Alternate Surname Spellings: Hiskey, Hisky

 

Sons of a master craftsman who “became one of the most prominent iron workers” in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, according to his obituary, the Hiskey brothers were also staunch Republicans who became early responders to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to help defend America’s capital city as their nation descended deeper and deeper into the madness of disunion.

They would both survive the American Civil War, but their experiences during those difficult years would significantly reshape the trajectories of their respective paths in life.

Formative Years

Born in Pennsylvania in 1839 and 1843, respectively, Oliver and Franklin Hiskey were sons of Pennsylvania natives William D. Hiskey (1823-1910) and Julian A. (Knauss) Hiskey (1820-1898). In 1850, they lived with their parents in Northampton Township, Lehigh County, where their father was employed as a blacksmith. On 10 June 1851, they became part of a larger family when their younger brother, John Quincy Hiskey (1851-1909), was born.

As the years wore on, the Hiskey boys would watch their father rise to prominence, first as a highly skilled and sought-after ironworker, and then as an adept planner and builder of iron furnaces across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to a 1910 edition of The Allentown Democrat, William D. Hiskey’s “ability as a furnace builder gained for him more than local repute.”

He was identified with building, rebuilding and remodeling of practically all of the furnaces of the Lehigh Valley, including the Lewis furnace, the Roberts furnace, Emaus, Macungie, Topton, Alburtis and another at Richmond, Va.

By 1860, the Hiskey household was located in Allentown’s First Ward, and included family patriarch William, family matriarch Julian, and their children: Oliver; Frank, who was employed as a day laborer; John; and Joseph, who had been born circa 1859.

Sometime around this same phase of their lives—likely between the late 1850s and early 1861—Oliver Hiskey joined the Jordan Artillerists, a local militia group that had been established in 1856, and was largely composed of men who lived in Allentown’s First Ward. Also known as the “Jordan Artillery,” this militia unit was captained by William H. Gausler, who “gave faithful attention to the company, which was clothed in the regulation U.S. Army uniform and fully equipped with Springfield rifles, belts, canteens, etc.,” according to historian James L. Schaadt. “The Hardee tactics were followed, and under his instruction the company became noted for its double-quick maneuvering and its drill in the manual of arms at the tap of the drum.”

Civil War — Three Months’ Service

The first of the Hiskey brothers to enlist for military service during the opening months of the American Civil War was Oliver Hiskey. An early responder to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers “to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union,” following the fall of Fort Sumter to Confederate States Army troops, he enrolled and officially mustered in for duty with his fellow Jordan Artillerists on 20 April 1861 at what would later become known as Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County. Entering at the rank of private, he was assigned to Company I of the 1st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Transported by Northern Central Railway cars with their regiment to Cockeysville, Maryland, the 1st Pennsylvanians spent time at Camp Scott near York, Pennsylvania before being ordered to railroad guard duties along the rail lines between Pennsylvania and Druid Park in Baltimore, Maryland from 14-25 May.

From there, the 1st Pennsylvanians were assigned to Catonsville (25 May) and Franklintown (29 May) before being ordered back across the border with their regiment and stationed at Chambersburg (3 June). There, they were attached to the 2nd Brigade (under Brigadier-General George Wynkoop), 2nd Division (under Major-General William High Keim), in the Union Army corps commanded by Major-General Robert Patterson.

Ordered on to Hagerstown, Maryland on 18 June and then to Funkstown, Goose Creek and Edward’s Ferry, the regiment remained in that vicinity until 22 June, when it was ordered to Frederick, Maryland.

Assigned with other Union regiments to occupy the town of Martinsburg, Virginia from 8-21 July (following the Battle of Falling Waters earlier that month), the 1st Pennsylvanians were ordered to Harpers Ferry on 21 July. Following the completion of their Three Months’ Service, they honorably mustered out on 23 July 1861.

Civil War — Three Years’ Service

Realizing that the war was far from over, Private Oliver Hiskey opted to reenlist. This time, when he re-enrolled for military service, he did so at an army recruiting depot in Allentown on 20 August 1861—and he did so with his brother, Franklin Hiskey, at his side. Both brothers then officially mustered in for duty at Camp Curtin, where they were assigned to Company B of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—a brand new regiment that had just been formed on 5 August of that year by Tilghman H. Good, one of Oliver Hiskey’s superior officers from the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Described on military records as a twenty-one-year-old laborer from Allentown who was six feet tall with sandy hair, gray eyes and a dark complexion, Oliver Hiskey was immediately given the rank of sergeant with Company B in recognition of his recent Three Months’ Service with the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers and pre-war militia service with the Jordan Artillerists, while Frank Hiskey, who was enlisting for the first time, entered Company B as a private. He was described as an eighteen-year-old laborer from Allentown who was five feet, nine inches tall with light hair, gray eyes and a dark complexion.

Following a brief light infantry training period, the Hiskey brothers and their respective companies were sent by train with the 47th Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., where they were stationed at “Camp Kalorama” on the Kalorama Heights near Georgetown, about two miles from the White House, beginning 21 September. Henry Wharton, a musician with the regiment’s C Company, penned the following update the next day to his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American:

After a tedious ride we have, at last, safely arrived at the City of ‘magnificent distances.’ We left Harrisburg on Friday last at 1 o’clock A.M. and reached this camp yesterday (Saturday) at 4 P.M., as tired and worn out a sett [sic] of mortals as can possibly exist. On arriving at Washington we were marched to the ‘Soldiers Retreat,’ a building purposely erected for the benefit of the soldier, where every comfort is extended to him and the wants of the ‘inner man’ supplied.

After partaking of refreshments we were ordered into line and marched, about three miles, to this camp. So tired were the men, that on marching out, some gave out, and had to leave the ranks, but J. Boulton Young, our ‘little Zouave,’ stood it bravely, and acted like a veteran. So small a drummer is scarcely seen in the army, and on the march through Washington he was twice the recipient of three cheers.

We were reviewed by Gen. McClellan yesterday [21 September 1861] without our knowing it. All along the march we noticed a considerable number of officers, both mounted and on foot; the horse of one of the officers was so beautiful that he was noticed by the whole regiment, in fact, so wrapt [sic] up were they in the horse, the rider wasn’t noticed, and the boys were considerably mortified this morning on dis-covering they had missed the sight of, and the neglect of not saluting the soldier next in command to Gen. Scott.

Col. Good, who has command of our regiment, is an excellent man and a splendid soldier. He is a man of very few words, and is continually attending to his duties and the wants of the Regiment.

…. Our Regiment will now be put to hard work; such as drilling and the usual business of camp life, and the boys expect and hope an occasional ‘pop’ at the enemy.

On 24 September, the Hiskey brothers and their fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers became part of the federal service when the regiment officially mustered into the U.S. Army. On 27 September, the 47th Pennsylvania was assigned to the 3rd Brigade of Brigadier-General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, which also included the 33rd, 49th and 79th New York regiments. By that afternoon, the 47th Pennsylvania was on the move again. Ordered onward by Brigadier-General Silas Casey, the Mississippi rifle-armed 47th Pennsylvania infantrymen marched behind their regimental band until reaching Camp Lyon, Maryland on the Potomac River’s eastern shore. At 5 p.m., they joined the 46th Pennsylvania in moving double-quick (one hundred and sixty-five steps per minute using thirty-three-inch steps) across the “Chain Bridge” marked on federal maps, and continued on for roughly another mile before being ordered to make camp.

The next morning, they broke camp and moved again. Marching toward Falls Church, Virginia, they arrived at Camp Advance around dusk. There, about two miles from the bridge they had crossed a day earlier, they re-pitched their tents in a deep ravine near a new federal fort under construction (Fort Ethan Allen). They had completed a roughly eight-mile trek, were situated fairly close to the headquarters of Brigadier-General William Farrar Smith (also known as “Baldy”) and were now part of the massive Army of the Potomac (“Mr. Lincoln’s Army”). Under Smith’s leadership, their regiment and brigade would help to defend the nation’s capital from the time of their September arrival through late January when the men of the 47th Pennsylvania would be shipped south.

Once again, Company C Musician Henry Wharton recapped the regiment’s activities, noting, via his 29 September letter home to the Sunbury American, that the 47th had changed camps three times in three days:

On Friday last we left Camp Kalorama, and the same night encamped about one mile from the Chain Bridge on the opposite side of the Potomac from Washington. The next morning, Saturday, we were ordered to this Camp [Camp Advance near Fort Ethan Allen, Virginia], one and a half miles from the one we occupied the night previous. I should have mentioned that we halted on a high hill (on our march here) at the Chain Bridge, called Camp Lyon, but were immediately ordered on this side of the river. On the route from Kalorama we were for two hours exposed to the hardest rain I ever experienced. Whew, it was a whopper; but the fellows stood it well – not a murmur – and they waited in their wet clothes until nine o’clock at night for their supper. Our Camp adjoins that of the N.Y. 79th (Highlanders.)….

We had not been in this Camp more than six hours before our boys were supplied with twenty rounds of ball and cartridge, and ordered to march and meet the enemy; they were out all night and got back to Camp at nine o’clock this morning, without having a fight. They are now in their tents taking a snooze preparatory to another march this morning…. I don’t know how long the boys will be gone, but the orders are to cook two days’ rations and take it with them in their haversacks….

There was a nice little affair came off at Lavensville [sic, Lewinsville], a few miles from here on Wednesday last; our troops surprised a party of rebels (much larger than our own.) killing ten, took a Major prisoner, and captured a large number of horses, sheep and cattle, besides a large quantity of corn and potatoes, and about ninety six tons of hay. A very nice day’s work. The boys are well, in fact, there is no sickness of any consequence at all in our Regiment….

Sometime during this phase of duty, as part of the 3rd Brigade, the 47th Pennsylvanians were moved to a site they initially christened “Camp Big Chestnut” in reference to the large chestnut tree located within their campsite’s boundaries. The area would eventually become known to the Keystone Staters as “Camp Griffin,” and was located roughly ten miles from Washington, D.C.

On 11 October, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers marched in the Grand Review at Bailey’s Cross Roads. In a letter home in mid-October, Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin (the leader of C Company who would be promoted in 1864 to lead the entire 47th Regiment) reported that companies D, A, C, F and I (the 47th Pennsylvania’s right wing) were ordered to picket duty after the left-wing companies (B, G, K, E, and H) had been forced to return to camp by Confederate troops. In his letter of 13 October, Henry Wharton described their duties, as well as their new home:

The location of our camp is fine and the scenery would be splendid if the view was not obstructed by heavy thickets of pine and innumerable chesnut [sic] trees. The country around us is excellent for the Rebel scouts to display their bravery; that is, to lurk in the dense woods and pick off one of our unsuspecting pickets. Last night, however, they (the Rebels) calculated wide of their mark; some of the New York 33d boys were out on picket; some fourteen or fifteen shots were exchanged, when our side succeeded in bringing to the dust, (or rather mud,) an officer and two privates of the enemy’s mounted pickets. The officer was shot by a Lieutenant in Company H [?], of the 33d.

Our own boys have seen hard service since we have been on the ‘sacred soil.’ One day and night on picket, next day working on entrenchments at the Fort, (Ethan Allen.) another on guard, next on march and so on continually, but the hardest was on picket from last Thursday morning ‘till Saturday morning – all the time four miles from camp, and both of the nights the rain poured in torrents, so much so that their clothes were completely saturated with the rain. They stood it nobly – not one complaining; but from the size of their haversacks on their return, it is no wonder that they were satisfied and are so eager to go again tomorrow. I heard one of them say ‘there was such nice cabbage, sweet and Irish potatoes, turnips, &c., out where their duty called them, and then there was a likelihood of a Rebel sheep or young porker advancing over our lines and then he could take them as ‘contraband’ and have them for his own use.’ When they were out they saw about a dozen of the Rebel cavalry and would have had a bout with them, had it not been for…unlucky circumstance – one of the men caught the hammer of his rifle in the strap of his knapsack and caused his gun to fire; the Rebels heard the report and scampered in quick time….

On Friday, 22 October, the 47th engaged in a morning Divisional Review, described by historian Lewis Schmidt as massing “about 10,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and twenty pieces of artillery all in one big open field.”

In his letter of 17 November, Henry Wharton revealed still more details about life at Camp Griffin:

This morning our brigade was out for inspection; arms, accoutrements [sic], clothing, knapsacks, etc, all were out through a thorough examination, and if I must say it myself, our company stood best, A No. 1, for cleanliness. We have a new commander to our Brigade, Brigadier General Brannen [sic], of the U.S. Army, and if looks are any criterion, I think he is a strict disciplinarian and one who will be as able to get his men out of danger as he is willing to lead them to battle….

The boys have plenty of work to do, such as piquet [sic] duty, standing guard, wood-chopping, police duty and day drill; but then they have the most substantial food; our rations consist of fresh beef (three times a week) pickled pork, pickled beef, smoked pork, fresh bread, daily, which is baked by our own bakers, the Quartermaster having procured portable ovens for that purpose, potatoes, split peas, beans, occasionally molasses and plenty of good coffee, so you see Uncle Sam supplies us plentifully….

A few nights ago our Company was out on piquet [sic]; it was a terrible night, raining very hard the whole night, and what made it worse, the boys had to stand well to their work and dare not leave to look for shelter. Some of them consider they are well paid for their exposure, as they captured two ancient muskets belonging to Secessia. One of them is of English manufacture, and the other has the Virginia militia mark on it. They are both in a dilapidated condition, but the boys hold them in high estimation as they are trophies from the enemy, and besides they were taken from the house of Mrs. Stewart, sister to the rebel Jackson who assassinated the lamented Ellsworth at Alexandria. The honorable lady, Mrs. Stewart, is now a prisoner at Washington and her house is the headquarters of the command of the piquets [sic]….

Since the success of the secret expedition, we have all kinds of rumors in camp. One is that our Brigade will be sent to the relief of Gen. Sherman, in South Carolina. The boys all desire it and the news in the ‘Press’ is correct, that a large force is to be sent there, I think their wish will be gratified….

On 21 November, the 47th participated in another morning divisional review—overseen this time by Colonel Tilghman H. Good. Brigade and division drills were then held that afternoon. According to Schmidt, “each man was supplied with ten blank cartridges.” Afterward, “Gen. Smith requested Gen. Brannan to inform Col. Good that the 47th was the best regiment in the whole division.”

As a reward for their performance that day—and in preparation for the even bigger events which were yet to come, Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan ordered that brand new Springfield rifles be obtained for every member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

But these frequent marches and their guard duties in rainy weather gradually began to wear the men down; more fell ill with fever and other ailments; more died.

1862

Next ordered to move from their Virginia encampment back to Maryland, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers left Camp Griffin at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 January 1862. Marching through deep mud with their equipment for three miles in order to reach the railroad station at Falls Church, they were then transported by train to Alexandria, where they boarded the steamship City of Richmond, and sailed the Potomac to the Washington Arsenal, where they were reequipped before being marched off for dinner and rest at the Soldiers’ Retreat in Washington, D.C.

The next afternoon, the 47th Pennsylvanians hopped cars on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and headed for Annapolis, Maryland. Arriving around 10 p.m., they were assigned quarters in barracks at the United States Naval Academy. They then spent that Friday through Monday (24-27 January 1862) loading their equipment and other supplies onto the steamship Oriental.

Ferried to the big steamship by smaller steamers on 27 January, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers commenced climbed aboard the U.S. Oriental, enlisted men first and officers last. Then, per the directive of Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan, they steamed away for the Deep South at 4 p.m.

They were headed for Florida which, despite its secession from the Union, remained strategically important to the Union due to the presence of Fort Taylor (Key West) and Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas).

In February 1862, the Hiskey brothers arrived in Key West with their fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Assigned to garrison duties at Fort Taylor, they initially pitched their Sibley tents on the beach after disembarking and were then shifted to improved quarters as the regiment began to settle into its new assignment. They subsequently introduced themselves to locals by parading through the town’s streets during the weekend of Friday, 14 February, and by attending area church services that Sunday.

During this new phase of duty, they drilled daily in heavy artillery tactics and other military strategies, felled trees, helped to build new roads, and strengthened the fortifications in and around the Union Army’s presence at Key West.

As winter turned to spring, they learned that disease would become the most formidable foe they had faced to date, as mysterious “intermittent fevers,” dysentery and typhoid fever felled officers and enlisted men alike.

Next ordered to Hilton Head, South Carolina from mid-June through July, the Hiskey brothers and their fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers pitched their tents near Fort Walker before relocating to the Beaufort District of the U.S. Army’s Department of the South, roughly thirty-five miles away.

Frequently assigned to hazardous picket detail north of their main camp, which put them at increased risk from enemy sniper fire, the members of the 47th Pennsylvania became known for their “attention to duty, discipline and soldierly bearing,” and “received the highest commendation from Generals Hunter and Brannan,” according to historian Samuel P. Bates.

Detachments from the regiment were also assigned to the Expedition to Fenwick Island (9 July) and the Demonstration against Pocotaligo (10 July).

Victory and First Blood

Sent on a return expedition to Florida as September 1862 waned, the Hiskey brothers saw their first truly intense moments of service when their respective companies participated with the 47th Pennsylvania and other Union regiments in the capture of Saint John’s Bluff from 1 to 3 October.

Commanded by Brigadier-General Brannan, the 47th Pennsylvanians disembarked with a 1,500-plus Union force at Mayport Mills and Mount Pleasant Creek from troop carriers guarded by Union gunboats.

Taking point, the 47th Pennsylvanians then led the 3rd Brigade through twenty-five miles of dense, pine forested swamps populated with deadly snakes and alligators. By the time the expedition ended, the Union brigade had forced the Confederate Army to abandon its artillery battery atop Saint John’s Bluff, and had paved the way for the Union Army to occupy the town of Jacksonville, Florida. Along the way, two companies from the 47th Pennsylvania (E and K) also helped capture the Gov. Milton, a Confederate steamer that had equipped the bluff and surrounding Rebel troop placements with men and supplies.

Integration of the Regiment

On 5 and 15 October 1862, respectively, the 47th Pennsylvania made history as it became an integrated regiment, adding to its muster rolls several Black men who had escaped chattel enslavement from plantations near Beaufort, South Carolina. Among the formerly enslaved men who enlisted at this time were Bristor Gethers, Abraham Jassum and Edward Jassum.

More men of color would then continue to be added to the 47th Pennsylvania’s rosters in the weeks and years to come.

Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

From 21-23 October, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers engaged Confederate forces in the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina. Landing at Mackay’s Point under the regimental command of Colonel Tilghman H. Good and Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Alexander, the men of the 47th were placed on point once again as part of the U.S. 10th Army’s 1st Brigade. This time, however, their luck would run out. Their brigade was bedeviled by snipers and faced massive resistance from an entrenched Confederate battery, which opened fire on the Union troops as they headed through an open cotton field. Those trying to reach the higher ground of the Frampton Plantation were pounded by Confederate artillery and infantry hidden in the surrounding forests.

Part-way into the conflict, their brigade’s commanding officer was wounded, requiring Colonel Good to assume command of the 1st Brigade and Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander to assume command of the 47th Pennsylvania.

Charging into the fire, Union forces fought the Confederates where they found them, pushing them into a four-mile retreat to the Pocotaligo Bridge. At this juncture, the 47th then relieved the 7th Connecticut, but after two hours of exchanging fire while attempting, unsuccessfully, to take the ravine and bridge, the men of the 47th were forced by their dwindling ammunition to withdraw to Mackay’s Point.

As a result, losses for the 47th Pennsylvania at Pocotaligo were significant. Two officers and eighteen enlisted men died; an additional two officers and one hundred and fourteen enlisted were wounded.

On 23 October, the 47th Pennsylvania headed back to Hilton Head. Just over a week later, members of the regiment were assigned to serve on the honor guard during the funeral of Major-General Ormsby M. Mitchel, commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Corps and Department of the South. Mitchel, who had died from yellow fever at the Union Army’s hospital at Hilton Head on 30 October, had initially gained fame in 1846 as an astronomer at the University of Cincinnati, following his discovery of The Mountains of Mitchel on Mars. The town of Mitchelville, the first Freedmen’s self-governed community created after the Civil War, was also named for him.

1863

Having been ordered back to Key West on 15 November 1862, the Hiskey brothers and their fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers spent the year of 1863 and first two months of 1864 guarding federal installations in Florida as part of the U.S. Army’s 10th Corps (X Corps) and Department of the South. Companies A, B, C, E, G, and I were assigned to garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, under the command of Colonel Good, while Companies D, F, H, and K were placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander and assigned to garrison Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas.

Far from being a punishment for their recent performance in combat, as several historians have claimed over the years, the return to Florida of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers was viewed by senior Union military officers as a critically important assignment because both forts were at continuing risk of attack and capture by foreign powers, as well as by Confederate States Army troops. The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were specifically chosen for this mission because of their “bravery and praiseworthy conduct” during the Battle of Pocotaligo, as well as for their “attention to duty, discipline and soldierly bearing” since the regiment’s founding in 1861.

Weakening Florida’s abilities to supply and transport food and troops throughout the area to the Confederate States by conducting raids on cattle ranches and salt production facilities, they also prevented foreign powers from assisting the Confederate Army and Navy in gaining control key points of entry in the Deep South.

Poor water quality and disease were constant challenges, however; with limited fresh, clean water available for drinking and bathing, regimental surgeons were kept busy treating men who had been felled by dysentery. And typhoid fever thinned the regiment’s ranks even further.

Even so, when their initial three-year terms of enlistment were about to expire, more than half of the officers and enlisted members of the 47th Pennsylvania opted to re-enroll for additional tours of duty with the regiment. On 10 October 1863, Private Frank Hiskey became one of those men to earn the coveted title of “Veteran Volunteer” when he reenlisted at Fort Taylor.

1864

In early January 1864, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was ordered to expand the Union’s reach by sending part of the regiment north to retake possession of Fort Myers, a federal installation that had been abandoned in 1858 following the U.S. government’s third war with the Seminole Indians. Per orders issued earlier in 1864 by Major-General D. P. Woodbury, Commanding Officer, U.S. Department of the Gulf, District of Key West and the Tortugas, that the fort be reclaimed to facilitate the Union’s Gulf Coast blockade, Captain Richard Graeffe and a group of men from Company A were charged with expanding the fort and conducting raids on area cattle herds to provide food for the growing Union troop presence across Florida. Graeffe and his men subsequently turned the fort into both their base of operations and a shelter for pro-Union supporters, escaped slaves, Confederate Army deserters, and others fleeing Rebel troops.

Meanwhile, back at Forts Taylor and Jefferson, the Hiskey brothers and the other members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had already begun preparing for the regiment’s history-making journey to Louisiana. Boarding yet another steamer—the Charles Thomas—on 25 February 1864, the men from Companies B, C, D, I, and K of the 47th Pennsylvania headed for Algiers, Louisiana (across the river from New Orleans), followed on 1 March by other members of the regiment from Companies E, F, G, and H who had been stationed at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

Upon the second group’s arrival, the now almost-fully-reunited regiment moved by train on 28 February to Brashear City (now Morgan City, Louisiana) before heading to Franklin by steamer through the Bayou Teche. There, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry joined the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the Department of the Gulf’s 19th Army Corps (XIX Corps), and became the only Pennsylvania regiment to serve in the Red River Campaign of Union Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks. (Unable to reach Louisiana until 23 March, the men from Company A were effectively placed on a different type of detached duty in New Orleans while they awaited transport to enable them to catch up with the main part of their regiment. Charged with guarding and overseeing the transport of two hundred and forty-five Confederate prisoners, they were finally able to board the Ohio Belle on 7 April, and reached Alexandria, Louisiana with those prisoners on 9 April.)

Red River Campaign

The early days on the ground in Louisiana quickly woke the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers up to just how grueling this new phase of duty would be. From 14-26 March, most members of the regiment marched for Alexandria and Natchitoches, Louisiana, by way of New Iberia, Vermilionville (now part of Lafayette), Opelousas, and Washington.

From 4-5 April 1864, the regiment added to its roster of young Black soldiers when Aaron Bullard (later known as Aaron French), James Bullard, John Bullard, Samuel Jones, and Hamilton Blanchard (also known as John Hamilton) enrolled for military service with the 47th Pennsylvania at Natchitoches. According to their respective entries in the Civil War Veterans’ Card File at the Pennsylvania State Archives and on regimental muster rolls, the men were then officially mustered in for duty on 22 June at Morganza. Several of their entries noted that they were assigned the rank of “(Colored) Cook” while others were given the rank of “Under Cook.”

Often short on food and water throughout their long harsh-climate trek through enemy territory, the 47th Pennsylvania encamped briefly at Pleasant Hill (now the Village of Pleasant Hill) the night of 7 April before continuing on the next day.

Rushed into battle ahead of other regiments in the 2nd Division, sixty members of the 47th were cut down on 8 April during the volley of fire unleashed in the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads. The fighting waned only when darkness fell as those who were uninjured collapsed beside the gravely wounded. Finally, after midnight, the surviving Union troops were ordered to withdraw to Pleasant Hill.

The next day, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were ordered into a critically important defensive position at the far right of the Union lines, their right flank spreading up onto a high bluff. By 3 p.m., after enduring a midday charge by the troops of Confederate General Richard Taylor (a plantation owner and son of Zachary Taylor, former President of the United States), the brutal fighting still showed no signs of ending. Suddenly, just as the 47th was shifting to the left side of the massed Union forces, the men of the 47th Pennsylvania were forced to bolster the 165th New York’s buckling lines by blocking another Confederate assault.

Casualties were once again high. Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander was severely wounded in both legs, and the regiment’s two color-bearers, both from Company C, were also wounded while preventing the American flag from falling into enemy hands. Still others from the 47th were captured, marched roughly one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford, a Confederate Army prison camp near Tyler, Texas, and held there as prisoners of war (POWs) until released during prisoner exchanges beginning 22 July 1864. At least two men from the 47th never made it out of that camp alive; another member of the regiment died while being treated at the Confederate Army hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Following what some historians have called a rout by Confederates at Pleasant Hill and others have labeled a technical victory for the Union or a draw for both sides, the 47th fell back to Grand Ecore, where the men engaged in the hard labor of strengthening regimental and brigade fortifications. After eleven days at Grand Ecore, they then moved back to Natchitoches Parish on 22 April. Marching forty-five miles that day, they arrived in Cloutierville at 10 p.m. While en route, they were attacked again—this time at the rear of their brigade, but they were able to quickly end the encounter and continue on.

The next morning (23 April 1864), episodic skirmishing 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 Cane River (also known as “the Affair at Monett’s Ferry” or 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 the 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 supported Emory’s artillery.

Meanwhile, other troops in Emory’s command worked their way across the Cane River, attacked Bee’s flank, forced a Rebel retreat, and erected a series of pontoon bridges, enabling the 47th and other remaining Union troops to make the Cane River Crossing by the next day. As the Confederates retreated, they torched their own food stores, as well as the cotton supplies of their fellow southerners.

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.

Having finally reached Alexandria on 26 April, the 47th Pennsylvanians learned they would remain at their latest new camp for at least two weeks. Placed temporarily under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, they were assigned yet again to the hard labor of fortification work, helping to erect “Bailey’s Dam,” a timber structure that enabled Union gunboats to more easily make their way back down the Red River. While stationed in Rapides Parish in late April and early May, according to Wharton:

We were at Alexandria seventeen days, during which time the men were kept busy at throwing up earthworks, foraging and three times went out some distance to meet the enemy, but they did not make their appearance in numbers large enough for an engagement. 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. 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 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. After marching a few miles skirmishing commenced in front between the cavalry and the enemy in riflepits [sic] on the bank of the river, but they were easily driven away. When we came up we discovered their pits and places where there had been batteries planted. At this point the John Warren, an unarmed transport, on which were sick soldiers and women, was fired into and sunk, killing many and those that were not drowned taken prisoners. A tin-clad gunboat was destroyed at the same place, by which we lost a large mail. Many letters and directed envelopes were found on the bank – thrown there after the contents had been read by the unprincipled scoundrels. The inhumanity of Guerrilla bands in this department is beyond belief, and if one did not know the truth of it or saw some of their barbarities, he would write it down as the story of a ‘reliable gentleman’ or as told by an ‘intelligent contraband.’ Not satisfied with his murderous intent on unarmed transports he fires into the Hospital steamer Laurel Hill, with four hundred sick on board. This boat had the usual hospital signal floating fore and aft, yet, notwithstanding all this, and the customs of war, they fired on them, proving by this act that they are more hardened than the Indians on the frontier.

On Sunday, May 15, we left the river road and took a short route through the woods, saving considerable distance. The windings of Red river are so numerous that it resembles the tape-worm railroad wherewith the politicians frightened the dear people during the administration of Ritner and Stevens. – We stopped several hours in the woods to leave cavalry pass, when we moved forward and by four o’clock emerged into a large open plain where we formed in line of battle, expecting a regular engagement. The enemy, however, retired and we advanced ‘till dark, when the forces halted for the night, with orders to rest on their arms. – ‘Twas here that Banks rode through our regiment, amidst the cheers of the boys, and gave the pleasant news that Grant had defeated Lee.

Having entered Avoyelles Parish, they “rested on their arms” for the night, half-dozing without pitching their tents, but with their rifles right beside them. They were now positioned just outside of Marksville, Louisiana on the eve of the 16 May 1864 Battle of Mansura, which unfolded as follows, according to Wharton:

Early next morning we marched through Marksville into a prairie nine miles long and six wide where every preparation was made for a fight. The whole of our force was formed in line, in support of artillery in front, who commenced operations on the enemy driving him gradually from the prairie into the woods. As the enemy retreated before the heavy fire of our artillery, the infantry advanced in line until they reached Mousoula [sic], where they formed in column, taking the whole field in an attempt to flank the enemy, but their running qualities were so good that we were foiled. The maneuvring [sic] of the troops was handsomely done, and the movements was [sic] one of the finest things of the war. The fight of artillery was a steady one of five miles. The enemy merely stood that they might cover the retreat of their infantry and train under cover of their artillery. Our loss was slight. Of the rebels we could not ascertain correctly, but learned from citizens who had secreted themselves during the fight, that they had many killed and wounded, who threw them into wagons, promiscuously, and drove them off so that we could not learn their casualties. The next day we moved to Simmsport [sic, Simmesport] on the Achafalaya [sic, Atchafalaya] river, where a bridge was made by putting the transports side by side, which enabled the troops and train to pass safely over. – The day before we crossed the rebels attacked Smith, thinking it was but the rear guard, in which they, the graybacks, were awfully cut up, and four hundred prisoners fell into our hands. Our loss in killed and wounded was ninety. This fight was the last one of the expedition. The whole of the force is safe on the Mississippi, gunboats, transports and trains. The 16th and 17th have gone to their old commands.

It is amusing to read the statements of correspondents to papers North, concerning our movements and the losses of our army. I have it from the best source that the Federal loss from Franklin to Mansfield, and from their [sic] to this point does not exceed thirty-five hundred in killed, wounded and missing, while that of the rebels is over eight thousand.*

* Note: Disease continued to be a truly formidable foe, claiming yet more members of the 47th Pennsylvania. Private Josiah Stocker died at the University General Hospital in New Orleans on 17 May 1864; Private Elvin Knauss (alternate spelling: “Kneuss”) died from disease-related complications at the Union’s Marine Memorial Hospital in New Orleans on 3 August, and Sergeant John Gross Helfrich and Privates Joseph Smith and T. J. Helm died in New Orleans on 5 August, 2 September, and 21 September, respectively.

Continuing on, the surviving members of the 47th marched for Simmesport and then Morganza, where they made camp again. While encamped there, the nine formerly enslaved Black men who had enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania in Beaufort, South Carolina (1862) and Natchitoches, Louisiana (April 1864) were officially mustered into the regiment between 20-24 June 1864. The regiment then moved on once again, and arrived in New Orleans in late June.

On the Fourth of July, the Hiskey brothers learned that their fight was still not over. The 47th Pennsylvania had received new orders to return to the Eastern Theater of the war. On 7 July 1864, the men from Companies A, C, D, E, F, H, and I boarded the U.S. Steamer McClellan and sailed out of the harbor at New Orleans. Meanwhile, the Hiskey brothers and their fellow B Company members awaited transport, along with the members of Companies G and K. Those three units departed later that month aboard the Blackstone.

* Note: This delayed departure meant that the Hiskey brothers missed a memorable encounter with President Abraham Lincoln on 12 July and the mid-July Battle of Cool Spring. The members of Companies B, G and K finally arrived in Virginia on 28 July, and reconnected with the bulk of the regiment at Monocacy, Virginia on 2 August.

Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign

Attached to the Middle Military Division, U.S. Army of the Shenandoah in Virginia, beginning in August 1864, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was initially assigned to defensive duties in and around Halltown during the opening days of that month before engaging in a series of back-and-forth movements over the next several weeks between Halltown, Berryville and other locations within that vicinity (Middletown, Charlestown and Winchester) as part of a “mimic war” being waged by the Union forces of Major-General Philip H. Sheridan with those commanded by Confederate Lieutenant-General Jubal Early.

After the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers fought in the Battle of Berryville, Virginia from 3-4 December, clean-up skirmishes were waged with Confederate stragglers over the next several days.

The regiment’s makeup was then altered significantly as multiple 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers opted to end their military service when their respective terms of military service expired on 18 September. One of those departing that day at Berryville was Sergeant Oliver Hiskey. His brother Frank, who had reenlisted at Fort Taylor in October 1863, continued to serve during what would become one of the most important periods of the regiment’s history.

Together with other regiments under the command of Union Major-General Sheridan and Brigadier-General Emory, commander of the U.S. Army’s 19th Corps, Private Frank Hiskey and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers helped to inflict heavy casualties on the Confederate forces of Lieutenant-General Jubal Early in the Battle of Opequan (also spelled as “Opequon” and referred to as “Third Winchester”). Many historians still consider the battle to be one of the most important during Sheridan’s 1864 campaign; the Union’s victory here helped to ensure the reelection of President Abraham Lincoln.

The 47th Pennsylvania’s march toward destiny at Opequan began at 2 a.m. on 19 September 1864 as the regiment left camp and joined up with others in the Union’s 19th Corps. After advancing slowly from Berryville toward Winchester, the 19th Corps became bogged down for several hours by the massive movement of Union troops and supply wagons, enabling Early’s men to dig in.

After finally reaching the Opequon Creek, Sheridan’s men came face to face with the Confederate Army commanded by Early. The fighting, which began in earnest at noon, was long and brutal. The Union’s left flank (6th Corps) took a beating from Confederate artillery stationed on high ground.

Meanwhile, the 47th Pennsylvania and the 19th Corps were directed by Brigadier-General Emory to attack and pursue Major-General John B. Gordon’s Confederate forces. Some success was achieved, but casualties mounted as another Confederate artillery group opened fire on Union troops trying to cross a clearing. When a nearly fatal gap began to open between the 6th and 19th Corps, Sheridan sent in units led by Brigadier-Generals Emory Upton and David A. Russell. Russell, hit twice—once in the chest, was mortally wounded. The 47th Pennsylvania opened its lines long enough to enable the Union cavalry under William Woods Averell and the foot soldiers of General George Crook to charge the Confederates’ left flank. The 19th Corps, with the 47th in the thick of the fighting, then began pushing the Confederates back. Early’s “grays” retreated in the face of the valor displayed by Sheridan’s “blue jackets.” Leaving 2,500 wounded behind, the Rebels retreated to Fisher’s Hill (21-22 September), eight miles south of Winchester, and then to Waynesboro, following a successful early morning flanking attack by Sheridan’s Union men which outnumbered Early’s three to one. Afterward, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were sent out on skirmishing parties before making camp at Cedar Creek.

Moving forward, they would continue to distinguish themselves in battle, but they would do so without their two most senior and respected and commanders: Colonel Good and Good’s second in command, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander, who mustered out 23-24 September upon expiration of their respective terms of service. Fortunately, they were replaced by others equally admired both for temperament and their front-line experience, including John Peter Shindel Gobin, a man who would later go on to become Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

* Note: During this period, Sheridan’s Army had also begun the first Union “scorched earth” campaign, starving Confederate forces and their supporters into submission by destroying Virginia’s farming infrastructure. Viewed by many today as inhumane, the strategy claimed many innocents. This same strategy, however, almost certainly contributed to the turning of the war further in favor of the Union. Early’s men, successful in many prior engagements but now weakened by hunger, strayed from battlefields in increasing numbers to forage for food, thus enabling the 47th Pennsylvania and others under Sheridan’s command to rally and win the day during the Battle of Cedar Creek on 19 October 1864.

Battle of Cedar Creek

From a military standpoint, 19 October 1864 was an impressive, but heartrending day. During the early morning that day, Confederate Lieutenant-General Early launched a surprise attack directly on Sheridan’s Cedar Creek-encamped forces. Able to capture Union weapons while freeing a number of Confederates who had been taken prisoner during previous battles, Early’s men also succeeded in pushing seven Union divisions back. According to Bates:

When the Army of West Virginia, under Crook, was surprised and driven from its works, the Second Brigade, with the Forty-seventh on the right, was thrown into the breach to arrest the retreat…. Scarcely was it in position before the enemy came suddenly upon it, under the cover of fog. The right of the regiment was thrown back until it was almost a semi-circle. The brigade, only fifteen hundred strong, was contending against Gordon’s entire division, and was forced to retire, but, in comparative good order, exposed, as it was, to raking fire. Repeatedly forming, as it was pushed back, and making a stand at every available point, it finally succeeded in checking the enemy’s onset, when General Sheridan suddenly appeared upon the field, who ‘met his crest-fallen, shattered battalions, without a word of reproach, but joyously swinging his cap, shouted to the stragglers, as he rode rapidly past them – “Face the other way, boys! We are going back to our camp! We are going to lick them out of their boots!’”

The Union’s counterattack pounded Early’s forces so far into submission that the men of the 47th would later be commended for their heroism by General Stephen Thomas who, in 1892, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his own “distinguished conduct in a desperate hand-to-hand encounter, in which the advance of the enemy was checked” that day. Bates described the 47th’s actions:

When the final grand charge was made, the regiment moved at nearly right angles with the rebel front. The brigade charged gallantly, and the entire line, making a left wheel, came down on his flank, while engaging the Sixth Corps, when he went “whirling up the valley” in confusion. In the pursuit to Fisher’s Hill, the regiment led, and upon its arrival was placed on the skirmish line, where it remained until twelve o’clock noon of the following day. The army was attacked at early dawn…no respite was given to take food until the pursuit was ended.

But, through it all, the casualty rates for the 47th continued to climb. Captain Edwin G. Minnich and Privates John Schimpf, Thomas Steffen, and James Tice of Company B were among those killed in action while Corporal August C. Scherer and others died later from their battle wounds. Charles Bachman, Harrison Geiger, Allen L. Kramer, and Henry H. Kramer were among those who survived their wounds, but Private Franklin Rhoads reportedly succumbed to disease after being captured and transported from the Cedar Creek battlefield area to the Confederate Army’s notorious Salisbury, North Carolina prison camp. He was just eighteen years old.

Given a slight respite after Cedar Creek, the men of the 47th were quartered at the Union’s Camp Russell near Winchester from November through most of December before receiving orders to assume outpost duty at Camp Fairview in Charlestown, West Virginia just five days before Christmas. They would remain there through early April 1865, assigned by Major-General Sheridan to protect the Union’s key supply and railroad lines by preventing guerrilla raids from being perpetrated by Confederate troops and their sympathizers.

1865-1866

In February of 1865, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were attached to the Provisional Division of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Army of the Shenandoah. By 19 April, they were back in Washington, D.C., ordered there to defend the nation’s capital again—this time following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

While serving in the 2nd Brigade of the Department of Washington’s 22nd Corps (Dwight’s Division), the 47th also participated in the Union’s Grand Review of the Armies on 23-24 May.

Letters sent home by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers during this period in 1865, as well as interviews that were conducted in later years with veteran members of the regiment, confirm that at least one member of the 47th was given the honor of guarding President Lincoln’s funeral train while still others were assigned to guard duties at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary (now Fort McNair), where the key Lincoln assassination conspirators were held during the early days of their imprisonment and trial.

Taking one final swing through the South, the 47th served in Savannah, Georgia from 31 May to 4 June as part of the U.S. Department of the South’s 3rd Brigade (Dwight’s Division) and in Charleston, South Carolina beginning in June. Duties during this time were Provost (military police) and Reconstruction-related, including rebuilding railroads and other key aspects of the region’s infrastructure that had been damaged or destroyed during the long war.

Finally, on Christmas Day in 1865, Private Frank Hiskey and the majority of his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers began to be mustered out for the final time—a process that continued through early January 1866.

Following a stormy voyage north to New York City and a train trip to Philadelphia, the now very experienced and very weary 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers received their final discharge papers at Camp Cadwalader on 9 January 1866, and were returned to the arms of their loved ones and neighbors.

Post-War Life

Following their respective honorable discharges from the military, both Oliver and Frank Hiskey returned home to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where they found that their father’s fame as an iron worker and furnace builder had only increased since they last saw him.

According to a 1910 edition of The Allentown Democrat, by 1870, their father was just beginning what would turn out to be a forty-year career with the Heilman Boiler Works. An engineer for the first thirty years of his tenure, he then spent an additional ten years as “master of the tool house,” ultimately “earning the distinction of being the oldest employe [sic] in years and in point of consecutive service.”

Meanwhile, William’s sons, Oliver and Frank, were doing their best to readjust to civilian life after having endured multiple battles of the American Civil War, during which they witnessed, firsthand, carnage so horrific that it defied explanation. As the following details of their post-war lives show, the sights, sounds and smells clearly had taken their toll on both young men.

Oliver Hiskey’s Return to Civilian Life

Although very little is currently known about the first decade of Oliver Hiskey’s life after the Civil War, a May 1878 report by The Allentown Democrat provides an indication that those first ten years as a returning veteran were troubled:

Oliver Hiskey of the first ward, this city, on Friday night, in coming out of the saloon of George Muehlberger, at the Hamilton street crossing of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, stumbled and fell, breaking his leg at the knee. The fracture was a bad one, and may result in crippling him for life. This was the third time the same leg was broken by falls—all the fractures at the knee joint. The last fracture was of so severe a nature that he went to a Philadelphia Hospital for treatment.

The next half-decade appears to have been only marginally better. Still unmarried, he was documented on the federal census of 1880 as a boarder at the Allentown home of Levi and Clara Remaly, and died there five years later—on 24 November 1885. Laid to rest at Allentown’s Union-West End Cemetery, he was subsequently honored for his service to the nation with a headstone that memorialized his tenure with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Franklin Hiskey’s Return to Civilian Life

Meanwhile, Oliver Hiskey’s younger brother, Frank, was fighting his own personal battle—a serious medical condition. Despite those struggles, though, he still tried to forge ahead by marrying Sarah (Nonnemacher) Haltiman (1861-1914), who had been widowed by William Haltiman, a fellow member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who had served as a second lieutenant with Company I and whose brother, Henry A. Haltiman, Sr., had served as a first lieutenant with Frank Hiskey in the 47th Pennsylvania’s B Company. Her first marriage had resulted in the birth of daughter, Ella, who became part of a new Hiskey household in Allentown when Frank wed Sarah.

Following their marriage sometime during the late 1860s, Sarah (Nonnemacher Haltiman) Hiskey subsequently gave birth to three more children: William D. Hiskey (1869-1934); Charles H. Hiskey (1875-1962), who was born on 8 February 1875; and Harvey H. Hiskey (1878-1893), who was born on 2 September 1878. Frank Hiskey’s health continued to deteriorate, however, prompting his admission to a U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers prior to the birth of his third child.

Hospitalized at the Soldiers’ Home in in Dayton, Ohio from mid-June  to late September 1877, he received treatment for the symptoms he was experiencing from hepatosplenomegaly—a chronic enlargement of the liver and spleen that had first developed while he was serving with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in Alexandria, Louisiana during the 1864 Red River Campaign.

* Note: The cause of Frank Hiskey’s illness was most likely typhoid fever—a disease that had plagued multiple 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer infantrymen since their regiment’s days in the Deep South when they were placed at greater risk of catching typhoid and other tropical diseases by poor water quality and substandard sanitation practices. Characterized by a headache and cough during its first week, typhoid fever frequently progressed from a mild to dangerously high fever with rattling breath sounds in the lower lungs (rhonchi), hepatosplenomegaly and delirium in stage two and dehydration, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, and one or more forms of inflammation (bone/osteitis, gallbladder/cholecystitis or heart/endocarditis) in stage three for many members of the regiment. Those who survived were left with chronic health problems for the remainder of their lives—which were often shorter than those of 47th Pennsylvanians who had not fallen ill.

Hospital admissions ledger entries described Frank Hiskey as a native of Allentown, Pennsylvania, who was employed as a laborer and whose wife, Sarah Hiskey, resided in Allentown with their two children. A final entry noted that he was discharged from the Soldiers’ Home on 29 September 1877, per his own request.

Death and Interment

Roughly twelve years later, Franklin Hiskey was gone, leaving his previously-widowed wife to assume the role once again as head of a single-parent household. Following his death in 1889, he was buried at the same cemetery where her first husband had been interred—Union-West End in Allentown—with thirty-five dollars provided for the interment by the Lehigh County treasurer’s office.

His widow ultimately decided to remain in Allentown, soldiering on as best she could by securing a new U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension—this one issued on 18 March 1889 in recognition of her marriage to Frank Hiskey. (The first had been awarded following the death of her first husband, William Haltiman.)

Four years later, she was dealt another shock when her youngest son, Harvey H. Hiskey, died from typhoid fever on 28 September 1893. Just fifteen years old at the time of his passing, he was laid to rest at the same cemetery where his father had been buried—Union-West End in Allentown.

A lifelong resident of Allentown, Sarah (Nonnemacher Haltiman) Hiskey ultimately made the decision to spend her final years living with her son, William Hiskey. She died at his home on 4 September 1914, and was buried at Allentown’s Union West End Cemetery. Of note, her obituary made no mention of her first husband, William Haltiman, but did list “Mrs. Amos Wright” (her daughter, Ella, from her first marriage) as one of her survivors. Also mentioned were her second husband, Franklin Hiskey, and their three sons, Harvey, William and Charles.

Frank Hiskey’s son, William D. Hiskey, grew up to become an engineer with the Gerber Engineering Company before embarking on a long career as a volunteer and then salaried fireman. Known as “Bill” to his family and friends, he was employed as a pipeman with the Fairview Fire Department in Allentown’s Twelfth Ward for seventeen years, finally retiring in January 1933.

He had also become a family man when he wed Agnes T. Kester (1871-1958) circa 1890. Their daughter, Helen Amelia Hiskey (1891-1974), was born in Allentown on 29 January 1891. Later married to Raymond Gaumer, Helen became the mother of eleven sons and two daughters, and was an active supporter of the Riverside Drum and Bugle Corps in Allentown.

As he aged, Bill Hiskey’s health also declined. Diagnosed with senile deterioration, he contracted pneumonia on 12 July 1934, died ten days later, and was interred at the Fairview Cemetery in Allentown on 25 July.

Franklin Hiskey’s son, Charles H. Hiskey, was twice married—first to Laura Sarah (Bortz) Hiskey (1871-1936), who widowed him on 14 January 1936, and then to Carrie M. (Miller) Hiskey (1884-1971), whom he widowed when he died on 19 October 1962. Like his father before him, he was interred at Allentown’s Union West-End Cemetery.

Franklin Hiskey’s stepdaughter, Ella A. Haltiman, was William Haltiman’s only surviving child. After marrying Amos Wright (1850-1928) sometime around 1878, she relocated with him to Freemansburg, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Together, they welcomed the births of the following children: Howard Asa, who was born on 15 June 1880; George, who was born in April 1882; Florance, who was born in September 1884; and Weston Haltiman Wright, who was born on the Fourth of July in 1889.

As she aged, Ella’s health also declined. After developing rheumatism and heart disease, she died in Freemansburg on 15 April 1918, and was subsequently laid to rest at the Trinity United Church of Christ Cemetery in Freemansburg.

What Happened to the parents and siblings of the Hiskey Brothers?

Surprisingly, Oliver and Franklin Hiskey’s father, William D. Hiskey, outlived all of his immediate family members to witness the spectacular ceremonies surrounding the dedication of the Lehigh County Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Allentown in 1899, as well as the start of a new century. Greatly respected across the Lehigh Valley, according to his obituary in the 27 October 1910 edition of The Allentown Democrat, he was laid to rest at the Union-West End Cemetery in Allentown, following his passing on 26 October:

William D. Hiskey, a veteran of the Civil War and one of Lehigh county’s foremost iron workers, died yesterday afternoon at 2 o’clock at the home of his grandson, Charles H. Hiskey, 209[?] South Fifth street, aged 87 years, 7 months and 26 days. The direct cause of death was heart failure coupled with general debility with which the deceased had been ailing only since Fair week, being bedfast the past two weeks.

Being a man of robust health and unusual stature, practically never sick before, the aged man when he became ill had a dire premonition of the inevitable, and shortly before he died said to his grandson’s wife, ‘The engine is wearing down and can’t repair itself.’

Deceased was a native of ‘Old’ Whitehall township, being a son of the long since deceased Henry and Sarah [nee Knauss] Hiskey. He was born on March 2, 1823.

In his early days he became one of the most prominent iron workers in this vicinity. His ability as a furnace builder gained for him more than local repute. He was identified with building, rebuilding and remodeling of practically all of the furnaces of the Lehigh Valley, including the Lewis furnace, the Roberts furnace, Emaus, Macungie, Topton, Alburtis and another at Richmond, Va.

For the past forty years he has been an efficient and trusted employe [sic, employee] of the Heilman Boiler Works, this city, earning the distinction of being the oldest employe [sic] in years and in point of consecutive service. For thirty years he served as engineer, but ten years ago relinquished the position to become master of the tool house. Little did he think when the work shut down on Tuesday evening of Fair week to give the employes [sic, employees] an opportunity of enjoying the Fair, that he laid down his labors never to resume them again.

Hiskey was a staunch lifelong Republican, but never took an active interest in the affairs of his party. He referred frequently with just a little self-pride that he voted for Fremont, the first presidential candidate of the present Republican party. He had again registered for the coming election on the first registration day.

When the Civil War broke out, his country’s call for volunteers proved too strong to resist, and he with two of his sons, Oliver and Franklin, enlisted and served from the outbreak of the war until they were mustered out at its close. The father was a driver in the commissary department while the sons served in the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. His wife, Julian (nee Knauss), died thirteen years ago, since when he resided with his grandson, Charles. He was one of the builders of the First Ward Emanuel Evangelical Church, toward which building fund his wife collected the first $100. He was reared in the Lutheran faith, but when he came to Allentown about 70 years ago he affiliated himself with the Evangelical Church. At the time of his death he was a member of Ebenezer Church and of the Home Department of the Sunday school.

Besides his wife, his four sons, Oliver, Franklin, John G., and Joseph, and his sister, Mrs. Samuels, preceded him in death.

He is survived by two half-brothers, Henry Hiskey of Lehighton and Edwin Hiskey of Leesport; a half-sister, Mrs. Carolina Roth of this city; two grandsons, William D. and Charles H., engineer on the Northampton and Bath Railroad, both of this city, and two great-grandchildren, Mrs. Helen Gaumer and Miss Lucy Hiskey both of this city.

The funeral will take place on Saturday afternoon, with services at his late home at 1:30 o’clock, followed by services in Ebenezer Evangelical Church at 2 o’clock. Interment will follow in Union Cemetery. Rev. James L. Tonkin will officiate. Undertaker Wonderly is in charge.

Julian Anna (Knauss) Hiskey, the mother of Oliver and Frank Hiskey and wife of William D. Hiskey, had preceded her husband in death, passing away at the age of seventy-eight on 3 June 1898. She, too, had been interred at Union-West End.

Oliver and Frank Hiskey’s brother, Joseph, was reportedly still alive at the time of their mother’s death in 1898, but was evidently estranged from the family because he was described in her obituary as “whereabouts unknown.”

Their brother, John Quincy Hiskey, who had died on 18 February 1909, was also interred at Union-West End.

 

* To view more of the key U.S. Civil War Military and Pension records related to the Haltiman and Hiskey families, visit our Haltiman-Hiskey Family Collection.

 

Sources:

1. “A Subject of Misfortune” (report on Oliver Hiskey’s severe leg fracture). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 28 May 1879.
2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
3. “Death of Mrs. Hiskey” (death of Oliver and Frank Hiskey’s mother). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, 4 June 1898.
4. Ella A. Wright (daughter of “William Haldeman”), in Death Certificates (file no.: 51469, reg. no.: 10, date of death: 15 April 1918). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
5. Florida’s Role in the Civil War,” in Florida Memory. Tallahassee, Florida: State Archives of Florida.
6. Haldeman, William, in “U.S. Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers” (1865). Washington, D.C.: United States Army and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
7. Halderman, William, Sarah and Charles W., and Tilghman Bergenstock, and William Kleckner, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Ward 1, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1860). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
8. Haltiman, William H. and Hiskey, Oliver and Franklin, in Pennsylvania Civil War Muster Rolls (Company B, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry), 1861-1864. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
9. Haltiman, William H., in “Burial Registers” (Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort, South Carolina, 21 July 1865). Washington, D.C.: United States Army and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
10. Haltiman, William H., in “U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms” (Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort, South Carolina, 21 July 1865). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
11. Haltiman, William H., in “Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866” (Company I, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
12. Haltiman, William H. (deceased soldier) and Sarah E. (widow), and Moll, Peter (guardian), in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (widow’s pension application no: 124643, certificate no.: 87317; orphan’s pension application no.: 192292, certificate no.: 146829, filed by the child guardian, Peter Moll). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
13. Harvey H. Hiskey, in “Died.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 4 October 1893.
14. Hiskey, Frank, in “Records of Burial Places of Veterans.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Military Affairs.
15. Hiskey, Franklin, in Admissions Ledgers, U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1877. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
16. Hiskey, Franklin and Sarah, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (veteran’s application no.: 377230, certificate no.: 337957, filed by the veteran on 12 June 1880; widow’s pension application no.: 391034, certificate no. : 274214, filed by the veteran’s widow on 18 March 1889).
17. Hiskey, Franklin, Sarah, William, Charles, and Harvey, and Fatzinger, Solomon (boarder), in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1880). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
18. Hiskey, Oliver (boarder) and Remaly, Levi and Clara, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1880). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
19. Hiskey, Oliver and Franklin, in “Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866” (Company B, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
20. Hiskey, Oliver, in “Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866” (Company I, 1st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
21. Hiskey, Oliver and Franklin, in U.S. Civil War Muster Rolls (47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company B). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
22. Hiskey William, in Death Certificates (file no.: 68262, reg. no. : 906, date of death: 22 July 1934). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
23. Hiskey, William, Juliann, Oliver, and Franklin, in U.S. Census (Northampton Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1850). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
24. Hiskey, William, Juliann, Oliver, Frank, John, and Joseph, in U.S. Census (Allentown, First Ward, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1860). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
25. “Mrs. Ella A. Wright” (obituary of William Haltiman’s daughter, Ella). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 17 April 1918.
26. “Mrs. Sarah Hiskey” (obituary of William Haltiman’s widow, Sarah). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, 5 September 1914.
27. Schaadt, James L. “Company I, First Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers: A Memoir of Its Service for the Union in 1861,” in The Penn Germania: A Popular Journal of German History and Ideals in the United States, vol. 1, no. 1. Lititz and Cleona, Pennsylvania: H.W. Kriebel, editor. Holzapfel Publishing Co., 1912.
28. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
29. Stegall, Joel T. “Salisbury Prison: North Carolina’s Andersonville.” Fayetteville, North Carolina: North Carolina Civil War & Reconstruction History Center, 13 September 2018.
30. “Treasurer’s Account for 1889” (documentation of financial support provided by the Lehigh County Treasurer for Franklin Hiskey’s burial). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 26 March 1890.
31. Wharton, Henry D. Letters from the Sunbury Guards. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 1861-1868.
32. “William D. Hiskey, Civil War Veteran, Answers Last Call: ‘Engine is Wearing Down and Can’t Repair Itself’ He Said Before Death: Gained Reputation as Furnace Builder: Was for 40 Years in Employ of Heilman Boiler Works—Lived Here 70 Years” (obituary of Oliver and Frank Hiskey’s father). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, 27 October 1910.
33. “Wm. D. Hiskey, Retired Paid Fireman, Dies” (obituary of Frank Hiskey’s son, William). Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, 23 July 1934.