Alternate Spellings of Surname: Deitzinger, Dietzinger, Ditzinger

In January 1863, a U.S. Army surgeon recorded the death of Private John Deitzinger, Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, at the Union Army’s 5th Street General Hospital in Philadelphia (U.S. National Archives, public domain).

John Deitzinger is one of the many members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry whose life story remains shrouded by the mists of time. A German immigrant who served with that regiment during the American Civil War, his death was documented in significantly better fashion than his formative years and early adult life, which unfolded after he arrived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the mid-nineteenth century.

What is known for certain, thanks to death records maintained by the City of Philadelphia, is that he was born in Germany circa 1818, and that he died at a Union Army general hospital in Philadelphia on 18 January 1863, while he was still a serving member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ Company D.

Sadly, though, even the most minor details of his military service remain unclear. The locations and dates of his enrollment and muster-in with the regiment are still not known, nor are the details of his initial days, weeks, months, or years of service.

What was actually documented for posterity was that Private John Deitzinger was one of multiple members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who developed a chronic diarrhea condition during his service to the nation. Based on the date of his subsequent hospitalization in Philadelphia, researchers for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story currently theorize that he may have initially fallen ill sometime in 1862, while the regiment was stationed in Florida or South Carolina, because this was a period of time when 47th Pennsylvanians were repeatedly exposed to the unsanitary conditions of close camp living and poor water quality that frequently resulted in their becoming sickened by dysentery, a disease with diarrhea and other immune-weakening symptoms that then often became chronic.

Most likely treated repeatedly but unsuccessfully by regimental and post hospital physicians at Fort Taylor in Key West and/or Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas, his condition, if it had followed the progression of similar diseases suffered other members of the regiment, would have spiraled down to the point at which Union Army surgeons determined that the risk of transporting him back to Pennsylvania by ship was necessary in order for him to receive life-saving, advanced care by better-trained army surgeons working at one of the military hospitals in Philadelphia.

While those theories are just speculation, there are verifiable details about what actually happened to John Deitzinger once he was confined to the Union Army’s 5th Street General Hospital in Philadelphia.

Hospitalized in his mid-forties and listed on admissions ledgers as still being in service to his adopted homeland, he died there on 18 January 1863 (alternate date: 15 January 1863), after finally succumbing to the chronic diarrhea-related complications he had been battling.

Shortly thereafter, he was interred at Philadelphia’s Glenwood Cemetery. His remains were then exhumed during the federal government’s large-scale effort to ensure that graves of Union Army soldiers were being properly honored, and were subsequently reinterred at the Philadelphia National Cemetery, where he remains at rest today.

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. Deitzinger, John, in Burial Ledgers, Philadelphia National Cemetery (1863). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
3. Deitzinger, John, in Civil War Muster Rolls (Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
4. Deitzinger, John, in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
5. Deitzinger, John, in Death Certificates (City and County of Philadelphia, 1863). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia City Archives.
6. Deitzinger, John, in Records of Places of Burial of Veterans (1863). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Department of Military Affairs, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
7. Deitzinger, John, in Registers of Deaths of Union Army Soldiers, 1863. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
8. Deitzinger, John, in Roll of Honor. Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defence of the American Union, vol. XII, p. 18. Washington, D.C.: Office of the United States Quartermaster General and U.S. Government Printing Office, 1867.
9. Deitzinger, John, in U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms (Philadelphia National Cemetery, 1863). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
10. Ellis, Franklin and Austin N. Hungerford, ed. History of That Part of the Susquehanna and Juniata Valleys, Embraced in the Counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, vol. I, p. 219. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Everts, Peck & Richards, 1886.
11. Jones, Jonathan S. “Lessons learned — and forgotten — from the horrific epidemics of the U.S. Civil War,” in STAT, 18 April 2021. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Globe Media.
12. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.