Alternate Spellings of Surname: Troell, Troll, Troxell

 

Born circa 1839 in Schwebda in the Kingdom of Prussia (now part of Germany), John H. Troell was the older brother of Conrad Troell (1841-1924), who was born in Schwebda in December 1841.

According to a 1903 edition of The San Francisco Call newspaper, the brothers emigrated from Prussia in 1860, traveled across the ocean by ship to the United States and began to make a new life for themselves in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Although very little is presently known about their parents or their formative years, it is possible to discern their shared motive for this major life change–a desire for greater freedom, safety and stability than what had and what currently existed in their homeland–a hope that was shared by many of their fellow Prussians.

According to historians affiliated with the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, “The growing population of Prussia and the independent German states [had] outstripped the available land [during the mid-nineteenth century]. Industrialization could not provide decent-paying jobs, and political rights were limited.”

Many Germans were fed up with the lack of opportunity and the denial of political and civil rights … particularly after the failure of the revolutions of 1848. During the peak period from roughly 1860-90, there were only three years in which Germans were not the largest nationality among new arrivals in America. All told, five million Germans came to the United States in the 19th century….

Upon their arrival in the United States, however, the brothers’ paths in life diverged. John Troell chose to settle in the anthracite coal mining town of Eckley in Luzerne County, while trained botanist Conrad Troell opted to make his home in Lehigh County.

American Civil War

Like many of the German immigrants who were residing in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley at the dawn of the American Civil War, John H. Troell became an early responder to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteer soldiers to defend the capital of the United States following the fall of Fort Sumter to Confederate States Army troops. After enrolling for military service in the city of Allentown on 5 August 1861, he officially mustered in for duty at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County on 30 August as a private with Company I of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which had just been formed on the day of his enrollment.

Military records at the time described him as a twenty-two-year-old shoemaker living in Allentown, Lehigh County and noted that he was five feet, five inches tall with brown hair, blue eyes and a light complexion.

* Note: Company I was one of the first two companies from Allentown to join the Pennsylvania Volunteers’ 47th Regiment, and was also the largest of the regiment’s ten companies to muster in during the summer and early fall of 1861, with most of its one hundred and two members logged in as available for duty on 30 August—the same day that Coleman A. G. Keck was commissioned as a captain with the 47th Pennsylvania and placed in charge of I Company. Most of Company I’s members were Keck-recruited novices, including John Troell, whose surname was spelled correctly as “Troell” on the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s muster rolls, but was later mispelled as “Troxell” when his entry was created for him in the Pennsylvania State Archives’ Civil War Veterans’ Index Card File. 

Following a brief training period in light infantry tactics at Camp Curtin, Private John Troell and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were marched to the Harrisburg train station, where they boarded Northern Central Railway cars on 20 September and headed for the nation’s capital. Arriving in Washington, D.C. during the wee hours of the next morning, they disembarked and marched to that city’s Soldiers’ Rest, where they were fed and allowed to sleep for a few hours before marching for the Kalorama Heights in Georgetown in the District of Columbia.

Ordered to pitch their tents at Camp Kalorama, roughly two miles from the White House, they continued to train. On 22 September, C Company Musician Henry D. Wharton penned these words to his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American:

After a tedious ride we have, at last, 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 setting [sic, set] of mortals as can possibly exist. On arriving at Washington we were marched to the ‘Soldiers Retreat,’ a building purposefully 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] 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, wrapped] up were they in the horse, the rider wasn’t noticed, and the boys were considerably mortified this morning on discovering 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 for an occasional ‘pop’ at the enemy.

Acclimated somewhat to their new life, the soldiers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry finally became part of the Army of the United States when they were officially mustered into federal service on 24 September. Three days later, they were 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 Volunteers were 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 close to the headquarters of Brigadier-General William Farrar Smith (also known as “Baldy”) and were now part of the massive U.S. 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 arrival through late January when the men of the 47th Pennsylvania would be shipped south.

Once again, Company C Musician Henry Wharton recalled the regiment’s activities, noting, via his 29 September letter to the Sunbury American:

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 the 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 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 a large chestnut tree growing there. The site would eventually become known to them 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 mid-October letter to his own family and friends, Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, the commanding officer of Company C, reported that Companies D, A, C, F, and I (the 47th Pennsylvania’s right wing) were ordered to picket duty after the regiment’s left-wing companies (B, E, G, H, and K) had been forced to return to camp by Confederate troops.

In his letter of 13 October, Musician Henry Wharton described the duties of the average 47th Pennsylvanian, as well as the regiment’s new home:

The location of our new camp is fine and the scenery would be splendid if the view was not obstructed by heavy thickets of pine and innumerable chesnut [sic, chestnut] 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 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 morning, 22 October, the 47th Pennsylvania engaged in a Divisional Review, described by regimental 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, Musician Henry Wharton revealed still more details about life at Camp Griffin:

This morning our brigade was out for inspection; arms, accoutrements, clothing, knapsacks, etc., all were out through a through examination, and if I must say it myself, our company [Company C] stood best, A No. 1, for cleanliness. We have a new commander to our brigade, Brigadier General Brannon [sic, Brannan], 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, picket] 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, picket]; 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, pickets]….

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 if 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 Pennsylvania Volunteers participated in a morning Divisional Review that was viewed by the 47th’s founder and commanding officer, Colonel Tilghman Good, followed by brigade and division drills all 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 the regiment’s impressive performance that day, and in preparation for the even bigger adventures and honors that were yet to come, Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan, ordered his staff to ensure that brand new Springfield rifles were obtained and distributed to every member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

* Note: While that phase of military service was unfolding for Private John Troell, his brother, Conrad Troell, had also enrolled for Civil War military service and had been mustered in as a private with Company A of the 74th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in July 1861. He had done so, however, under the alias of “Henry Krauss,” according to his entry in the U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Card system.

1862

Ordered to move from Camp Griffin back to Maryland, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were busy readying themselves for another march, when an announcement surprised Private John Troell on 5 January 1862. He had an unexpected visitor–a private from the 74th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry named Henry Krauss. Puzzled, he headed over to meet the man and, to his amazement and joy, realized that it was his brother Conrad. Unaware that Conrad Troell had also enlisted with the Union Army, he then received another shock when he was informed that his brother was actually stationed nearby.

The pair had the opportunity to reconnect for a short time before their reunion was curtailed by orders from John Troell’s superiors that he resume his duties.

Just over two weeks later, at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 January, Private John Troell and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers departed for good from Camp Griffin. Marching through deep mud with their equipment for three miles in order to reach the railroad station at Falls Church, they were transported to Alexandria, where they boarded the steamship City of Richmond. They then sailed the Potomac River to the Washington Arsenal in Washington, D.C., where they were re-equipped before they were marched off to that city’s Soldiers’ Rest, fed and given the opportunity to relax and sleep.

The next afternoon, they were marched to the railroad station, where they hopped aboard a train from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and headed for Annapolis, Maryland. Arriving around 10 p.m., they disembarked and were marched to a barracks at the United States Naval Academy, where they bedded down for the night. They then spent that Friday through Monday (24-27 January) loading their equipment and supplies onto the U.S.S. Oriental.

During the afternoon of 27 January, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers began boarding the Oriental, enlisted men first, and then, per the directive of Brigadier-General Brannan, they steamed away at 4 p.m. and headed for Florida, which, despite its secession from the United States remained strategically important to the Union due to the presence of several key federal installations.

Arriving in Key West, Florida by early February 1862, the men of Company K and their fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers disembarked and were ordered to pitch their tents on the beach, where they rested and were subsequently directed to their respective quarters inside and outside of Fort Taylor. Assigned to garrison the fort, they drilled daily in infantry and artillery tactics, began strengthening the fortifications of this key federal installation and also began making infrastructure improvements to the city by felling trees and building new roads.

During the weekend of 14 February, the regiment introduced itself to area residents via a parade through the city’s streets. That Sunday, the 47th Pennsylvanians began mingling with locals at area church services.

Among the lighter moments, the regiment commemorated the birthday of President George Washington with a parade, a special ceremony involving the reading of Washington’s farewell address to the nation (first delivered in 1796), the firing of cannon at the fort, and a sack race and other games on 22 February. The festivities resumed two days later when the Regimental Band hosted an officers’ ball at which “all parties enjoyed themselves, for three o’clock of the morning sounded on their ears before any motion was made to move homewards,” according to Musician Henry Wharton. This was then followed by a concert by the band on Wednesday evening, 26 February.

Two months later, Captain Coleman A. G. Keck was ordered to return home to recruit additional men for the regiment. Meanwhile, his I Company men continued their garrison duty. Tragically, while Captain Keck was away, Sergeant Charles Nolf, Jr. was accidentally killed via “friendly fire” in the southern part of Key West on 9 June. According to Schmidt, et. al.:

The 24 year old [sic] bricklayer from Allentown was shot through the brain and killed instantly while he was on the beach gathering shells with a few of his friends from the company. In front of the Sergeant and his friends were four members of the 90th New York with loaded rifles on their shoulders. One of them was carelessly playing with the trigger of his gun, ‘when bang! off went the load, the ball entering the forehead of Nolf, killing him instantly.’ Some members of his company ‘were bent on revenge’, but an investigation proved it an accident, although the carrying of loaded rifles was strictly prohibited….

Next ordered to Hilton Head, South Carolina, from early June through July, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers camped near Fort Walker before relocating roughly thirty-five miles away in the Beaufort District in the U.S. Army’s Department of the South. Frequently assigned to hazardous picket duty north of their main camp, they faced an increased risk of enemy sniper fire. Despite this danger, though, the men of the 47th Pennsylvania “received the highest commendation from Generals Hunter and Brannan” for their “attention to duty, discipline and soldierly bearing,” 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).

From 20-31 August, the men from Company K were assigned to picket duty and were stationed at “Barnwells” near Beaufort (so labeled by C Company Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin).

* Note: During this same phase of duty, Private John Troell’s brother, Private Conrad Troell, had reportedly battled illnesses so severe while serving with the 74th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry that he was ultimately deemed as no longer fit to serve, was honorably discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability in August 1862, and was permitted to return to his adopted home state of Pennsylvania.

Initially assigned to defend the nation’s capital, the 74th Pennsylvania had been stationed at Roach’s Mills, Virginia during Private Conrad Troell’s tenure of service and had then been moved into winter quarters at Hunter’s Chapel. Attached to the Union Army division commanded by Brigadier-General Louis Blenker, it was assigned to fatigue duty and ordered to work on improving Union Army fortifications.

Ordered to break camp on 10 March 1862, the 74th Pennsylvania Volunteers then marched to Fairfax Court House and, two weeks later, to Centreville before being relocated to West Virginia, where they reinforced the Union troops commanded by Major-General John C. Fremont. During that relocation, the “sufferings of the men … were intense,” according to Bates. “Much of the way the column moved at the rate of twenty miles per day, the men being without tents or shelter of any description, and sometimes bivouacking in the snow with but a single blanket.” Placed on picket or assigned to fortification work for two weeks, the 74th Pennsylvanians were “reduced to the last extremity of hunger … the men forced to subsist on fresh beef without salt, and less than a cracker a day per man.”

The regiment then participated in the pursuit of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson’s troops and, on 8 June 1862, fought in the Battle of Cross Keys, after which it was marched to Mount Jackson and then Middletown, where it was placed under the command of Major-General Franz Sigel. Stationed at Sperryville, Virginia from 7 July through 8 August, the regiment was then ordered to march forty miles in order to reach the scene of fighting near Cedar Mountain.

Around this same time, Private Conrad Troell was ordered to muster out.

Capture of Saint John’s Bluff, Florida and a Confederate Steamer

During a return expedition to Florida, beginning 30 September, the 47th Pennsylvania joined with the 1st Connecticut Battery, 7th Connecticut Infantry and part of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry in assaulting Confederate forces at their heavily protected camp at Saint John’s Bluff, overlooking the Saint John’s River. Trekking through roughly twenty-five miles of swampland and forests, after disembarking from their Union troop transports at Mayport Mills on 1 October, the 47th Pennsylvanians captured artillery and ammunition stores (on 3 October) that had been abandoned during the Union Navy’s bombardment of the bluff.

Men from the 47th Pennsylvania’s Companies E and K were then led by Captain Charles H. Yard on a special mission; initially joining with other Union troops in the reconnaissance and capture of Jacksonville, Florida, they were subsequently ordered to sail up the Saint John’s River to seek out and capture any Confederate ships they found. Departing aboard the Darlington, a former Confederate steamer, with protection by the Union gunboat Hale, they traveled two hundred miles, captured the Governor Milton, a Confederate steamer that was docked near Hawkinsville, and returned back down the river with both Union ships and their new Confederate prize without incident. (Identified as a thorn that needed to be plucked from the Union’s side, that steamer had been engaged in ferrying Confederate troops and supplies around the region.)

Integration of the Regiment

Meanwhile, back at its South Carolina base of operations, the 47th Pennsylvania was making history as it became an integrated regiment. On 5 and 15 October, the regiment added to its rosters several young Black men who had endured plantation enslavement near Beaufort and other areas of South Carolina, including Bristor Gethers, Abraham Jassum and Edward Jassum.

Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

From 21-23 October 1862, under the brigade and regimental commands of Colonel Tilghman Good and Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, six hundred members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry joined with other Union troops in engaging heavily protected Confederate troops in and around Pocotaligo, South Carolina, including at Frampton’s Plantation and the Pocotaligo Bridge, a key piece of Deep South infrastructure that senior Union military leaders felt should be eliminated.

Harried by snipers while en route to destroy the bridge, they met resistance from an entrenched, heavily fortified Confederate battery that opened fire on the Union troops as they entered an open cotton field.

Those headed toward higher ground at the Frampton Plantation fared no better as they encountered artillery and infantry fire from the surrounding forests. But the Union soldiers would not give in. Grappling with the Confederates where they found them, they pursued the Rebels for four miles as the Confederate Army retreated to the bridge. Once there, the 47th Pennsylvania relieved the 7th Connecticut.

Unfortunately, the enemy was just too well armed. After two hours of intense fighting in an attempt to take the ravine and bridge, the 47th Pennsylvanians were forced by depleted ammunition to withdraw to Mackay’s Point.

The engagement proved to be a costly one for the 47th Pennsylvania with multiple members of the regiment killed instantly or so grievously wounded that they died the next day or within weeks of the battle.

Following the 47th Pennsylvania’s return to Hilton Head on 23 October, members of the regiment mourned their lost friends and attempted to heal from the medical and physical trauma they had sustained. A week later, members of the regiment were called upon to serve as the funeral honor guard for Major-General Ormsby M. Mitchel, commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Corps (X Corps) and Department of the South, who died from yellow fever on 30 October.

Having been ordered back to Key West on 15 November 1862, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers would spend much of 1863 guarding federal installations in Florida as part of the 10th Corps, Department of the South. Companies A, B, C, E, G, and I would once again garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, while the men of Companies D, F, H, and K would garrison Fort Jefferson, the Union’s remote outpost in the Dry Tortugas off the southern coast of Florida.

After packing their belongings at their Beaufort, South Carolina encampment and loading their equipment onto the U.S. Steamer Cosmopolitan, the officers and enlisted members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry sailed toward the mouth of the Broad River on 15 December 1862, and anchored briefly at Port Royal Harbor in order to allow the regiment’s medical director, Elisha W. Baily, M.D., and members of the regiment who had recuperated enough from their Pocotaligo-related battle injuries at the Union’s general hospital at Hilton Head, to rejoin the regiment.

At 5 p.m. that same evening, the regiment sailed for Florida, during what was described by several members of the regiment as a treacherous and nerve-wracking voyage. According to Schmidt, the ship’s captain “steered a course along the coast of Florida for most of the voyage,” which made the voyage more precarious “because of all the reefs.” On 16 December, “the second night, the ship was jarred as it ran aground on one during a storm, but broke free, and finally steered a course further from shore, out in the Gulf Stream.”

In a letter penned to the Sunbury American on 21 December, Musician Henry Wharton provided the following details about the regiment’s trip:

On the passage down, we ran along almost the whole coast of Florida. Rather all dangerous ground, and the reefs are no playthings. We were jarred considerably by running on one, and not liking the sensation our course was altered for the Gulf Stream. We had heavy sea all the time. I had often heard of ‘waves as big as a house,’ and thought it was a sailors yarn, but I have seen ’em and am perfectly satisfied; so now, not having a nautical turn of mind, I prefer our movements being done on terra firma, and leave old neptune to those who have more desire for his better acquaintance. A nearer chance of a shipwreck never took place than ours, and it was only through Providence that we were saved. The Cosmopolitan is a good riverboat, but to send her to sea, loadened [sic, loaded] with U.S. troops is a shame, and looks as though those in authority wish to get clear of soldiers in another way than that of battle. There was some sea sickness on our passage; several of the boys ‘casting up their accounts’ on the wrong side of the ledger.

According to Corporal George Nichols of Company E, “When we got to Key West the Steamer had Six foot of water in her hole [sic, hold]. Waves Mountain High and nothing but an old river Steamer. With Eleven hundred Men on I looked for her to go to the Bottom Every Minute.”

Although the Cosmopolitan arrived at the Key West Harbor on Thursday, 18 December, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers did not set foot on Florida soil until noon the next day. The men from Companies C and I, including Private John Troell, were immediately marched to Fort Taylor, where they were placed under the command of Major William Gausler, the regiment’s third-in-command. The men from Companies B and E were assigned to the older barracks that had been erected by the United States Army, and were placed under the command of B Company Captain Emanuel P. Rhoads, while the men from Companies A and G were placed under the command of A Company Captain Richard Graeffe, and stationed at newer facilities known as the “Lighthouse Barracks,” which were located on “Lighthouse Key.”

On Saturday, 21 December, Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Alexander, the regiment’s second-in-command, then sailed away aboard the Cosmopolitan with the men from Companies D, F, H, and K, and headed south to Fort Jefferson, roughly seventy miles off the coast of Florida (in the Gulf of Mexico) to assume garrison duties there. According to Musician Henry Wharton:

We landed here [Fort Taylor] on last Thursday at noon, and immediately marched to quarters. Company I. and C., in Fort Taylor, Company E. and B. in the old Barracks, and A. and G. in the new Barracks. Lieut. Col. Alexander, with the other four companies proceeded to Tortugas, Col. Good having command of all the forces in and around Key West. Our regiment relieved the 90th Regiment N. Y. S. Vols. Col. Joseph Morgan, who will proceed to Hilton Head to report to the General commanding. His actions have been severely criticized by the people, but, as it is in bad taste to say anything against ones [sic, one’s] superiors, I merely mention, judging from the expression of the citizens, they were very glad of the return of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers….

Key West has improved very little since we left last June, but there is one improvement for which the 90th New York deserve a great deal of praise, and that is the beautifying of the ‘home’ of dec’d soldiers. A neat and strong wall of stone encloses the yard, the ground is laid off in squares, all the graves are flat and are nicely put in proper shape by boards eight or ten inches high on the end sides, covered with white sand, while a head and foot board, with the full name, company and regiment, marks the last resting place of the patriot who sacrificed himself for his country….

1863

Far from being a punishment for the regiment’s recent combat performance, as several historians have claimed over the years, the return to Florida of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was viewed by senior Union military officers as a critically important assignment because Forts Taylor and Jefferson were both 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.

Water quality, however, was a challenge for members of the regiment at both of their duty stations; as a result, disease became their constant companion and most dangerous foe. 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.

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, all of the other companies of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were preparing for the regiment’s history-making journey to Louisiana. Made aware by his superiors that this next phase of duty would be an arduous one for the regiment and acutely aware of his failing health due to advanced kidney disease, Company I Captain Coleman A. G. Keck resigned his commission on 22 February 1864, thereby giving regimental commanders the opportunity to put a healthier man in charge of the unit.

Three days later, on 25 February, the men from Companies B, C, D, I, and K boarded the steamer Charles Thomas and 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 Nineteenth Army Corps (XIX Corps), and became the only Pennsylvania regiment to serve in the 1864 Red River Campaign of Union Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks. (Unable to reach Louisiana until 23 March, the men from Company A were placed on detached duty in New Orleans while they awaited transport that would 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 “UnderCook.”

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

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 Major-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.

During this engagement (known today as the Battle of Pleasant Hill), the 47th Pennsylvania recaptured a Massachusetts artillery battery that had been lost during the earlier Confederate assault. While he was mounting the 47th Pennsylvania’s colors on one of the recaptured Massachusetts caissons, C Company Color-Sergeant Benjamin Walls was shot in the left shoulder. As Walls fell, C Company Sergeant William Pyers was then also shot while preventing the American flag from falling into enemy hands. Both men survived their wounds and continued to fight on, but others from the 47th were less fortunate, including the regiment’s second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. Alexander, who was severely wounded in both legs.

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.

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.

As they did during their tour through the Carolinas and Florida, the men of the 47th had battled the elements and disease, as well as the Confederate Army, in order to continue to defend their nation.

Ironically, on the Fourth of July—“Independence Day”—Private John Troell learned from his superior officers that his independence from military life would not be happening anytime soon because the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers had received new orders to return to the Eastern Theater of the war.

On 7 July 1864, he was among the first members of his regiment to depart Bayou Country. Boarding the U.S. Steamer McClellan, he sailed out of the harbor at New Orleans with his fellow I Company soldiers, along with the members of Companies A, C, D, E, F, and H.

An Encounter with Lincoln and Snicker’s Gap

Following their arrival in Virginia and a memorable encounter with President Abraham Lincoln on 12 July, they joined up with Major-General David Hunter’s forces at Snicker’s Gap in mid-July 1864. There, they fought in the Battle of Cool Spring and, once again, assisted in defending Washington, D.C. while also helping to drive Confederate troops from Maryland.

On 24 July 1864, Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin was promoted from leadership of Company C to the 47th Pennsylvania’s central regimental command staff, and was also awarded the rank of major.

Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign

Attached to the Middle Military Division, U.S. Army of the Shenandoah from August through November of 1864, it was at this time and place, under the leadership of legendary Union Major-General Philip H. Sheridan and Brigadier-General William H. Emory, that the members of the 47th Pennsylvania would engage in their greatest moments of valor. Of the experience, Company C’s Samuel Pyers said it was “our hardest engagement.”

Records of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confirm that the regiment was assigned to defensive duties in and around Halltown in early August 1864, and engaged in a series of back-and-forth movements between Halltown, Berryville, Middletown, Charlestown, and Winchester, Virginia as part of a “mimic war” being waged by Sheridan’s Union forces with those commanded by Confederate Lieutenant-General Jubal Early.

From 3-4 September, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers fought in the Battle of Berryville and engaged in related post-battle skirmishes with the enemy over subsequent days.

Although the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry then went on to fight valiantly in the remaining actions of Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, helping to turn the tide of the American Civil War firmly in the Union’s favor, Private John Troell and a significant number of other 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen were not present for those battles because they were honorably mustered out at Berryville on 18 September 1864, upon expiration of their respective three-year terms of service.

Return to Civilian Life

Following his honorable discharge from the military, John H. Troell returned to his adopted hometown in Pennsylvania, where he reportedly married and began a family, according to admissions ledgers of the U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Union Soldiers and other post-war records.

* Note: Researchers for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story have located records which documented the name of John Troell’s son, Gustave, but have not yet found information about John Troell’s wife. Their search for records related to the Troell family continues. Additional information will be posted here if and when it becomes available.

Sometime during or after this phase of his post-war life, John H. Troell also became a naturalized citizen of the United States, according to the 1910 U.S. Census. In addition, he was awarded a U.S. Civil War Pension by the federal government that was gradually increased, over subsequent years, from eight to fifteen dollars per month.

In 1891, he was admitted to the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Union Soldiers in Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio. At the time of his admission, he was described as a fifty-two-year-old shoemaker who was five feet, four inches tall with dark hair, blue eyes and a dark complexion. A native of Germany, according to that same admissions ledger, he was able to read and write English and was a Protestant.

His residence subsequent to discharge was listed as Erie, Pennsylvania.

Widowed by this time, his next of kin was his son, Gustave Troell, who was a resident of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Initially given treatment for heart disease, hernia and rheumatism, John Troell was also later documented by the physicians there as senile. Before that latter condition developed, however, John Troell traveled to San Francisco, California, where he reconnected with his brother Conrad. According to the aforementioned San Francisco Call article:

Separated by life’s tide for almost the full span of their years, Conrad Troell and Henry H. Troell [sic, John H. Troell], brothers, met in this city yesterday [16 August 1903]. The stress of civil war had parted them in the first flush of their youth, and now as aged veterans they meet again and together sit down at a common campfire and return to reminiscences of the days when they were 21.

The brothers were born in Schwebda, Prussia, and in the early sixties [1860s] came to this country. Conrad, who was a botanist by profession, immediately struck out for the Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania, and John went to Eckley, in the same State.

When the call for volunteers came each unknown to the other rushed to respond to the nation’s call.

When his regiment reached Virginia, the junior brother, Conrad, learned by accident that his brother John was at Camp Griffin, and, he at once obtained leave of absence and went there. They had barely time to exchange a few words of friendly greeting, when orders came that called John and his regiment to start at once for Key West Fla.

This was on January 5, 1862. The brothers shook hands and each wished the other godspeed.

Their lives then went in diverse channels, and now after a separation of forty-one years they meet once more. Boys when they parted and grandfathers when they meet again.

Conrad served for over a year, when, through illness, he was compelled to resign, receiving an honorable discharge. In 1864 he came to this coast [the West Coast of the United States] and went to the mines in Central America. In 1866 he returned to San Francisco, since which time he has been actively engaged in business pursuits.

For the past five years he has been bailiff in Judge Hunt’s court.

John has had a more varied experience. Joining the Forty-seventh Pennsylvania, he fought straight through the war. He served under Colonel Good and General Schmidt [sic]. When the war was over, he went to Hazleton, Pa., where he engaged in the shoemaking business, and amassed a comfortable fortune. Just as he was about to retire from business reverses swept away the competency that he had accumulated and in 1893 he accepted the position of foreman shoemaker in the National Soldiers Home at Dayton, O., which position he holds at the present time.

Last year, just as he was arranging to come to California to visit his brother, he had the misfortune to fall downstairs and fracture his knee cap. This deferred his visit until now. He is still lame and is obliged to walk with the help of a cane.

In speaking of his visit to the coast, he said:

“For years I have been looking forward to seeing my brother again. Now I am here, and though I am lame, we shall walk together on Wednesday morning side by side in the great procession of this glorious reunion. The Stars and Stripes that floated over us in the dark days when the nation was in peril will again [herald] peace and prosperity.”

The brothers’ reunion was made possible because they were both attending the annual encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic that was being held in San Francisco that week.

Death and Interment

After an adventurous life, John H. Troell died from asthenia due to arteriosclerosis at the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Union Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio on 16 June 1913. He was then laid to rest at the Dayton National Cemetery.

His son, Gustave Troell of Wilkes-Barre, was notified about his death by mail on 16 June 1913. He was also reportedly survived by a brother, Henry Troell of Rockport, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, who was also notified by mail of his death.

The total value of John Troell’s estate at the time of his death was slightly more than five hundred and twenty dollars, or roughly sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-five dollars in 2024 U.S. currency.

What Happened to His Brother Conrad Troell?

Conrad Troell, who outlived John H. Troell by roughly eleven years, had been employed as a court bailiff in 1903 when he reconnected with John. Prior to that, in 1900, he had worked for a municipal or county law enforcement agency as a deputy sheriff and was residing with his wife, Louise, at the home of their daughter, Anna (Troell) Spreckels, and her husband, Richard Spreckels.

He subsequently spent his final months at the Veterans’ Home in Yountville, California. Following his death in San Francisco on 16 October 1924, funeral services were held at the Halsted & Co. funeral chapel, which was located at 1122 Sutter Street in San Francisco. He was then laid to rest at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, and was survived by his daughter, Mrs. Richard Spreckels of Los Gatos, California, and his granddaughter, Louise Spreckels of Kauai (now part of Hawaii).

* Note: Louise Spreckels (a grand niece of John H. Troell and a granddaughter of Conrad Troell) became a teacher at the Koolau School in Kauai in January of 1924, “taking the place left vacant by Miss Rose Hee who ha[d] been transferred to the Olohena school, Wailua homesteads,” according to the 17 January 1924 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser. Louise’s father, Richard Spreckels, “head chemist of the Kilauea plantation, ha[d] left Kilauea and departed for Honolulu [on] January 8.”

 

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1: “Forty-Seventh Regiment.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 2: “Seventy-Fourth Regiment.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
3. “Brothers Reunited: They Parted on the Battle-Field Forty Years Ago.” Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: The Wilkes-Barre Record, 23 March 1904.
4. “Brothers Who Parted on Battlefield Forty Years Ago to March Side by Side in Big Parade.” San Francisco, California: The San Francisco Call, 17 August 1903.
5. Conrad Troell, in Funeral Home Records, Halsted & Co., San Francisco, 16 October 1924 (retrieved online from Fold3, 5 December 2024).
6. “European Emigration to the U.S. 1861-1870,” in “When Did They Come?” in ” Destination America.” New York, New York: Educational Broadcasting Corporation, retrieved online 5 December 2024.
7. “Florida’s Role in the Civil War,” in “Florida Memory.” Tallahassee, Florida: State Archives of Florida.
8. Richard Spreckels and Miss Louise Spreckels, in “Kilauea Kauai: Special to the Advertiser” and “Miss Spreckels at Koolau School,” in “News of the Islands.” Honolulu, Hawaii: The Honolulu Advertiser, 17 January 1924.
9. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
10. Spreckels, Richard, Anna and Louise, and Troell, Conrad and Louise, in U.S. Census (City of San Francisco, Assembly District No. 37, San Francisco County, 1900). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
11. Troell, Conrad, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (application no.: 436312, certificate no.: 507070, filed by the veteran on 28 December 1881; records also included under the alias of “Krauss, Henry”; enrollment date: July 1861; honorable discharge: August 1862). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
12. Troell, John H., in Admissions Ledgers, U.S. National Homes for Disabled Union Volunteer Soldiers (Dayton, Ohio, 1891-1913). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
13. Troell, John, in Civil War Muster Rolls (Company I, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
14. Troell, John H., in Veterans’ Grave Registration Records (Dayton National Cemetery, 1913). Columbus, Ohio: Ohio History Connection.
15. Troell, John H., in U.S. Census (Special Schedule.–Surviving Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, and Widows, etc., Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania, 1890). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
16. Troell, John H., in U.S. Census (National Military Home, Dayton, Ohio, 1910). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
17. Troell, John H., in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (application no.: 296818, certficate no.: 853426, filed by the veteran, 8 July 1879; pension increase: 23 July 1909). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
18. Troxell, John, in U.S. Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company I, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.