at the same time, and in full, immediately after the men are re-mustered into the service.

II. Commanders of Armies and Departments are hereby charged with the faithful execution of this order, and will issue such instructions under it as in their opinion will best secure the object in view. Troops to be discharged and re-mustered as Veterans will be reported to the proper commanders, through Army or Department Headquarters, to the Paymaster General. The reports will be made at a date such as will avoid delay in the payments being made.

By Order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General

The U.S. War Department then issued yet another order related to Veteran Volunteers on November 21, 1863:

General Orders, No. 376
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, November 21, 1863

I. It is hereby ordered that volunteers now in the service, re-enlisting as Veteran Volunteers under General Orders 191 from this office, shall have a furlough of at least thirty days previous to the expiration of their original enlistment. This privilege will be secured to the volunteers either by ordering all so-re-enlisting with their officers, to report in their respective States, through the Governors, to the Superintendent of the recruiting service, for furlough and reorganization, or by granting furloughs to the men individually.

II. Mustering officers shall make the following stipulation on the muster-in rolls of Veteran Volunteers now in the service re-enlisting as above: “To have a furlough of at least thirty days in their States before expiration of original term.

III. Commanding Generals of Departments and Armies are hereby authorized to grant the aforesaid furloughs, within the limit of time fixed in compliance with this order, as the demands of the service will best permit, reporting their action to the Adjutant General of the Army.

IV. In going to and from their respective States and homes, the Veteran Volunteers furloughed as herein provided will be furnished with transportation by the Quartermaster’s Department.

V. When three-fourths of a regiment or company re-enlist, the volunteers so enlisted may be furloughed in a body, for at least thirty days as aforesaid, to go home with their officers to their respective States and districts to reorganize and recruit; and the individuals of the companies and regiments who do not re-enlist shall be assigned to duty in other companies and regiments until the expiration of their terms of service.

By Order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General

As those subsequent updates continued to be released, newspapers across the nation began carrying word to the families of soldiers about the War Department’s stepped-up efforts to retain the nation’s most experienced soldiers, including the November 29, 1863 edition of The New York Times, which reprinted the text of General Orders, No. 376 and then added the following analysis:

The above order consists substantially of the series of propositions made to the War Department, three months ago, by Gov. MORTON, of Indiana, and was the suggestion of his comprehensive care for the interests of the country as well as the soldier. We have recently had occasion—indeed, ever since the war began we have had occasion—to notice the extraordinary energy and sagacity displayed by the Executive of Indiana in the conduct of the military affairs of that heroic State; and the success that has attended his efforts, and the appreciation of those efforts by the people of his own State and of the whole country, is the fit reward which his patriotic services have received….

Another proposal of Gov. MORTON, looking to the benefit of the soldier, we find referred to in the Indianapolis Journal, and we learn that it is now under discussion, with strong influences in its favor. It is that Paymasters of the army shall be authorized to take with them “five-twenty bonds,” from $50 to any larger amount, and allow the soldiers to take them in the place of any back pay, back bounty, or advance bounty (if he should reenlist) to which he may be entitled, or invest any pay in possession or due to him, which he may choose, in them. The proposal is urged for all the troops, but has as yet been acceded to only in the case of those from Indiana. The advantages of this arrangement are obvious, and we wish we could say that they were as generally bestowed as they are manifest. The soldier has the opportunity to turn every dollar due him, if he should not need it for immediate use, into an investment which has the double advantage of being just as good as “greenbacks” for currency, if they should be needed as money, and six per cent. better if they should be preferred as an investment.

At the present price of gold, on which the interest on these bonds is paid, the income they will yield the soldier will be about 9 per cent., fully equal to the first average investments of money in loans or real estate. On the other hand, the advantage to the country in giving the soldier a pecuniary interest in the permanence of the Government is obvious. The bonds are a little better than greenbacks, and of course can be used in their stead. If the bonds should not happen to be ready for delivery when the Paymasters go round, they are to take certificates, which shall be to the soldier the same as a bond. Now, a great many soldiers will leave the service with his last installment of bounty due, $75, with his advance bounty, (if he reenlists,) in his hands, $75, with his advance pay, $13, and whatever back pay may be due, not unlikely to amount to $50 or more, and can in nine cases out of ten invest $200 to $300, a very pretty sum to lay up against a rainy day.

Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, second-in-command, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, with officers from the 47th, Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida, circa 1863 (public domain).

When news of the federal government’s new inducements reached the far-flung 47th Pennsylvanians in Key West and the Dry Tortugas, Florida, hundreds of weary men who had been battered by brutal combat and the ever-present spectre of disease realized they were being given a much-needed “shot in the arm” of recognition from their elected officials and took renewed comfort in knowing that their service had, in fact, actually been valued.

In response, more than half of the men serving with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry opted to reenlist in 1863—a collective action that resulted in another historic achievement for the regiment—the permanent change of the organization’s name  to the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers.

 

Sources:

  1. “A Word from Captain Gobin’s Company” (May 1863 letter from C Company Sergeant Christian S. Beard). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury Gazette, May 2, 1873.
  2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  3. “Florida’s Role in the Civil War: ‘Supplier of the Confederacy.’” Tampa, Florida: Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida, retrieved online January 15, 2020.
  4. General Orders of the War Department, Embracing the Years, 1861, 1862 & 1863, vol. II, pp. 217-219 (General Orders No. 191), p. 245 (General Orders No. 216), 412 (General Orders No. 305), 602-603 (General Orders No. 359), and 644 (General Orders No. 376). New York, New York: Derby & Miller and Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, & Co., et al., 1864.
  5. Holder, Emily. “At the Dry Tortugas During the War.” San Francisco, California: Californian Illustrated Magazine, 1892 (part four, retrieved online, March 28, 2024, courtesy of Lit2Go, the website of the Educational Technology Clearinghouse at the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida).
  6. “History: Crops (Historic Florida Barge Canal Trail).” Historical Marker Database, retrieved online December 30, 2023.
  7. Owsley, Frank Lawrence, and Harriet Fason Chappell. King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1959.
  8. “Preventing Diplomatic Recognition of the Confederacy, 1861–1865,” and “The Alabama Claims, 1862–1872,” in “Milestones: 1861–1865.” Washington, D.C.: Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State, retrieved online December 30, 2023.
  9. “Re-enlistment of Veterans.; General Order. War Department, Adjutant-General’s Office.” New York, New York: The New York Times, November 29, 1863.
  10. Reports of Committees of the Senate of the United States for the First Session of the Fifty-First Congress, 1889-90. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890.
  11. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  12. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 1861-1868.

 

No Way to Treat a Widow: A Look at the U.S. Civil War Pension Battles Waged by Widows of Union Army Soldiers

This image of Julia (Kuenher) Minnich, circa 1860s, is being presented here through the generosity of Chris Sapp and his family, and is being used with Mr. Sapp’s permission. This image may not be reproduced, repurposed, or shared with other websites without the permission of Chris Sapp.

Prove to us you were married to that soldier.

Prove to us that the children you claim to be his were actually fathered by that soldier.

Prove to us that you stayed faithful to that soldier by remaining a widow for the remainder of your life—depriving yourself of warmth, comfort and love, even though you were in your early twenties when he widowed you.

Those heartbreaking words exemplify the bureaucratic nightmares endured by many widows of Union Army soldiers as they battled with insensitive and sometimes surprisingly judgmental officials from the United States Department of the Interior to obtain U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pensions—the American Civil War-era form of general assistance that held the potential to help them keep rooves over the heads of their children as they struggled to adjust to their new roles as single mothers.

A closer look at the Civil War Widows’ Pension files of multiple women who were widowed when their soldier-husbands died while serving with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry between 1861 and 1865 reveals that the quests of many of these women were bewildering, exasperating, heartbreaking, and long.

A Widow, Mother and a Civil War Nurse

At the time of her husband’s death in combat, Julia Ann (Kuehner) Minnich was residing with the couple’s young son, George, at the family’s home in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Just two weeks after receiving word that her husband was dead, she was forced to put her grief aside, and move forward.

Appearing before a Lehigh County justice of the peace on November 3, 1864, Julia declared that she was the twenty-seven-year-old widow of Edwin G. Minnich, who had been the captain of Company B, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry when he was killed “whilst in the service of the United States and in the line of duty” during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864.

Juliann (Kuehner) Minnich’s 1864 Affidavit for Her Initial U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension, p. 1 (U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Required by federal and state officials to prove that she had actually been married to Edwin Minnich—a distressing procedure that would have felt disrespectful to any grieving wife whose husband had been killed in combat, she subsequently furnished a series of affidavits which stated and re-stated that her maiden name before marriage was “Juliann Kuehner,” that she had been united in marriage with Edwin G. Minnich on March 23, 1856 by the Rev. Daniel Zeller at the German Reformed Church in Allentown, and that she had one surviving child from the marriage, George E. Minnich, who had been born on May 15, 1857 and was under the age of 16—making him eligible for U.S. Civil War Pension support. She also noted for the record that there had been “no public or private record” of her marriage.

The Rev. Daniel Zeller backed up her testimony by providing his own affidavit in which he attested to the date of her wedding ceremony, as did Minnich family friends John D. Lawall and William H. Blumer, the president of the First National Bank of Allentown and a brother to Jacob A. Blumer, a bank cashier who was later appointed as the guardian of Julia’s minor son, George. All four men swore under oath that they had known Julia and her husband for more than five years and confirmed that the statements she had made in her affidavits were true.

Despite this evidence, no decision was made regarding Julia’s eligibility for a pension award; as a result, she was forced to find other ways to support herself and her young son, including serving as a Civil War nurse for the Union Army.

Finally awarded a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension of twenty dollars per month on July 21, 1865, Julia (Kuehner) Minnich found herself in the position that many low-income women experience after struggling for months to make ends meet—having to build back her savings after digging herself out of a financial hole. In 1866, she made the difficult decision to send her son away to boarding school at the Home for Friendless Children for the City and County of Lancaster—one of the first privately run orphanages to receive funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to care for children who had lost one or both parents during the Civil War.

Seeking greater stability, she then remarried—to William Ruston, a native of England and employee of the Jordan Mill in Allentown—an act that would cause her greater hardship in the long run when her U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension was cancelled by federal government officials due to her remarriage and again when her second husband deserted her during the mid-1870s.

Forced to settle for work as a household servant in Philadelphia by 1880, she then remarried for a third time in 1887—to Charles Magill, who then also widowed her two weeks before Christmas in 1889.

Julia (Minnich) Magill’s June 3, 1896 Attestation Re: her 1863-1864 U.S. Civil War Nursing Service at Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida (U.S. Civil War Nurses’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Soldiering on in the face of adversity, she felt a renewed sense of hope when the United States Congress approved a pension program for Civil War nurses on August 5, 1892. Applying for aid on March 4, 1896, she cited her 1865 nursing service with the Medical Department of the U.S. Volunteers at Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C. She then added, via a letter penned on her behalf, that she had also performed nursing duties for the Union Army at Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida:

Bureau of Pensions
Dear Sir,

I served as Supt. Of Diet Kitchen in Key West – Florida from Dec. 1863 and remained there until Feb. 1864 in the 47th Pa. Regt. My husband was killed – Capt. Minnich on the 19th of October 1864 and it was after this that my service was rendered in Harewood Hospital. Harry Veand 47th Reg. Com. B Pa. Regt. if living could testify to my duty at Key West Fla. He is possibly living at Allentown Pa. If you could assist me in finding him he would remember me being at that place.

Julia Magill
her mark
No. 1314 Vienna St.
Phila Pa

Camelia Hancock [sic, possibly Cornelia Hancock]
witness to her mark

But that 1890s application process proved to be another difficult one. When her attorney advised her that pension officials had been unable to secure documentation of her nursing service, she began filing document after document with his help. But, although she was eventually gratified by an admission by federal officials that records documenting her nursing service actually did exist, she was still not awarded the nurse’s pension support that she so desperately needed and deserved.

It was only after the turn of the century—after changes were made to the federal pension system that allowed the resumption of assistance to remarried Civil War widows who had been stripped of their pensions—that her sacrifices and service to the nation were finally recognized with the restart of her Civil War Widow’s Pension payments of twenty dollars per month on April 5, 1901.

Sadly though, by this point in her life, Julia was in such dire straits, financially, that she had been forced to take a job as a cook at a hotel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for just two dollars per week. According to her son’s former guardian, during this period of her life, she “had no property, real or personal, and … had no means of support except her own daily labor.”

Researchers for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story have not yet determined what ultimately happened to her.

A Widow Lacking English Language Proficiency

Hannah Kolb’s U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension Claim (Hannah’s Affidavit, February 14, 1865, p. 1, U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Following the premature death of her husband, Hannah (Imborly) Kolb also quickly realized that she faced a challenging future as a widow, single mom and head of a household that was in a precarious financial state. Putting her own shock and grief to the side, she too sought help from the federal government. After submitting her U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension claim on December 12, 1864, she was also forced to jump through multiple hoops before eventually gaining access to the pension support to which she was entitled.

Filing document after document with the court systems of both Lehigh and Montgomery counties, she appeared before justices of the peace and other county officials within those two counties to affirm that she had been married to, and had had children with, Private John Kolb, another 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantryman who had died in 1864 during his American Civil War service on behalf of the United States.

During one of her earliest appearances, Hannah testified before a judge of the General Courts, Lehigh County on February 14, 1865 “to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress approved July 14, 1862.” During that deposition, she stated that she was a forty-five-year-old resident of Saegersville in Heidelberg Township, Lehigh County who was “the widow of John Kolb who was a Private in Company ‘K’ commanded by Captain C. W. Abbott in the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers who re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer in the fall of 1863, and died in the U.S. Genl. Hospital at Baltimore in the State of Maryland on the 21st day of October 1864 of Hemorrhoides [sic] while in the service of the United States.”

She added that she had been “married to the said John Kolb on the fourth day of August 1842 by Daniel Weiser at Montgomery; that her husband, the aforesaid John Kolb, died on the day above mentioned, and that she [had] remained a widow ever since that period,” noting that “her name before said marriage was Hannah Imboden,” and affirmed that there was “no public or private record” available of their marriage. She then further attested to the birth of their children, Hannah, who had been born on September 9, 1852, and Daniel, who had been born on January 17, 1853—dates of birth that also made them eligible to receive U.S. Civil War Pension support because they were still both under the age of sixteen.

Still residing in Heidelberg Township in 1866, she appeared that year before another Lehigh County justice of the peace on December 8 to re-state for the record that she was the widow of Private John Kolb, who “died in the Military Service of the United States on the 21st day of October 1864 at the United States General Hospital Baltimore MD. while a private in company ‘K’ Commanded by Capt. C. W. Abbott 47th Regiment Penna. Vols. Commanded by Col. T. H. Good in the war of 1861,” and reiterated that she had “remained a widow” since the death of her husband. In addition, she repeated the vital statistics related to her marriage and births of her children, who were still living at home with her. Adding that she was filing her 1866 affidavit “for the purpose of obtaining the benefit of the provisions made by the Second Section of the Act of Congress increasing the pensions for widows and orphans approved July 25, 1866,” she also stated for the record that she was appointing C. W. Bennett, Esquire of Washington, D.C., as her attorney to represent her in ongoing proceedings related to her pension claim.

The mark made by Hannah Kolb, in lieu of her signature, on one of her U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension claim affidavits (U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

One of the notable features of Hannah Kolb’s pension paperwork (which is also a notable feature of many of the pension files of other women mentioned in this article) is that she “made her mark” on documents that she was required to sign, signaling that she could not read or write English well enough to complete the federal pension application forms and required supporting documentation by herself. Since a significant percentage of the men who enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were German immigrants or Pennsylvania-born men of German heritage who still spoke German or Pennsylvania Dutch at home, it is reasonable to theorize that those times when she “made her mark” were an indication that she was most likely someone who also still only spoke German or Pennsylvania Dutch at home—a language barrier that put her at a disadvantage when trying to communicate with federal government officials who were far more proficient in English than they were in German.

Still battling to obtain the federal financial assistance she needed to keep her family housed and fed, Hannah next sought help from her husband’s former superior officer—Lieutenant-Colonel Charles W. Abbott. On August 31, 1867, Abbott submitted an affidavit to the county courts in which he attested that “John Kolb contracted a disease whilst in said service in the state of LA. [Louisiana] but however marched on with his said company [from] Richmond to Harrisonburg Va. and then from there he was sent to Jarvis U.S.A. G— Hospital at Baltimore Md. once Regt. reached Harrisonsburg [circa] 25th of Sept. 1864 and the said John Kolb reached that place [circa 27 September] and was the same day he reached there [was transferred to Jarvis Hospital].”

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles W. Abbott’s affidavit, filed in support of Hannah Kolb’s U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension claim, p. 1, August 1867, p. 1, U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Abbott then went on to present additional facts related to John Kolb’s illness and death and made clear to court officials that his subordinate’s illness and death were both directly related to his military service with the 47th Pennsylvania.

Less than three months later, on November 18, 1867, Hannah appeared before Lehigh County Justice of the Peace Samuel J. Kistler for the purpose of “explaining discrepancies between the Original Application” for her pension and the paperwork she had subsequently filed for an increase in that pension. The justice asked questions regarding the birth date of her daughter, which she confirmed. Her attorney then explained that errors on previous paperwork were not Hannah’s fault but were due to the representation she had received previously.

On February 1, 1868, Hannah made her next pension claim-related appearance—this time before a Lehigh County alderman—to attest, yet again, that she was a resident of Heidelberg Township who was “the widow of John Kolb who was a private in Co. ‘K’ – 47 Regt. Pa. Vols. In the war of 1861,” reiterating that she “was married to John Kolb on the 4th day of August A.D. 1842.”

This time, however, her attorney came better prepared.

Stating for the record that her marriage data “appear[ed] by a family Record in an old prayer Book now in my possession (which said Record reads as follows…),” he handed court officials an affidavit that presented, verbatim, in German, the text from Hannah’s prayer book which contained the vital statistics of her marriage. During that round of testimony, Hannah and her attorney also corrected the spelling of her maiden name, stating that it was “Imborly” and not “Imboden,” as had been written by her previous legal representative. Once again, she made an “X” mark in lieu of her signature.

On March 13, 1879, she appeared before Lehigh County Justice of the Peace Samuel Kistler to file a new claim that would enable her to restart her pension, the monthly payments of which had fallen into “arrears” (unpaid) status. Once again, she marked an “X” on the legal document in lieu of her signature.

Throughout this long process, as she cleared one hurdle after another, sapping the emotional energy she needed to raise her children, Hannah sought the help of the minister who had married her, the physician who had delivered two of her children, and multiple neighbors—each of whom attested that she was, indeed, who she said she was—the widow of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantryman John Kolb and was, most definitely, the mother of his children.

Finally awarded a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension of eight dollars per month, she was then also granted an additional four dollars per month for the support of her minor children on February 19, 1868.

Researchers are still working to identify her year of death and burial location.

A Widow Pushed to the Brink of Madness

Excerpt from 1868 court petition by Caroline Herman’s father and brother to have her declared incompetent, p. 1 (U.S. Civil War Widows’ and Orphans’ Pension Files, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

The mind of Caroline (Miller) Herman appears to have shattered after she received word that she had been widowed by her soldier-husband, Private William Herman, a member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ F Company who had died from disease-related complications following the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana. Struggling financially, her behavior became increasingly erratic after beginning her application process for a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension.

A resident of Weisenberg Township, Lehigh County during the fall of 1866, the thirty-two-year-old was in a such a precarious position by the end of that year that Joshua Seiberling, the attorney helping her with her pension application, felt compelled to pen an appeal to the U.S. Pension Bureau in which he begged federal officials to speed up their review due to the severe hardships that she and her children were suffering.

Although her widow’s pension was eventually approved by the bureau, the examiner handling her case initially refused to grant the additional orphans’ pension support she had requested (an extra two dollars per month for each of her two children). In later testimony before the court, Seiberling described how Caroline’s life had continued to unravel:

Just about that time [when she received word that she would be receiving a widow’s pension] she fell into the hands of Henry Croll from Berks Co. He controlled her so that she Refused to execute another paper for me. I dropped the matter there, after the Father and Brother of Caroline Harman [sic, Herman] called on me and desired me to permit them to present my name to our court as Committee of Caroline that they had all else prepared. I permitted them to do so and as you will see I was appointed but before the [proceedings] of said court was closed Croll persuaded Mrs. Harman to come and live with him and thereby got her out of our county, and out of our power. About the same time he was appointed by our court as guardian of the two minor children of said Mrs. Harman and for two of the minor children of William Shaffer, also a deceased soldier.

When the court realized that Henry Croll was “insolvent” and unable to pay the surety bond that all court-appointed guardians were expected to furnish, the court revoked his guardianship and appointed Seiberling in his place.

On June 11, 1868, Caroline’s father and brother—Daniel Miller, Sr. and Daniel Miller, Jr.—petitioned the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, for help, stating that Caroline was so mentally ill that she was no longer capable of managing her finances or caring for her children. Asking the court to determine “whether the said Caroline Harman [sic, Herman] has or has not by reason of lunacy become incapable of managing her estate,” they also asked the court to order that a formal inquest be held.

Same day inquisition taken and returned finding the said Caroline Harman [sic, Herman] a lunatic and that she has been so for ten years and upwards—but that she enjoys lucid intervals—and that by reason of said lunacy she is incapable of managing her estate.

Her commitment was subsequently ordered by the court on September 25, 1868, and her children were enrolled by Seiberling in the Pennsylvania Soldiers’ Orphans’ School in Womelsdorf, Berks County, which was known at that time, and is still known as the Bethany Orphans’ Home. Although “provided for at the expense of the State,” according to Seiberling, Seiberling continued to seek pension support for Caroline and her children.

Nearly thirty-one years to the day on which her husband died, Caroline (Miller) Herman passed away in Reading, Berks County (on July 27, 1895).

A Widow Accused of Adultery

Accusation of adultery made against Pauline (Wilt Ritter) Knauss by U.S Pension Bureau official (Pauline Ritter’s U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension File, Restoration Claim Rejection, 1887, p. 3, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Following the untimely death of her own husband, Pauline (Wilt) Ritter was just twenty-one years old when she became a single mother and head of her household. She filed for a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension on December 4, 1863, assisted by attorney Edwin Albright, while also fighting to keep her young daughter, Mary Jane Ritter, housed, clothed and fed.

According to her pension file, Pauline and her daughter were also residents of Allentown. Her eventual pension award—eight dollars per month—was made retroactive to October 30, 1863—the date of her soldier-husband’s death.

But she was young—and she had a long life ahead of her. So, after roughly fifteen years of living as the grieving widow of Corporal James Ritter, she made the decision to remarry in a ceremony that took place on February 3, 1885 at the home of her second husband, Thomas M. Knauss, a veteran of the Civil War who had served with Company L of the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Before she took this step, however, she made an unusual decision for a widow—to stop cashing her pension checks. She did so, according to testimony that she provided for government officials, because she had been told by several neighbors that she was not entitled to receive Civil War Pension support because she had “a suitor.”

Several years later, when she realized that she had been misled, she filed a claim with the U.S. Pension Bureau, on July 26, 1886, to be compensated for the back payments that she believed had rightly been due her since 1879. She then filed an additional affidavit, on November 30, in which she explained to those same officials, that she “did not draw her pension during the period from June 4, 1879 to Feb. 3, 1885 because during said period her present husband was her suitor or beau and she was told that because of said fact she could no longer draw her pension, and that being so informed by her neighbors she failed to execute her vouchers and never made inquiry of the pension office … taking it for granted that she could no longer get her pension.”

An ugly dispute then ensued.

After the initial Pension Bureau examiner who was assigned to review Pauline’s claim rejected that claim, another bureau staffer who had been assigned to re-review her claim made a determination that the first examiner’s work wasn’t up to par. On July 27, 1887, that Board of Re-Review staffer issued this finding: “The Reviewer gives no grounds for rejecting this claim for restoration.”

Two days later, on July 29, A. T. Parsons wrote this shocking letter to the Chief of the Board of Reviewers:

The Reviewer does give grounds for rejecting claim for restoration; if a pensioner has overdrawn all pension to which she is entitled is not grounds for rejection of a claim for restoration, and sufficient ground for such action I fail to understand what can be more effective.

The facts in this case are the pensioner commenced to live with Thomas M. Knauss in 1865 and continued to live with him as his wife up to the present time having between 1866 and 1883 eight children by him. Feb. 3 1885 the ceremony of marriage was performed.

I could not reject on the grounds of remarriage prior to 1885. Neither could I reject on the ground of open and notorious adulterous cohabitation for as this all took place in the State of Pa. it is not the fact.

Parsons made these incendiary claims, despite attestations by Pauline’s longtime neighbors and son-in-law that she had not remarried since the death of her husband until she wed Thomas Knauss in February 1885.

That first Pension Bureau claims reviewer appears to have been in possession of contradictory evidence, however; according to the federal census enumerator who visited her home in 1870, Pauline was already using the Knauss surname that year and was describing herself as the wife of Thomas Knauss and the mother of Mary Ritter (aged nine), George (aged four) and Robert (aged two). By the time of the 1880 federal census, her household with Thomas Knauss had grown to include four more children: daughters Emma (aged nine), Agnes (aged eight), Effy (aged three), and Minerva (aged one).

Meanwhile, Mary Jane—her daughter from her first marriage—had begun her own married life with her new husband. (Sadly, Mary Jane’s life would prove to be a short one. She passed away in Allentown while just in her early forties.)

Despite the growing controversy and heartache, Pauline soldiered on, waging a war of words and paper with the U.S. Pension Bureau while also continuing to make a life in Allentown with her second husband and their large family. But then he also widowed her.

Having survived the deaths of her first husband (1863), her second husband (1900), her daughter from her first marriage, Mary Jane (1902), and two of her sons from her second marriage—George W. Knauss in 1918, and John Ellsworth Knauss, who had died suddenly from an abscessed appendix on February 11, 1922, Pauline (Wilt Ritter) Knauss died in Allentown from mesenteric thrombosis (a blood clot in one of her intestinal arteries) on February 27, 1922. Subsequently buried beside her second husband, she was survived by her daughter from her second marriage, Goldie Viola (Knauss) Landis (1883-1960).

The Often Heartbreaking Evidence

To view the U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension records of these and other widows of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen who navigated the federal pension application process during and after the American Civil War, visit these pages of our project’s website:

 

Sources:

  1. Caroline Herman, Daniel Miller (father), Catharine Welder (mother), and William Herman, in Death Records (Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1895). Berks County, Pennsylvania: Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.
  2. Charles Magill, in Coroner’s Certificates. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Office of the Coroner, December 10, 1889.
  3. Charles Magill and “Julian Ruston” [sic], in Certificate of Marriage. Camden, New Jersey: St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, January 18, 1887.
  4. 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.
  5. Harman, Carolina [sic], in Death Records (City of Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, July 27, 1895). Reading, Pennsylvania: Clerk of the Orphans’ Court, Berks County.
  6. Harman [sic], William and Caroline, in U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  7. Herman, Caroline, widow of William Herman, in U.S. Census, Longswamp Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1890). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  8. “Judge Endlich’s Opinion” (ruling on the sanity of Carolina Herman). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Times, September 30, 1890.
  9. 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.
  10. Knauss, Thomas, Pauline, George, and Robert, and Ritter, Mary, in U.S. Census (Allentown, First Ward, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1870). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  11. Knauss, Thomas, Pauline, George, Robert, Emma, Agnes, Effy, and Minerva, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1880). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  12. Pauline Knauss, in Death Certificates (file no.: 15329, registered no.: 219; date of death: February 27, 1922). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
  13. Kolb, Hannah and William, in U.S. Census (Heidelberg Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1870; note: shown as living next door to/near Hiram Kolb, who was Hannah’s son and William’s brother); Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  14. Kolb, John and Hannah, in U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  15. “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.
  16. Minnich, Capt. Edwin G. and Mrs. Julia (Kuehner) Minnich (images and military paperwork). Pennsylvania: Personal Collection of Chris Sapp.
  17. Minnich, George E., in New Jersey State Census (1895). Trenton, New Jersey: New Jersey Department of State.
  18. Ritter, James and Paulina, in U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  19. “Todte Körper Heimgebracht” (“Dead Bodies Brought Home”). Allentown, Pennsylvania: Der Lecha Caunty Patriot, February 2, 1864.

 

Sitting in Judgment: Four Officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers Oversee Court Martial Proceedings (1862–1863)

Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, shown here circa 1863, went on to become lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania after the war (public domain).

One of the terms that crops up when researching the history of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers is “court martial”—a phrase that often conjures images of soldiers deserting their posts or behaving in some other dishonorable manner, and who then ended up facing charges of “conduct unbecoming.”

With respect to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, the phrase “court martial” appears, more often than not, in relation to the service by multiple officers of the regiment who were assigned to serve as judges or members of the jury during trials of civilians in territories where the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were assigned to provost (military police and civilian court) duties, or as judges or members of the jury during the court martials of other members of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

This article presents details about two of the multiple military courts martial in which members of the 47th Pennsylvania were involved.

1862

In mid to late December 1862, Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan directed the three most senior officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—Colonel Tilghman H. Good, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander and Major William H. Gausler—to serve on a judicial panel with other Union Army officers during the court martial trial of Colonel Richard White of the 55th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Brannan then also appointed Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin of the 47th Pennsylvania’s C Company as judge advocate for the proceedings.

Of the four, Gobin was, perhaps, the most experienced from a legal standpoint. Prior to the war, he was a practicing attorney in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Post-war, he went on to serve in the Pennsylvania State Senate and as lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

On December 18, 1862, The New York Herald provided the following report regarding Colonel White’s court martial:

A little feud [had] arisen in Beaufort between General [Rufus] Saxton and the forces of the Tenth Army corps. Last week, during the absence at Fernandina of General Brannan and Colonel Good, the latter of whom is in command of the forces on Port Royal Island, Colonel Richard White of the Fifty-fifth Pennsylvania, was temporarily placed in authority. By his command a stable, used by some of General Saxton’s employes [sic, employees], was torn down. General Saxton remonstrated, and … hard words ensued … the General presumed upon his rank to place Colonel White in arrest, and to assume the control of the military forces. Upon General Brannan’s return, last Monday, General Saxton preferred against Colonel White several charges, among which are ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline’ and ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’ General Brannan, while denying the right of General Saxton to exercise any authority over the troops, has, nevertheless, ordered a general court martial to be convened, and the following officers, comprising the detail of the court, are to-day [sic, today] trying the case:— Brigadier General Terry, United States Volunteers; Colonel T. H. Good, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania; Colonel H. R. Guss, Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania; Colonel J. D. Rust, Eighth Maine; Colonel J. R. Hawley, Seventh Connecticut; Colonel Edward Metcalf, Third Rhode Island artillery; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Alexander, 47th Pennsylvania; Lieutenant Colonel J. F. Twitchell, Eighth Maine; Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Bedell, Third New Hampshire; Major Gausler, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania; Major John Freese, Third Rhode Island artillery; Captain J. P. S. Gobin, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania, Judge Advocate. Among the officers of the corps the act of General Saxton is generally deemed a usurpation on his part; and, inasmuch as this opinion is either to be sustained or outweighed by the Court, a good deal of interest is manifested in the trial.

White, whose regiment had just recently fought side-by-side with the 47th Pennsylvania and other Brannan regiments in the Battle of Pocotaligo, was ultimately acquitted, according to subsequent reports by the United States War Department.

1863

Major William H. Gausler, third-in-command of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1864 (photo used with permission, courtesy of Julian Burley).

Three months after the aforementioned court martial proceedings, Major William Gausler was called upon again to oversee legal proceedings against his fellow Union Army soldiers—this time serving as president of the courts martial of two members of the 90th New York Volunteer Infantry. Those trials and their resulting findings were subsequently reported by the Adjutant General’s Office of the U.S. War Department roughly a year later as follows:

General Orders, No. 118
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, March 24, 1864

I. Before a General Court Martial, which convened at Fort Taylor, Key West, Florida, March 23, 1863, pursuant to Special Orders, No. 130, dated Headquarters, Department of the South, Hilton Head, Port Royal, South Carolina, March 7, 1863, and of which Major W. H. Gausler, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, is President, were arraigned and tried—

1. Captain Edward D. Smythe, 90th New York State Volunteers.

CHARGE I.—“Violation of the 7th Article of War.”

Specification—“In this, that Captain Edward D. Smythe, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did join in a seditious combination of officers of the 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

CHARGE II.—“Violation of the 8th Article of War.”

Specification 1st—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, being present at an unlawful and seditious assemblage of officers of the 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, held at the Light-house Barracks, Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

Specification 2d—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, having knowledge of an intended unlawful and seditious assemblage of officers of the 90th New York State Volunteers being held at the Light-house Barracks, Key West, Florida, did not without delay give information of the same to his Commanding Officer. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

CHARGE III.—“Rebellious conduct, tending to excite mutiny.”

Specification 1st —“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did, with, thirteen other officers of the 90th New York State Volunteers, tender his resignation, and insist upon its being forwarded, at a time when there were apprehensions of a general resistance to the execution of an order from the Headquarters of the Department of the South. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

Specification 2d—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did, after so tendering his resignation, positively refuse to withdraw the same when requested to do so by his Commanding Officer, Colonel Joseph S. Morgan, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, then commanding the post, he having been notified by Commanding Officer that there were apprehensions of imminent danger at the post. All this at Key West, Florida, on our about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

To which charges and specifications the accused, Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th New York State Volunteers, pleaded “Not Guilty.”

FINDING.

The Court, having maturely considered the evidence adduced, finds the accused, Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th New York State Volunteers, as follows:

CHARGE I.

Of the Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

CHARGE II.

Of the 1st Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the 2d Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

CHARGE III.

Of the 1st Specification, “Guilty, except the words ‘insist upon its being forwarded at a time when there were apprehensions of a general resistance to the execution of an order from the Headquarters of the Department of the South.’”

Of the 2d Specification, “Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

And the Court, being of opinion there was no criminality, does therefore acquit him.

 

2. 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers.

CHARGE I.—“Neglect of duty.

Specification—“In this; that the said Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, Company ‘G,’ 90th New York Volunteers, did, on the night of the 10th of March, when he was the Officer of the Day, permit and encourage an enlisted man who was drunk to occupy and sleep in his, the said Lieutenant C. N. Smith’s quarters, and to create an uproar, to the disturbance and annoyance of the officers in the same building, and did not send him, the said enlisted man, although after ‘taps,’ to his proper quarters, or cause him to be quiet.”

CHARGE II.—“Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and prejudicial to good order and military discipline.”

Specification—“In this; that the said Lieutenant Charles N. Smith did allow and keep in his quarters all night a drunken enlisted man, and encourage him to speak disrespectfully and abusively of his superior officers; and upon the said enlisted man saying ‘that every officer who had sent in his resignation was a cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch,’ did reply ‘that’s so;’ and did further permit, encourage, and agree to many other things said of a like nature. All this at Key West, Florida, on or about March 10, 1863.”

To which charges and specifications the accused, 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers, pleaded “Not Guilty.”

FINDING.

The Court, having maturely considered the evidence adduced, finds the accused, 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers, as follows:

CHARGE I.

Of the Specification, “Guilty, excepting the words ‘encouraged’ or ‘cause him to be quiet.’”
Of the Charge, “Guilty.”

CHARGE II.

Of the Specification, “Guilty of allowing and keeping in his quarters all night a drunken enlisted man.”
Of the Charge, “Guilty, except the words ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’”

SENTENCE.

And the Court does therefore sentence him, the said Charles N. Smith, 1st Lieutenant, 90th New York Volunteers, “To be reprimanded by his Commanding Officer.”

Trusted to honorably and faithfully fulfill their responsibilities by senior Union Army leaders, those and other officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry would be called upon repeatedly for the remainder of the war to serve in similar judicial roles throughout the remaining years of the war.

 

Sources:

  1. General Orders No., 118, Washington, March 24, 1864, in Index of General Orders Adjutant General’s Office, 1864. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1865.
  2. “Our Hilton Head Correspondence.” New York New York: The New York Herald, December 16, 1862.
  3. “South Carolina.; Military Organization of the Department of South Carolina.” New York, New York: The New York Times, August 8, 1865.