Alternate Surname Spellings, Amey, Amig, Emig

 

His voice was nearly stilled by a period of strife in the United States which claimed the lives of more than seven hundred thousand Americans.

His fighting spirit remained undaunted as he aged, however, even as the sands of time ran more quickly through his personal hourglass than he could ever have imagined.

His name was Benjamin Amey and he was a blue collar boy from the Great Keystone State of Pennsylvania.

Formative Years

Born in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania on 17 March 1844, Benjamin Amey was a son of Conrad Amey (1811-1887) and Judith (Boger) Amey (1811-1884), who was a native of Macungie, Lehigh County, and the sibling of Lehigh County natives: Mary Ann Amey (1833-192?6), who was born on 20 April 1833 and later wed American Civil War veteran Lewis Eisenhard (1830-1905); Conrad W. Amey (1834-1910; alternate surname spelling: Amig), who was born on 11 July 1834; Henrietta Amey (1835-1902), who was born on 28 July 1835 and later wed John Smiley (alternate surname spelling: Saile); Abraham B. Amey (1836-1912), who was born on 18 December 1836); Sarah C. Amey (1846-1927), who was born on 23 November 1846; Agatha Amey (1848-1921), who was born on 5 February 1848 and later wed John Conners (1847-1915) circa 1869; Eliza C. Amey (1849-1907), who was born on 2 September 1849 and later wed Martin L. Ruhf (1855-1931); and Maria M. Amey (1852-1923), who was born on 2 July 1852 and later wed Nickalos Adams (1846-1890).

Benjamin Amey and his siblings were raised and educated in Lehigh County. Their father supported their large family on the wages of a day laborer.

Employed as a miner by 1860, Benjamin Amey still resided at home with his parents. Also living with him were his sisters, Eliza, Catharine and Maria, all of whom were still in school.

American Civil War

Deciding he could no longer sit on the sidelines as the American Civil War raged on, Benjamin Amey enlisted for military service in Lehigh County on 21 September 1862. He then officially mustered in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County on 2 October as a private with Company K of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

He could not have known it at the time, but he was joining a regiment that would be heavily tested in combat in just a few short weeks. Military records at the time described him as a nineteen-year-old laborer who was residing in the Borough of Allentown in Lehigh County.

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, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers joined with other Union troops in engaging heavily protected Confederate forces in and around Pocotaligo, South Carolina, including at the Frampton Plantation and the Pocotaligo Bridge, a key piece of railroad infrastructure that senior Union military leaders felt should be eliminated.

Harried by snipers while en route to destroy the bridge, they also met resistance from Confederate artillerymen who opened fire as they entered an open cotton field.

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

Unfortunately, the Confederates were 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. Among those who were mortally wounded was K Company Captain George Junker.

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 physical and mental trauma they had sustained. A week later, several 47th Pennsylvanians were called upon to serve as the funeral honor guard for Major-General Ormsby M. Mitchel, commander of the U.S. Army’s Tenth 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 the coming year guarding federal installations in Florida. Companies A, B, C, E, G, and I would once again garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, while the men from 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 historian Lewis 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, Company C 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 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 were immediately marched to Fort Taylor, while the men from Companies B and E were assigned to older barracks that had previously been erected by the U.S. Army. Members of Companies A and G were marched to the newer “Lighthouse Barracks” located on “Lighthouse Key.”

On Saturday, 21 December, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, the regiment’s second-in-command, 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. 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 superiors, I merely mention, judging from the expression of the citizens, they were very glad of the return of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers….

1863

Although water quality was a challenge for members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at both of their duty stations in Florida throughout 1863, it was particularly problematic for the 47th Pennsylvanians who were stationed at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. According to Schmidt:

‘Fresh’ water was provided by channeling the rains from the city’s barbette through channels in the interior walls, to filter trays filled with sand; and finally to the 114 cisterns located under the fort, which held 1,231,000 gallons of water. The cisterns were accessible in each of the first level cells or rooms through a ‘trap hole’ in the floor covered by a temporary wooden cover. Considerable dirt must have found its way into these access points and was responsible for some of the problems resulting in the water’s impurity…. The fort began to settle and the asphalt covering on the outer walls began to deteriorate and allow the sea water (polluted by debris in the moat) to penetrate the system…. Two steam condensers were available … and distilled 7000 gallons of tepid water per day for a separate system of reservoirs located in the northern section of the parade ground near the officers’ quarters. No provisions were made to use any of this water for personal hygiene of the [planned 1,500-soldier garrison force]….

As a result, the soldiers stationed there washed themselves and their clothes, using saltwater from the ocean. As if that weren’t difficult enough, “toilet facilities were located outside of the fort,” according to Schmidt:

At least one location was located near the wharf and sallyport, and another was reached through a door-sized hole in a gunport and a walk across the moat on planks at the northwest wall…. These toilets were flushed twice each day by the actions of the tides, a procedure that did not work very well and contributed to the spread of disease. It was intended that the tidal flush should move the wastes into the moat, and from there, by similar tidal action, into the sea. But since the moat surrounding the fort was used clandestinely by the troops to dispose of litter and other wastes … it was a continuous problem for Col. Alexander and his surgeon.

As for daily operations in the Dry Tortugas, there was a fort post office and the “interior parade grounds, with numerous trees and shrubs in evidence, contained officers’ quarters, a magazine, kitchens, and out houses,” per Schmudt, as well as “a ‘hot shot oven’ which was completed in 1863 and used to heat shot before firing.”

Most quarters for the garrison … were established in wooden sheds and tents inside the parade [grounds] or inside the walls of the fort in second-tier gun rooms of ‘East’ front no. 2, and adjacent bastions … with prisoners housed in isolated sections of the first and second tiers of the southeast, or no. 3 front, and bastions C and D located in the general area of the sallyport. The bakery was located in the lower tier of the northwest bastion ‘F,’ located near the central kitchen.

Additional Duties: Diminishing Florida’s Role as the “Supplier of the Confederacy”

On top of the strategic role played by the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers in preventing foreign powers from assisting the Confederate Army and Navy in gaining control over federal forts in the Deep South, the regiment was also called upon to play an ongoing role in weakening Florida’s ability to supply and transport food and troops throughout areas held by the Confederate States of America.

Prior to intervention by the Union Army and Navy, the owners of plantations, livestock ranches and fisheries, as well as the operators of smaller, family farms across Florida, had been able to consistently furnish beef and pork, fish, fruits, and vegetables to Confederate troops stationed throughout the Deep South during the first year of the American Civil War. Large herds of cattle were raised near Fort Myers, for example, while orchard owners in the Saint John’s River area were actively engaged in cultivating sizeable orange groves (while other types of citrus trees were found growing throughout more rural areas of the state).

Florida was also a major producer of salt, which was used as a preservative for food. Consequently, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers and other Union troops across Florida were ordered to capture or destroy salt manufacturing plants in order to further curtail the enemy’s access to food.

But they were undertaking all of these duties in conditions that were far more challenging than any they had previously faced (and that were far more challenging than what many other Union soldiers were facing up north). The weather was frequently hot and humid as spring turned to summer, mosquitos and other insects were an ever-present annoyance (and a serious threat when they were carrying tropical diseases), and there were also scorpions and snakes that put the health of Private Benjamin Amey and his comrades at further risk.

1864

In early January 1864, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers experienced yet another significant change when members of the regiment were ordered to expand the Union’s reach by sending part of the regiment north to retake Fort Myers, a federal installation that had been abandoned in 1858, following the federal government’s third war with the Seminole Indians. In response, Company A Captain Richard Graeffe and a detachment of his subordinates traveled north, captured the fort and began conducting cattle raids to provide food for the growing Union troop presence across the region. They subsequently turned their fort not only into their base of operations, but into a shelter for pro-Union supporters, escaped slaves, Confederate deserters, and others fleeing Rebel troops.

Red River Campaign

Meanwhile, all of the other companies of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had begun preparing for the regiment’s history-making journey to Louisiana. Boarding yet another steamer, the Charles Thomas, the men from Companies B, C, D, I, and K headed for Algiers, Louisiana (across the river from New Orleans), followed on 1 March by the men from Companies E, F, G, and H.

Upon the second group’s arrival, the now almost-fully-reunited-regiment moved by train to Brashear City (now Morgan City), before heading to Franklin by steamer through the Bayou Teche. There, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry joined the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the 19th Corps (XIX) of the United States’ Army of the Gulf, and became the only regiment from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to serve in the Red River Campaign commanded by Union General Nathaniel P. Banks. (Unable to reach Louisiana until 23 March, the soldiers from Company A were assigned to detached duty while awaiting transport that enabled them to reconnect with their regiment at Alexandria, Louisiana on 9 April.)

The early days on the ground quickly woke Private Benjamin Amey and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers up to just how grueling their new phase of duty would be. From 14-26 March, most members of the 47th marched for Alexandria and Natchitoches, near the top of the L-shaped state. Among the towns that the 47th Pennsylvanians passed through were 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 officially mustered into the regiment on 22 June at Morganza, Louisiana. 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, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers 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 second division, sixty members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were cut down on 8 April 1864 during the intense volley of fire in the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads (also known as the Battle of Mansfield due to its proximity to the town of Mansfield). The fighting waned only when darkness fell. The exhausted, but uninjured collapsed beside the gravely wounded and dead. After midnight, the surviving Union troops withdrew 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 unto a high bluff. By 3 p.m., after enduring a midday charge by the troops of Confederate Major-General Richard Taylor (a plantation owner who was the son of Zachary Taylor, a 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 Union force, the men of the 47th were forced to bolster the 165th New York’s buckling lines by blocking another Confederate assault.

During that engagement (now known as the Battle of Pleasant Hill), the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers succeeded in recapturing a Massachusetts artillery battery that had been lost during the earlier Confederate assault. Unfortunately, the regiment’s second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, and its two color-bearers, Sergeants Benjamin Walls and William Pyers, were wounded. Alexander sustained wounds to both of his legs, and Walls was shot in the left shoulder as he attempted to mount the 47th Pennsylvania’s colors on caissons that had been recaptured, while Pyers was wounded as he grabbed the flag from Walls to prevent it from falling into Confederate hands.

All three survived the day, however, and continued to serve with the regiment, but many others, like K Company Sergeant Alfred Swoyer, were killed in action during those two days of chaotic fighting, or were wounded so severely that they were unable to continue the fight. (Swoyer’s final words were, “They’re coming nine deep!” Shot in the right temple shortly afterward, his body was never recovered).

Still others were captured by Confederate troops, 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 until they were released during a series of prisoner exchanges that began on 22 July and continued through November. At least two members of the regiment never made it out of that prison camp alive; another died at a Confederate hospital in Shreveport.

Meanwhile, as the captured 47th Pennsylvanians were being spirited away to Camp Ford, the bulk of the regiment was carrying out orders from senior Union Army leaders to head for Grand Ecore, Louisiana. Encamped there from 11-22 April, the Union soldiers engaged in the hard labor of strengthening regimental and brigade fortifications.

They then moved back to Natchitoches Parish on 22 April. While they were in route, they were attacked again, this time, at the rear of their retreating brigade, but they were able to end the encounter quickly and move on to reach Cloutierville at 10 p.m. that same night (after a forty-five-mile march).

The next morning (23 April), 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 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 from enemy troops positioned atop a bluff and near a bayou, Brigadier-General Emory directed one of his brigades to keep Bee’s Confederate troops busy while sending two other brigades to find a safe spot for the Union’s forces to cross the Cane River. As part of “the beekeepers,” the 47th Pennsylvania supported Smith’s artillery.

Meanwhile, additional troops under Smith’s command attacked Bee’s flank to force a Rebel retreat, and then erected a series of pontoon bridges that enabled the 47th Pennsylvania and other Union regiments 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, C Company Musician Henry Wharton described what had happened:

Our sojourn at Grand Score 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 for the boys, for at 10 o’clock at night they made Cloutierville, a distance of forty drive miles. On that day our 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 rebels 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 if 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 in 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, they learned that 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 construction work, helping to erect “Bailey’s Dam,” a timber structure that was designed to enable Union gun boats to safely navigate the fluctuating water levels of the Red River. According to Musician Henry 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 gun boats 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 iron clads 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, chute], 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 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 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.

Continuing their march, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers headed toward Avoyelles Parish. According to Wharton:

On Sunday, May 15th, we left the river road and took a short route through the woods, saving considerable distance. The windings of the Red river are so numerous that it resembles the tape-worm railroad where with 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 into 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.

“Resting on their arms” (half-dozing, without pitching their tents, and with their rifles right beside them), they were now positioned just outside of Marksville, 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, they reached Missoula [sic, Mansura], 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, maneuvering] of the troops was handsomely done, and the movements was [sic, were] 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 directly, 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 the army. I have it from the best source that the Federal loss from Franklin to Mansfield, and from their [sic, there] 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 healthy members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry 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 regiment in Beaufort, South Carolina (1862) and Natchitoches, Louisiana (1864) were officially mustered into the regiment between 22-24 June.

The regiment then moved on and arrived in New Orleans in late June. On the Fourth of July, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers received orders to return to the East Coast. Three days later, they began loading the regiment and its men onto ships, a process that unfolded in two stages. Companies A, C, D, E, F, H, and I boarded the U.S. Steamer McClellan on 7 July and departed that day, while the members of Companies B, G and K, including Private Benjamin Amey, remained behind, awaiting transport. They subsequently departed aboard the Blackstone, weighing anchor and sailing forth at the end of that month. Arriving in Virginia, on 28 July, the second group reconnected with the first group at Monocacy, having missed the Battle of Cool Spring at Snicker’s Gap in mid-July (a battle in which the first group of 47th Pennsylvanians had participated).

Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign

Attached to the Middle Military Division, U.S. Army of the Shenandoah, beginning in early August of 1864, and placed under the command of Union Major-General Philip H. Sheridan, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was assigned to defensive duties in and around Halltown, and also engaged over the next several weeks in a series of back-and-forth movements between Halltown, Berryville, Middletown, Charlestown, and Winchester as part of a “mimic war” being waged by Sheridan’s Union forces with those commanded by Confederate Lieutenant-General Jubal Early.

The 47th Pennsylvania then engaged with Confederate forces in the Battle of Berryville from 3-4 September.

Battles of Opequan and Fisher’s Hill

On 19 September 1864, Private Benjamin Amey and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers next began a series of battles that would turn the tide of the American Civil War firmly in favor of the Union and help President Abraham Lincoln to secure re-election.

Together, with other regiments under the command of Union Major-General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier-General William Emory, commander of the 19th Corps (XIX Corps), the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers helped to inflict heavy casualties on Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Confederate forces in the Battle of Opequan (also spelled as “Opequon” and known as “Third Winchester”).

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ march toward destiny began at 2 a.m. that 19 September as the regiment left camp and joined up with other regiments in the Union’s 19th Corps. Advancing from Berryville toward Winchester, the 19th Corps bogged down for several hours as Union wagon trains made their way slowly across the terrain. As a result, Early’s troops were able to dig in and wait.

The fighting, which began at noon, was long and brutal. The Union’s left flank (6th Corps) took a beating from Confederate artillery that was positioned on higher ground.

Meanwhile, the 47th Pennsylvania and other 19th Corps regiments were directed by Brigadier-General William Emory to attack and pursue Major-General John B. Gordon’s Confederate forces. Some success was achieved, but casualties mounted as a Confederate artillery group opened fire on Union troops that were trying to cross clearing. When a nearly fatal gap began to open between the 6th and 19th Corps, Sheridan sent in units that were led by Brigadier-Generals Emory Upton and David A. Russell. Russell, hit twice (once in the chest), was mortally wounded.

The 47th Pennsylvania subsequently opened its lines long enough to enable the Union cavalry under William Woods Averell and the foot soldiers of Brigadier-General George Crook to charge the Confederates’ left flank. As the 19th Corps began pushing the Confederates back, with the 47th Pennsylvania in the thick of the fight, Early’s “grays” retreated.

Sheridan’s “blue jackets” ultimately went on to win the day.

Leaving twenty-five hundred wounded behind, the Rebels retreated to Fisher’s Hill, eight miles south of Winchester, where a second engagement, the Battle of Fisher’s Hill, was waged from 21-22 September. Following a successful morning flanking attack by Sheridan’s Union forces, which outnumbered Early’s Confederate troops three to one, Early’s troops fled to Waynesboro, but were pursued by the 47th Pennsylvania and other Union regiments. Afterward, the 47th Pennsylvanians made camp at Cedar Creek.

They would continue to distinguish themselves in battle, but they would do so without their two most senior leaders, Colonel Tilghman H. Good and Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, who mustered out from 23-24 September, upon expiration of their respective terms of service. Fortunately, they were replaced by leaders who were equally respected for their front-line experience and temperament, including Major John Peter Shindel Gobin, formerly of Company C, who had been promoted up through the regimental officers’ corps to the regiment’s central command staff (and who would be promoted again on 4 November to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and appointed as the 47th Pennsylvania’s final commanding officer).

Battle of Cedar Creek

During the fall of 1864, Major-General Sheridan began the first of the Union’s true “scorched earth” campaigns, starving the enemy into submission by destroying Virginia’s farming infrastructure. Viewed today through the lens of history as inhumane, the strategy claimed the lives of many innocent civilians, whose lives were uprooted or even cut short by the inability to find food or adequate shelter. This same strategy, however, almost certainly contributed to the further turning of the war in the Union’s favor during the Battle of Cedar Creek on 19 October 1864.

Successful throughout most of their engagement with Union forces at Cedar Creek, Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Confederates began peeling off in ever greater numbers as the battle wore on in order to search for food to ease their gnawing hunger, thus enabling Sheridan’s well-fed troops to rally and win the day.

From a military standpoint, it was another impressive show of the Union’s might. From a human perspective, it was both inspiring and heartbreaking.

During the morning of 19 October, Early launched a surprise attack on Sheridan’s Cedar Creek-encamped forces. Early’s men were able to capture Union weapons while freeing a number of Confederates who had been taken prisoner during previous battles, all while pushing seven Union divisions back. According to historian Samuel P. 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!'”

In response, Union troops staged a decisive counterattack that punched Early’s forces into submission. Afterward, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were 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.

But the day proved to be a particularly costly one for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. The regiment lost the equivalent of two full companies of men in killed, wounded and missing, as well as soldiers who were captured by Rebel troops and dragged off to prisoner of war (POW) camps, including the Confederates’ Libby Prison in Virginia, the notorious Salisbury Prison in North Carolina and the hellhole known as “Andersonville” in Georgia. Subjected to harsh treatment at the latter two, many of the 47th Pennsylvanians confined there never made it out alive. Those who did either died soon after their release, or lived lives that were greatly reduced in quality by their damaged health.

Following those major battles, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were ordered to march to Camp Russell near Winchester, where they rested and began the long recovery process from their physical and mental wounds. Stationed there throughout most of the late fall and early winter, they were subsequently ordered to pack up their weapons and ammunition, yet again, and ready themselves for another trek in bad weather.

Five days before Christmas, they marched through a driving snowstorm until they reached Camp Fairview, on the outskirts of Charlestown, West Virginia.

1865–1866

Still stationed at Camp Fairview in West Virginia as the New Year of 1865 progressed, members of the regiment continued to perform their latest assigned duties — to patrol and guard key railroad lines in the region and to chase down Confederate guerrillas and their sympathizers who had made repeated attempts to disrupt Union railroad operations while wounding or killing as many Union soldiers as possible.

Assigned to the Provisional Division of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Army of the Shenandoah in February 1865, they continued to perform those duties until late March, when they were ordered to pack up and head for Washington, D.C.

As April 1865 opened, the battles between the Army of the United States and rebel troops intensified, finally reaching the decisive moment when the army commanded by Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on 9 April.

The long war, it seemed, was finally over. Less than week later, however, the fragile peace was threatened when an assassin’s bullet ended the life of President Abraham Lincoln. Shot while attending an evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on 14 April 1865, he had died from his mortal head wound at 7:22 the next morning.

Shocked and devastated by the news, which was received at their Fort Stevens encampment, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were given little time to mourn their beloved commander-in-chief before they were ordered to grab their weapons and move into their regiment’s assigned position, from which they would help to protect the nation’s capital and thwart any attempt by Confederate soldiers and their sympathizers to reignite the flames of civil war that had finally been stamped out.

So key was their assignment that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were not even allowed to march in the funeral procession of their slain leader. Instead, they took part in a memorial service with other members of their brigade that was officiated by the 47th Pennsylvania’s regimental chaplain, the Reverend William D. C. Rodrock.

Present-day researchers who study letters sent by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers to family and friends back home during this period, or post-war interviews conducted by newspaper reporters with veterans of the regiment in later years, will learn that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were collectively heartbroken by Lincoln’s death and deeply angry at those whose actions resulted in his murder. Researchers will also learn that at least one member of the regment, C Company Drummer Samuel Pyers, was given the high honor of guarding President Lincoln’s funeral train while other members of the regiment were assigned to guard duty at the prison where the key conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination were being held during the early days of their imprisonment and trial, which began on 9 May 1865. During this phase of duty, the regiment was headquartered at Camp Brightwood.

Attached to Dwight’s Division of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Department of Washington’s 22nd Corps, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers also participated in the Union’s Grand Review of the National Armies, which took place in Washington, D.C. on 23 May 1865.

Reconstruction

On their final tour of duty through America’s Deep South, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were initially stationed in Savannah, Georgia. Assigned to provost (military police) and other Reconstruction-related duties there in early June 1865, as part of Dwight’s Division, 3rd Brigade, U.S. Department of the South, they were subsequently ordered to Charleston, South Carolina, where they were assigned to similar duties in July.

Just over three months later, Private Benjamin Amey was officially mustered out upon expiration of his three-year term of enlistment on 1 October 1865.

Return to Civilian Life

Following his honorable discharge from the military, Benjamin Amey returned home to Pennsylvania, but his stay there was brief. On 15 March 1866, he opted to return to military life by re-enlisting with the United States Army. Re-enrolling this time in Philadelphia, he joined the 6th U.S. Cavalry, and served with that group until he was honorably discharged in Texas on 15 March 1869. During his tenure of service, he was stationed in the Fifth Military District, which oversaw Reconstruction efforts across Louisiana and Texas.

In September of that same year, he opted to re-enlist, yet again, and signed on to a service term of five years with the U.S. 6th Cavalry. Just over two years later, he was documented as having deserted from his unit on 5 October 1871.

During this period of his military service, the U.S. 6th Cavalry continued to perform Reconstruction-related tasks; however, portions of this cavalry were also ordered to harass, assault and instigate wars with Native Americans, including the Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne.

On 2 August 1877, Benjamin Amey filed for a U.S. Civil War Pension. By 1879, he was residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was employed as a laborer. Still residing in Minneapolis as of 1880, according to that year’s federal census, he was described as a boarder who was employed as a laborer.

Suffering from chronic catarrh, a medical condition that was directly attributable to his military service, Benjamin Amey was admitted at various times throughout his later years to the system of U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers.

On 13 December 1895, he was admitted to the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he received continued treatment for the problems he was having with his pharynx. Admissions records noted that he had previously had undergone a tracheotomy, during which a tracheotomy tube had been inserted, and that that inserted tube was still present when he was admitted to the Soldiers’ Home. His U.S. Civil War Pension rate at that time was six dollars per month.

* Note: According to physicians at Johns Hopkins, even today, “all tracheotomies are performed to address a lack of air getting to the lungs,” and are still performed by physicians to “bypass an obstructed upper airway … clean and remove secretions from the airway,” and/or to “deliver oxygen to the lungs more easily or safely.” 

With respect to Benjamin Amey, medical records documented that he was suffering from chronic catarrh (secretions in his airway), a condition that had become so problematic that it had required surgical intervention which resulted in the insertion of a permanent or long-term tracheotomy tube, a procedure that often caused infections and, in some patients, led to difficulty in swallowing or speaking.

Benjamin Amey’s hospital records also documented that he was a fifty-two-year-old Pennsylvania native who had been residing in Fort Worth, Texas prior to his first soldiers’ home admission, and that he was five feet, eight inches tall with dark hair, gray eyes and a fair complexion. Still single, he was also documented as having no living relatives.

According to author Matthew Jamison, “The dinner hour at 12 M.” [lunch] was “the general assembly” of the soldiers who had been admitted to this soldiers’ home. If that meal fell on a Wednesday or Sunday, the Leavenworth Soldiers’ Home band performed in concert for the veterans.

The dining hall is one of the noblest apartments of its kind in the Union.

The kitchen, superb in its appointments, adjoins at the rear. Delay here from 11:30 to 12 o’clock and see the food dished up and rolled down the center aisle on the wheeled ‘two-deckers.’ Tarry till the gong sounds and see 1,000 men pass in and take their seats….

The immense hospital is near at hand, and the annex for convalescents also….

Chief Surgeon D. C. Jones is in charge, with a competent staff of assistant surgeons and an efficient corps of trained nurses.

The 1900 federal census confirmed that Benjamin Amey was still living at the Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth in early June of that year; however, he was dishonorably discharged from that soldiers’ home on 6 December 1900, per General Orders. According to The Leavenworth Times:

Three more members have been dishonorably discharged from the home for violating general order No. 125, forbidding members of this home from entering houses south of Lansing and north of the Black bridge on the Pike. Their names are: Mark H. Ridley of A, Charles Barrett of E and Benjamin Amey C barracks. The plea of “ignorance as to this order” will not avail with the home authorities: Col. Cooke Col. Rowland being determined to stamp this evil out so far as it concerns the welfare and health of the old veterans that are placed under their care.

Still ailing, Benjamin Amey was quickly accepted back into the fold in 1901, but was admitted to the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois on 2 June, rather than the branch home in Kansas. Diagnosed once again with catarrh, he subsequently also developed heart disease. As a result, the rate of his U.S. Civil War Pension was raised to twelve dollars per month.

Located roughly one mile away from Danville’s city limits, the soldiers’ home where Benjamin Amey spent his final years became the equivalent of a small town, growing from a residential population of approximately fourteen hundred veterans at the time of his arrival to roughly four thousand in 1903. Housed in barracks that had been erected across the home’s grounds, resident veterans were able to enjoy concerts at a bandstand, attend Sunday services in the chapel, satisfy their thirst for knowledge by visiting the library, take visiting family or friends on a boat ride on the home’s lake, and even grab a snack between mess hall meals by visiting a canteen that was open only to veterans.

And there was also a large hospital that was staffed with physicians and nurses who provided treatment and moral support for men who had experienced the best and worst of humanity and wanted nothing more than a filling, palatable meal within the walls of a safe, comfortable home.

Death and Interment

Having never married and with no next of kin left to visit him in his own final days, Benjamin Amey died from mitral stenosis at the hospital associated with the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville, Illinois on 24 March 1904, and was laid to rest in Section 2, Row 5, Grave No. 348 at the Danville National Cemetery.

Danville Soldiers’ Home records noted that he had just twenty-five cents to his name at the time of his passing.

 

Sources:

1. Amey, Benjamin, in Admissions Ledgers, U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (Danville, Illinois and Leavenworth, Kansas, 1895-1904). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
2. Amey, Benjamin, in Civil War Muster Rolls (Company K, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
3. Amey, Benjamin, in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company K, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
4. Amey, Benjamin, in Minneapolis City Directory. Minneapolis, Minnesota: C. W. Davison, 1879.
5. Amey, Benjamin, in U.S. Army Registers of Enlistments (6th Cavalry, 1869-1871.). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
6. Amey, Benjamin, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (application no.: 239957, certificate no.: 155368, filed on 2 August 1877). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
7. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
8. Emig, Conrad, Judith, Benjamin, Eliza, Catharine, and Maria, in U.S. Census (Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1860). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
9. “Florida’s Role in the Civil War,” in Florida Memory. Tallahassee, Florida: State Archives of Florida.
10. Hauser, James Joseph. A History of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania from the Earliest Settlements to the Present Time. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1901.
11. Jamison, Matthew H. Fort Leavenworth and the Soldiers’ Home. Kansas City, Missouri: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1895.
12. Roddy, Willie C. America’s First Wounded Warriors: The Health and Movements of Civil War Veterans Based on the 1890 Veterans Schedules. Eau Claire, Wisconsin: History Department, University of Wisconsin, 2015.
13. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
14. “Soldiers’ Home.” Leavenworth, Kansas: The Leavenworth Times, 29 November 1900.
15. “The History of the Forty-Seventh Regiment P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, 20 July 1870.