Alternate Spellings of Surname: Muench, Münch

 

As a native of one of the Confederated States of the Rhine, which failed when he was just six years old, Martin Münch (alternate spellings: Muench, Munch) subsequently grew to manhood in the German Confederation, where he then began his own family. But as increasingly autocratic rulers restricted political speech and other freedoms while raising taxes on Münch and their other subjects (the majority of whom were still peasants trying to eke out their existence in serfdom), life became more and more challenging, ultimately sparking the German Revolutions of the mid to late 1840s, which led to the mass emigration of Germans to America (beginning in 1848), and the decision by Martin Münch to make his way across the ocean to settle in northeastern Pennsylvania during his mid-fifties.

He had hoped his new, permanent homeland would be a genuine land of peace and opportunity, but it, too, devolved into the same types of political, religious and social upheaval he had hoped to put behind him after leaving Europe.

Formative Years

Born as Martinus Münch on 27 September 1807 in the village of Kirchen in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Martin Münch was a son of Mathias Münch (1783-1844), a miller in Kirchen, and Kirchen native Maria Catharina (Hirninger) Münch (1785-1814), who was a daughter of Anton Hirninger and M. Anna Schmuker.

* Note: Presently part of the municipality of Efringen-Kirchen, the village of Kirchen is now located in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Raised in Kirchen with his younger sister, Augusta, who was born on 28 August 1810, Martin Münch experienced his first traumatic life event when he was just seven years old—the death of his twenty-nine-year-old mother Maria Catharina (Hirninger) Münch, which occurred on 16 October 1814. Following her passing in Kirchen, Martin and his sister were raised in that same village by their father, Mathias Münch.

At the age of twenty-six, Martin Münch wed Aloisia Frankenhauser (alternate spelling: Aloysia Frankhauser). A native of Emerkingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she had been born on 3 June 1813 and was a daughter of Andreas Frankenhauser, and his wife, Magdalena (Mayer) Frankenhauser.

Their wedding was held in the Catholic church in Kirchen on 1 October 1833. Still members of the Catholic Church when their daughter, Magdalena Münch, was born in Kirchen on 5 January 1836, they witnessed her baptism the next day at their local church in Kirchen. He supported his young family on the wages of a miller during this period of his life.

A few short years later, the couple suffered through the tragic deaths of two infant daughters: Wilhelmina, who was born in Kirchen on 28 May 1839, died on 5 January 1840 and was then laid to rest on 7 January; and Theresia, was born in Kirchen on 23 September 1840, but was either stillborn or died later that same day. Her tiny body was then laid to rest two days later.

His family then endured another tragedy when, four years later, his father, Mathias Münch, also died. After passing away in Kirchen on 28 May 1844, Mathias, a son of Nikolaus Münch and Maria (Fiesel) Münch, was laid to rest in Kirchen on 31 May.

* Note: According to historian James G. Chastain, during the 1840s, Württemburg “was still a predominantly agrarian state with many small and medium-sized towns, above all in its core area, and without legal and only minor social distinctions between town and country.”

Repeated division of inheritances made the small family farm the typical form of agriculture; the land was too thickly populated in relation to its productivity. Its membership in the German Customs Union and thereby consequent involvement in the more developed world economy threatened with the competition of foreign industry (small) artisans, producing for the local market. Thus everything was only superficially in order as the realm celebrated the 25th anniversary of the coronation of King Wilhelm I (1816-64) and the Constitution of 1819 in 1841 and 1844. The state debt of the Napoleonic period no longer burdened the country, the opposition in the legislature (Landtag) was weak, the new territories annexed forcefully to the new kingdom between 1803 and 1810 appeared integrated with the old domain. However, the general consciousness of a crisis and the discussion of “pauperism” also engulfed Wurtemberg [sic] and reached a crisis in the hunger riots of 1847. In church life the tensions between rationalism and pietism deepened among Protestants, and between the ultramontanism and rationalism among Catholics. The beginning of rail road construction by the state in 1845 changed the relationship between the government and parliament and between voters and deputies; the opposition increasingly looked across the state’s borders and demanded that the country’s problems be seen in the wider context of all Germany. To this extent, the 1840s anticipated the revolutionary events of 1848. In particular it was the experiences of 1847 which influenced 1848: the limited cooperation between government and opposition to combat anarchical undercurrents in the lower orders, the opposition hoping to exploit this violence for their own less radical objectives; they thought they could divert through political reforms the “specter of Communism,” which they also clearly recognized. They framed attainable modernizing impetus for Wurtemberg in new and better laws, reorganization of administration, reform of the constitution and not the least in creation of German unity.

By late February 1848, news of protests and riots elsewhere in Europe reached Württemburg. In response, residents of the kingdom who were hoping for greater freedom began petitioning the king and members of his government to improve their lot—but initially kept their demands moderate in fear of sparking the same levels of violence that were roiling France. The king’s response, however, was not what they had hoped for. Choosing to appoint conservatives rather than liberals to the new government that had recently been formed, the king was forced to adapt as members of the government and public reacted angrily and refused to follow directives issued by his new minister.

The king was then also pressed “to appoint oppositional leaders to a ‘March ministry,’ whose actual chief was Friedrich Römer.”

The new ministry resolutely set out on a double mission to carry out reforms and simultaneously to resist ‘anarchy.’ It called in the military against peasants who in some areas had swept away remnants of the feudal system with their own means, and it promised to enact the most important liberal and democratic reforms, above all by creating German unity assisting in calling together a German national constituent assembly. Römer was actively engaged in this from the beginning: he belonged to the small group who first proposed and prepared its organization; in addition he supported the diplomatic initiatives of a leader of the Hessian opposition, Heinrich von Gagern … directed the King of Prussia to take over the command of the future united German executive. Both initiatives ended differently than expected: the Viennese revolution in mid-March 1848 returned Austria to Germany; the Berlin revolution of March 18 made King Frederick William IV of Prussia ‘impossible’ for the envisioned role. The original plan to create German unity based on a reform of the German Confederation of 1815 by creation of a ‘German Parliament’ and a true executive foundered even before the opening of the German national assembly on May 18, 1848…. Römer and his ministry, as well as a majority of Wurtembergers for a long time, cooperated with enthusiasm in this effort until the bitter end on June 18, 1849 in Wurtemberg’s capital of Stuttgart when Römer ordered Wurtemberg’s soldiers to use force to prevent further meetings of the ‘rump parliament’ which had fled from Frankfurt to Stuttgart….

In addition, according to Chastain, “Religious differences (pietists or ultramontanes as opposed to rationalists) often were more important than political.”

However, a strong interest in politics developed quickly; already in June 1848 one could see that the majority of politically active men (women had no suffrage yet) stood further left than the deputies elected at the end of April, who in turn more often took their seats on the left than the right in the St. Paul’s Church. The Wurtembergers placed their hopes above all on the national assembly’s proposed ‘Bill of Rights of the German People,’ which included a thoroughgoing program of modernization of political and social conditions. Independent of this, was the pursuit of demands for industrialization….

Meanwhile, political leagues polarized the country. The handful of ‘fatherland leagues’ supported constitutional monarchy and conservative reform; the multiplicity of ‘Popular Unions’ were for more thoroughgoing reforms and for a democratization of the constitution. The leaders in their monthly newly elected central committee (Landesausschuss) were increasingly critical of the ‘March Ministry.’

As a result of the controversy in the national assembly over the continuation or end of the war with Denmark over Schleswig- Holstein, violence erupted in September 1848 in Frankfurt, in Baden, and in other parts of Germany, including Wurtemberg—but an attempted ‘march on Stuttgart’ failed. The ringleaders were arrested far from their objective, held long in prison, and finally ‘pardoned’ to emigrate to America. The name of the soon deceased ‘forty eighter’ remained forgotten and never eulogized….

At the apogee of the September crisis the legislature (Landtag) elected in May finally convened and began to consider a major program of laws. As 1848 ended—even before the imperial constitution was enacted—in Wurtemberg the ‘Bill of Rights of the German People’ was to be the basis of an extensive constitutional reform. The Chamber of Peers in the parliament should be dissolved and the remaining Lower House should be made up only of democratically elected deputies. These constitutional changes were to be enacted by a democratically elected ‘Constitutional Convention’; but before this convention could convene, the efforts in Wurtemberg to promulgate the Imperial Constitution approved in Frankfurt on March 28, 1849 plunged Swabia once more into a severe constitutional struggle. On one side stood King Wilhelm with a few followers, on the other side the March Ministry, almost the entire parliament, and the overwhelming majority of the politically active masses who articulated an opinion. And this despite the fact that with the imperial constitution the Frankfurt assembly also elected King Frederick William IV as hereditary German emperor, which only a few members of the protestant educated middle class (Bildungsbügertum) welcomed, whereas the mass of the protestant petty bourgeoisie and nearly all catholics disapproved, even the conservatives among them. The Wurtembergers did not battle for an emperor, rather for the bill of rights and the constitution’s intimately associated democratic electoral law. King Wilhelm finally had to give in to the united resistance of his people, his parliament and his government when the military also refused to support a planned coup d’etat. Wilhelm was the only German king conceding to support the Frankfurt imperial constitution, which hitherto only the minor states had ratified.

Despite this ongoing strife, Martin Münch and his family continued to reside in Kirchen for several more years. Sometime around 1855, however, he decided to move his wife and daughter to the village of Munderkingen. He then emigrated alone to the United States during the late 1850s or early 1860s, leaving his wife and daughter behind in that village.

By the dawn of the American Civil War, Martin Münch had settled in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where he had found work as a miner.

Civil War

On 21 August 1861, as the American Civil War continued to widen, Martin Münch made the decision to enlist for military service after receiving a recruitment pitch by George Junker, a fellow German immigrant and successful tombstone carver living in Allentown. After officially enrolling in Allentown, Münch and Junker’s other recruits then traveled to the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where they officially mustered in for duty at Camp Curtin on 17 September of that same year. Located on the outskirts of Harrisburg, that federal installation had quickly become one of the largest staging grounds for the Union Army during the early months of the war.

Assigned to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Junker and his men were designated as Company K of that regiment and became known as the regiment’s “all-German company” because its members had been recruited by Junker for the purpose of creating a unit of soldiers that was made up entirely of German immigrants and Pennsylvania-born men of German heritage.

* Note: According to Don H. Doyle, the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, by 1860, roughly thirteen percent of United States residents were immigrants. In addition:

One in every four members of the Union armed forces was an immigrant, some 543,000 of the more than 2 million Union soldiers by recent estimates. Another 18% had at least one foreign-born parent. Together, immigrants and the sons of immigrants made up about 43% of the U.S. armed forces.

Upon his enlistment with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Martin Münch was designated as a private. Military records at the time described him as a thirty-nine-year-old miner who resided in Allentown, which appears to indicate that he lied about his year of birth, understating his age by roughly fifteen years.

* Note: The birth, baptismal and marriage records for Martin Münch from the Catholic Diocese representing the church in Kirchen, Germany where Martin was baptized and married documented his birth as having occurred in 1807, as did affidavits filed by officials of the Kingdom of Württemberg in support of the U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension application filed by Martin Münch’s widow, Aloisia, in 1867. Conversely, regimental muster rolls of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry indicated that he was thirty-nine at the time of his enlistment.

Following a brief training period in light infantry tactics at Camp Curtin, the men of Company K and their fellow 47th Pennsylvanians hopped aboard a train at the Harrisburg depot, and were transported by rail to Washington, D.C. Stationed roughly two miles from the White House, they pitched tents at “Camp Kalorama” on the Kalorama Heights near Georgetown beginning 21 September.

* Note: The training and departure process was clearly a hectic one. Private Elias Reidy (alternate spelling: “Ready”) of the 47th Pennsylvania was felled by “friendly fire” from an errant pistol shot; hospitalized, he was discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability just over two months later on 26 November. Meanwhile, Private William Schubert was incorrectly labeled a deserter when the scribe in charge of the regiment’s muster rolls failed to update his entry to note that he had been left behind at the camp hospital for disease-related treatment as the regiment moved on to the nation’s capital.

On 22 September, Henry D. Wharton, a musician with the regiment’s C Company, penned the following update to his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American:

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

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

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

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

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

Acclimated somewhat to their new way of life, the soldiers of the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry finally became part of the U.S. Army when they were officially mustered into federal service on 24 September.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Friday morning, 22 October 1861, the 47th engaged in a Divisional Review, described by historian Lewis Schmidt as massing “about 10,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and twenty pieces of artillery all in one big open field.” Also around this time, Captain Junker issued his first Special Order:

I. 15 minutes after breakfast every tent will be cleaned. The commander of each tent will be held responsible for it, and every soldier must obey the orders of the tent commander. If not, said commanders will report such men to the orderly Sgt. who will report them to headquarters.

II. There will be company drills every two hours during the day, including regimental drills with knapsacks. No one will be excused except by order of the regimental surgeon. The hours will be fixed by the commander, and as it is not certain therefore, every man must stay in his quarter, being always ready for duty. The roll will be called each time and anyone in camp found not answering will be punished the first time with extra duty. The second with carrying the 75 lb. weights, increased to 95 lb. The talking in ranks is strictly forbidden. The first offense will be punished with carrying 80 lb. weights increased to 95 lbs. for four hours.

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

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

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

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

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

On 21 November, the 47th participated in a morning divisional headquarters review overseen by the 47th Pennsylvania’s founder, 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.

1862

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

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

By the afternoon of Monday, 27 January, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers had commenced boarding the Oriental. Ferried to the big steamship by smaller steamers, Private Martin Münch and the other enlisted men boarded first, followed by the officers. Then, per the directive of Brigadier-General Brannan, they steamed away for the Deep South at 4 p.m. The 47th Pennsylvanians were headed for Florida which, despite its secession from the United States, remained strategically important to the Union due to the presence of Forts Taylor and Jefferson in Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers arrived in Key West by early February 1862. Once there, they made camp on the beach, re-erecting their Sibley tents, and were then assigned to garrison duties inside Fort Taylor. During the weekend of Friday, 14 February, they introduced their presence to Key West residents by parading as a regiment through the streets of the city. That Sunday, a number of the men attended local church services, where they met and mingled with residents from the area as part of the first of many community outreach efforts to build support for the army’s efforts to preserve the nation’s Union.

Drilling daily in heavy artillery tactics, they also strengthened the fortifications at this federal installation, felled trees and built new roads. Sometime during this phase of service, several members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers contracted typhoid fever and were confined to the post hospital at Fort Taylor. Privates Amandus Long, Augustus Schirer (alternate spelling: “Shirer”), George Leonhard (alternate spelling: “Leonard”), and Lewis Dipple of K Company were among those documented as having died from “Febris Typhoides,” passing away, respectively, on March 29, 5 April, 19 April, and 27 April 1862.

In point of fact, it would be disease and not Confederate troops that would ultimately prove to be the deadliest foe for the 47th Pennsylvania—although enemy sharpshooters and artillerymen would also play key roles in thinning the regiment’s ranks.

Next ordered to Hilton Head, South Carolina from mid-June through July, they camped near Fort Walker before relocating to the Beaufort District in the U.S. Army’s Department of the South, roughly thirty-five miles away. Frequently assigned to hazardous picket detail north of their main camp (as Company K was so assigned on 5 July), the 47th Pennsylvania were put at increased risk from enemy sniper fire when sent out on these special teams. According to historian Samuel P. Bates, during this phase of their service, the men of the 47th “received the highest commendation from Generals Hunter and Brannan” for their “attention to duty, discipline and soldierly bearing.”

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

During the second week of July, according to Schmidt, the regiment’s third-in-command—Major William H. Gausler—and F Company’s Captain Henry S. Harte returned home to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley to resume the 47th Pennsylvania’s recruiting efforts. After arriving in Allentown on 15 July, they quickly re-established an efficient operation, which they kept running through early November 1862. During this time, Major Gausler was able to persuade fifty-four new recruits to join the 47th Pennsylvania while Harte rounded up an additional twelve.

Meanwhile, the remainder of the regiment continued to soldier on. From 20-31 August 1862, Company K resumed picket duty, this time stationed at “Barnwells” (so labeled by Company C Captain J. P. S. Gobin) while other companies from the regiment performed picket duty in the areas around Point Royal Ferry.

On 12 September, Colonel Tilghman Good and his adjutant, First Lieutenant Washington H. R. Hangen, issued Regimental Order No. 207 from the 47th Pennsylvania’s Headquarters in Beaufort, South Carolina:

I. The Colonel commanding desires to call the attention of all officers and men in the regiment to the paramount necessity of observing rules for the preservation of health. There is less to be apprehended from battle than disease. The records of all companies in climate like this show many more casualties by the neglect of sanitary post action then [sic] by the skill, ordnance and courage of the enemy. Anxious that the men in my command may be preserved in the full enjoyment of health to the service of the Union. And that only those who can leave behind the proud epitaph of having fallen on the field of battle in the defense of their country shall fail to return to their families and relations at the termination of this war.

II. All the tents will be struck at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday of each week. The signal for this purpose will be given by the drum major by giving three taps on the drum. Every article of clothing and bedding will be taken out and aired; the flooring and bunks will be thoroughly cleaned. By the same signal at 11 a.m. the tents will be re-erected. On the days the tents are not struck the sides will be raised during the day for the purpose of ventilation.

III. The proper cooking of provisions is a matter of great importance more especially in this climate but have not yet received from a majority of officers of the regiment that attention that should be paid to it.

IV. Thereafter an officer of each company will be detailed by the commander of each company and have their names reported to these headquarters to superintend the cooking of provisions taking care that all food prepared for the soldiers is sufficiently cooked and that the meats are all boiled or seared (not fried). He will also have charge of the dress table and he is held responsible for the cleanliness of the kitchen cooking utensils and the preparation of the meals at the time appointed.

V. The following rules for the taking of meals and regulations in regard to the conducting of the company will be strictly followed. Every soldier will turn his plate, cup, knife and fork into the Quarter Master Sgt who will designate a permanent place or spot for each member of the company and there leave his plate & cup, knife and fork placed at each meal with the soldier’s rations on it. Nor will any soldier be permitted to go to the company kitchen and take away food therefrom.

VI. Until further orders the following times for taking meals will be followed Breakfast at six, dinner at twelve, supper at six. The drum major will beat a designated call fifteen minutes before the specified time which will be the signal to prepare the tables, and at the time specified for the taking of meals he will beat the dinner call. The soldier will be permitted to take his spot at the table before the last call.

VII. Commanders of companies will see that this order is entered in their company order book and that it is read forth with each day on the company parade. All commanding officers of companies will regulate daily their time by the time of this headquarters. They will send their 1st Sergeants to this headquarters daily at 8 a.m. for this purpose.

Great punctuality is enjoined in conforming to the stated hours prescribed by the roll calls, parades, drills, and taking of meals; review of army regulations while attending all roll calls to be suspended by a commissioned officer of the companies, and a Captain to report the alternate to the Colonel or the commanding officer.

At 5 a.m., Commanders of companies are imperatively instructed to have the company quarters washed and policed and secured immediately after breakfast.

At 6 a.m., morning reports of companies request [sic] by the Captains and 1st Sgts and all applications for special privileges of soldiers must be handed to the Adjutant before 8 a.m.

By Command of Col. T. H. Good
W. H. R. Hangen Adj

In addition, First Lieutenant and Regimental Adjutant Hangen clarified the regiment’s schedule as follows:

• Reveille (5:30 a.m.) and Breakfast (6:00 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Guard (6:10 a.m. and 6:15 a.m.)
• Surgeon’s Call (6:30 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Company Drill (6:45 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.)
• Recall from Company Drill (8:00 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Squad Drill (9:00 a.m. and 9:15 a.m.)
• Recall from Squad Drill (10:30 a.m.) and Dinner (12:00 noon)
• Call for Non-commissioned Officers (1:30 p.m.)
• Recall for Non-commissioned Officers (2:30 p.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Squad Drills (3:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.)
• Recall from Squad Drill (4:30 p.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Dress Parade (5:10 p.m. and 5:15 p.m.)
• Supper (6:10 p.m.)
• Tattoo (9:00 p.m.) and Taps (9:15 p.m.)

As the one-year anniversary of the 47th Pennsylvania’s departure from the Great Keystone State dawned on 20 September, thoughts turned to home and Divine Providence as Colonel Tilghman Good issued Special Order No. 60 from the 47th’s Regimental Headquarters in Beaufort, South Carolina:

The Colonel commanding takes great pleasure in complimenting the officers and men of the regiment on the favorable auspices of today.

Just one year ago today, the organization of the regiment was completed to enter into the service of our beloved country, to uphold the same flag under which our forefathers fought, bled, and died, and perpetuate the same free institutions which they handed down to us unimpaired.

It is becoming therefore for us to rejoice on this first anniversary of our regimental history and to show forth devout gratitude to God for this special guardianship over us.

Whilst many other regiments who swelled the ranks of the Union Army even at a later date than the 47th have since been greatly reduced by sickness or almost cut to pieces on the field of battle, we as yet have an entire regiment and have lost but comparatively few out of our ranks.

Certain it is we have never evaded or shrunk from duty or danger, on the contrary, we have been ever anxious and ready to occupy any fort, or assume any position assigned to us in the great battle for the constitution and the Union.

We have braved the danger of land and sea, climate and disease, for our glorious cause, and it is with no ordinary degree of pleasure that the Colonel compliments the officers of the regiment for the faithfulness at their respective posts of duty and their uniform and gentlemanly manner towards one another.

Whilst in numerous other regiments there has been more or less jammings and quarrelling [sic] among the officers who thus have brought reproach upon themselves and their regiments, we have had none of this, and everything has moved along smoothly and harmoniously. We also compliment the men in the ranks for their soldierly bearing, efficiency in drill, and tidy and cleanly appearance, and if at any time it has seemed to be harsh and rigid in discipline, let the men ponder for a moment and they will see for themselves that it has been for their own good.

To the enforcement of law and order and discipline it is due our far fame as a regiment and the reputation we have won throughout the land.

With you he has shared the same trials and encountered the same dangers. We have mutually suffered from the same cold in Virginia and burned by the same southern sun in Florida and South Carolina, and he assures the officers and men of the regiment that as long as the present war continues, and the service of the regiment is required, so long he stands by them through storm and sunshine, sharing the same danger and awaiting the same glory.

Saint John’s Bluff and the Capture of a Confederate Steamer

During a return expedition to Florida beginning 30 September, the 47th 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 area. Trekking and skirmishing through roughly twenty-five miles of dense swampland and forests after disembarking from ships at Mayport Mills on 1 October, the 47th captured artillery and ammunition stores (on 3 October) that had been abandoned by Confederate forces during the bluff’s bombardment by Union gunboats.

The capture of Saint John’s Bluff followed a string of U.S. Army and Navy successes which enabled the Union to gain control over key southern towns and transportation hubs. In November 1861, the Union’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron had established an operations base at Port Royal, South Carolina, facilitating Union expeditions to Georgia and Florida, during which U.S. troops were able to take possession of Fort Clinch and Fernandina, Florida (3-4 March 1862), secure the surrender of Fort Marion and Saint Augustine (11 March) and establish a Union Navy base at Mayport Mills (mid-March).

That summer, Brigadier-General Joseph Finnegan, commanding officer of the Confederate States of America’s Department of Middle and Eastern Florida, ordered the placement of earthworks-fortified gun batteries atop Saint John’s Bluff and at Yellow Bluff nearby. Confederate leaders hoped to disable the Union’s naval and ground force operations at and beyond Mayport Mills with as many as eighteen cannon, including three eight-inch siege howitzers and eight-inch smoothbores and Columbiads (two of each).

After the U.S. gunboats Uncas and Patroon exchanged shell fire with the Confederate battery at Saint John’s Bluff on 11 September, Rebel troops were initially driven away, but then returned to the bluff. When a second, larger Union gunboat flotilla tried and failed again six days later to shake the Confederates loose, Union military leaders ordered an army operation with naval support.

Backed by U.S. gunboats Cimarron, E. B. Hale, Paul Jones, Uncas, and Water Witch that were armed with twelve-pound boat howitzers, the 1,500-strong Union Army force of Brigadier-General Brannan moved up the Saint John’s River and further inland along the Pablo and Mt. Pleasant Creeks on 1 October 1862 before disembarking and marching for Saint John’s Bluff. When the 47th Pennsylvanians reached Saint John’s Bluff with their fellow Union brigade members on 3 October 1862, they found the battery abandoned. (Other Union troops discovered that the Yellow Bluff battery was also Rebel free.)

According to Henry Wharton, “On the day following our occupation of these works the guns were dismounted and removed on board the steamer Neptune, together with the shot and shell, and removed to Hilton Head. The powder was all used in destroying the batteries.”

Meanwhile that same weekend (Friday and Saturday, 3-4 October 1862), Brigadier-General Brannan, who was quartered on board the Ben Deford as the Union expedition’s commanding officer, was busy penning reports to his superiors while also planning the next move of his expeditionary force. That Saturday, Brannan chose several officers to direct their subordinates to prepare rations and ammunition for a new foray that would take them roughly twenty miles upriver to Jacksonville. (A sophisticated hub of cultural and commercial activities with a racially diverse population of more than two thousand residents, the city had repeatedly changed hands between the Union and Confederacy until its occupation by Union forces on 12 March 1862.) Among the Union soldiers selected for this mission were 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers from Company C, Company E and Company K.

Companies E and K of the 47th were then led by E Company Captain Charles Hickman Yard on a special mission; the men of E and K Companies joined with other Union Army soldiers in the reconnaissance and subsequent capture of Jacksonville, Florida on 5 October 1862.

A day later, sailing upriver on board the Union gunboat Darlington (formerly a Confederate steamer)—with protection from the Union gunboat Hale, men from the 47th Pennsylvania’s Companies E and K traveled two hundred miles along the Saint John’s River. They were charged with locating and capturing Confederate ships that had been engaged in furnishing troops, ammunition and other supplies to Confederate Army units scattered throughout the region, including the batteries at Saint John’s Bluff and Yellow Bluff. Describing the Darlington in a subsequent diary entry, Corporal George R. Nichols of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ E Company wrote:

This steamer is runn [sic] by a negro crew and this same crew runn [sic] her away from the Rebels out of charleston [sic] harbor Passed [sic] forts Sumpter and Moltre [sic] and all the land Batterys [sic] and turned her over to Uncle Sam. The crew is Brave and Smart and that if they are Black men.

According to Schmidt, the small force steamed upriver roughly one to two hundred miles “to Lake Beresford, where they then assisted in capturing the [sixty-eight-ton] steamer Governor Milton,” which had been renamed in honor of Florida’s governor after having been “formerly known as the George M. Bird [under its previous owners] a New England family named ‘Swift’, who were timber cutters and used it as a tug boat to tow rafts loaded with live oak to the lumber market.”

Corporal Nichols of E Company went on to describe the capture as follows:

At 9 PM … October 7, discovered the steamer Gov. Milton in a small creek, 2 miles above Hawkinsville; boarded her in a small boat, and found that she had been run in there but a short time before, as her fires were not yet out. Her engineer and mate, then in charge, were asleep on board at the time of her capture. They informed us that owing to the weakness of the steamer’s boiler we found her where we did. We returned our prize the next day….

I commanded one of the Small Boats that whent [sic] in after her. I was Boatman and gave orders when the headman jumped on Bord [sic] take the Painter with him. That however belongs to Wm. Adams or Jacob Kerkendall [sic]. It was So dark I could not tell witch [sic] Struck the deck first. But when I Struck the deck I demanded the Surrend [sic] of the Boat in the name of the U.S. after we had the boat an offercier [sic] off the Paul Jones, a Gun Boat was with us he ask me how Soon could I move her out in the Stream I said five minuts [sic]. So an Engineer one of coulered [sic] Men helped me. and I will Say right hear [sic] he learned Me More than I ever knowed about Engineering. Where we Started down the River we was one hundred and twenty five miles up the river. When we Stopped at Polatkey [Palatka] to get wood for the Steamer I whent [sic] out and Borrowed a half of a deer that hung up in a cut house and a bee hive for some honey for the Boys. I never forget the boys.’

According to Brigadier-General Brannan, the Union party “returned on the morning of the 9th with a Rebel steamer, Governor Milton, which they captured in a creek about 230 miles up the river and about 27 miles north [and slightly west] from the town of Enterprise. Lt. Bacon, my aide-de-camp, accompanied the expedition… On the return of the successful expedition after the Rebel steamers… I proceeded with that portion of my command to St. John’s Bluff, awaiting the return of the Boston.”

This return trip did not happen without complications, however; in a letter penned to The New York Times on October 14, Wharton reported the following:

Finding that the Cosmopolitan, which had been sent to Hilton Head for provisions, had struck heavily in crossing the bar, on her return to the St. John’s River, and was temporarily disabled for service, the Seventh Connecticut Regiment was sent to Hilton Head on the Boston, with the request that she should return for the remainder of the troops, and she got back on the 11th, when the command was reembarked, reaching this plane yesterday, excepting one company of the Forty-seventh Pennsylvania, which is left for the protection of the Cosmopolitan. The accident to this valuable steamer is severe. A large hole was made in her bottom and she filled, but she will not be a wreck, as was at first feared.

The Governor Milton, which would later be appraised by the Union Navy at two thousand dollars (the equivalent of slightly more than seventy-four thousand dollars in 2024), was also temporarily left behind, under the command of Captain Steedman so that its boiler could be repaired. Overseeing those repairs was Corporal Nichols, who had been temporarily detached from the 47th Pennsylvania’s E Company. Observed Nichols:

So hear [sic] we are at Jacksonville and off we go down the river again, and the Captain Yard Said you are detailed on detached duty as Engineer well that beats hell. I told him I did not Enlist for an Engineer. well I cannot help it he said. I got orders for you to stay hear [sic]. When the Boys was gone about a week orders came for us to come to Beaufort, S. Carolina by the inland rout over the Museley Mash Rout. So I Borrowed a twelve pound gun with amanition [sic] for to Protect our Selves with. But I only used it once to clear Some cavelry [sic] away. We Passed fort Palask [sic]. But that was in our Possession and we got Back to Beaufort all right. and I whent [sic] up to See the Boys and Beged [sic] captain to get me Back in the company, But he could not make it go.

Integration of the Regiment

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

Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

From 21-23 October 1862, under the brigade and regimental commands of Colonel T. H. Good and Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Alexander, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers next engaged the heavily protected Confederate forces in and around Pocotaligo, South Carolina—including at Frampton’s Plantation and the Pocotaligo Bridge—a key piece of southern railroad infrastructure that Union leaders had ordered to be destroyed in order to disrupt the flow of Confederate troops and supplies in the region.

Harried by snipers en route to the Pocotaligo Bridge, they met resistance from an entrenched, heavily fortified Confederate battery which 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. The Union soldiers grappled with Confederates where they found them, pursuing the Rebels for four miles as they retreated to the bridge. There, the 47th relieved the 7th Connecticut. But the enemy was just too well armed. After two hours of intense fighting in an attempt to take the ravine and bridge, depleted ammunition forced the 47th to withdraw to Mackay’s Point.

Losses for the 47th Pennsylvania were significant. Two officers and eighteen enlisted men died; an additional two officers and one hundred and fourteen enlisted were wounded. Among the most serious casualties suffered by Company K were Captain George Junker, who had been mortally wounded by a minié ball fired from a Confederate rifle during the intense fighting near the Frampton Plantation, and Privates Abraham Landes and Joseph Louis (alternate spelling: “Lewis”). All three died the next day while being treated for their wounds at the Union Army’s General Hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Private John Schuchard then died there from his own mortal wounds on 24 October.

The command vacancy created when Captain George Junker fell in battle at Pocotaligo was immediately filled when First Lieutenant Charles W. Abbott was advanced to the rank of captain on the day of the battle (22 October).

Following their return to Hilton Head on 23 October 1862, the remaining 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers recuperated from their physical and emotional battering as they gradually resumed their normal duties. On 27 October 1862, First Sergeant Alfred P. Swoyer was honorably discharged from Company K in order to re-enlist as a second lieutenant with the same unit and regiment, which he did that same day at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas in Florida.

In short order, several members of the regiment were called upon to serve as the funeral honor guard for Major-General Ormsby M. Mitchel and given the honor of firing the salute over this grave. (Commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Corps and Department of the South, Mitchel succumbed to yellow fever on 30 October 1862. The Mountains of Mitchel, a part of Mars’ South Pole discovered in 1846 by Mitchel as a University of Cincinnati astronomer, and Mitchelville, the first Freedmen’s town created after the Civil War, were both named after him.)

Having been ordered back to Key West on 15 November 1862, much of 1863 would be spent garrisoning federal installations in Florida as part of the 10th Corps, U.S. Department of the South. Companies A, B, C, E, G, and I would once again garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, but this time, the men from Companies D, F, H, and K, including Private Martin Münch, 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 later 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, 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 a 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 sailor’s 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 river boat, 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]. 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 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 A. Graeffe, and stationed at newer facilities known as the “Lighthouse Barracks” on “Lighthouse Key.”

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

We landed here on last Thursday at noon, and immediately marched to quarters. Company I. and C., in Fort Taylor, 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 relieves 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 ends 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

Although water quality was a challenge for members of the regiment at both of their Florida duty stations throughout 1863, it was particularly problematic for Private Martin Münch and the other 47th Pennsylvanians who were stationed at Fort Jefferson. According to Schmidt:

‘Fresh’ water was provided by channeling the rains from the fort’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 1,231,200 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 [sic, 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 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 Lt. 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 Schmidt, 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….

So, it comes as no surprise that, sometime between May and July 1863, Private Martin Münch fell ill while stationed at Fort Jefferson. Transported north to the Union Army’s post hospital at Fort Taylor in Key West because he was suffering from chronic diarrhea, he was diagnosed there with yellow fever. Despite the best treatment efforts of skilled Union Army physicians, he died at the Fort Taylor hospital from disease-related complications on 22 July 1863.

Quickly interred at Fort Taylor’s post cemetery to avoid any further spread of the disease, he was initially laid to rest in grave number forty. His remains were later exhumed, however, as part of the federal government’s large-scale effort in 1927 to rebury all Union military personnel in national cemeteries. Sadly, according to Schmidt, Private Münch’s remains were “mishandled” during this process, “resulting in the loss of identification.” His unidentified body was later reinterred at Fort Barrancas National Cemetery in Florida in one of the graves that was designated as that of an “unknown” soldier.

What Happened to the Widow and Children of Private Martin Münch?

Still residing in the town of Munderkingen in the district of Ehingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg (presently located in the Alb-Donau district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany) since their family’s patriarch, Martin Münch, had left them behind to emigrate several years earlier, Aloisia Münch and her unmarried daughter, Magdalena, continued their efforts to eke out a living there. Sometime before May 1867, Magdalena Münch made the decision to move out of her family’s home to travel to Ludwigsburg, where she found work as a domestic servant.

Meanwhile, Magdalena’s mother, Aloisia Münch, having hired attorney Louis Benner of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania sometime in 1866 or 1867 to assist her with the paperwork required to file for a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension, was informed by him that their initial application had been submitted to the U.S. Pension Bureau on 4 June 1867 and was undergoing review by officials of the United States government. With Benner’s continued help, Aloisia Münch then also filed an arrears claim on 1 July of that same year for the unpaid pension funds she had not yet received.

On 4 September 1867, Aloisia Münch was finally awarded a U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension of eight dollars per month, which was made retroactive to 23 July 1863—the day after the fourth anniversary of the death of her husband, Private Martin Münch, in the American Civil War. Her pension was later increased to twelve dollars per month when the United States government increased the amount of assistance available to Union Army soldiers’ widows.

The funds that she received apparently enabled her to go on to live a long full life because the records of her pension file indicate that she was still receiving pension support from the United States government when she died in Germany in her eighties on 21 June 1895.

Researchers for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story have not yet determined the burial locations of Aloisia Münch or her daughter, but plan to continue their search for information about them. If you would like to help support this research effort, please consider making a donation via our website’s secure donations page.

* To view more of the key personal, military and U.S. Civil War Pension records related to the Münch family, visit our Münch Family Collection.

 

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. Chastain, James G. “Wurtemberg,” in “Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions.” Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1 November 2005.
3. Doyle, Don H. “The Civil War Was Won by Immigrant Soldiers.” New York, New York: Time, 29 June 2015.
4. “Florida’s Role in the Civil War,” in Florida Memory. Tampa, Florida: Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida, retrieved online 15 January 2020.
5. Hirninger, M. Catharina (bride) and Antonius (father) and Schmuker, Anna Maria (mother); Muench [sic], Martin (groom) and Nicolaus (father) and Fiesel, Anna Maria (mother), in Marriages, Germany, 1558-1898 (Catholic Church, Kirchen, Kingdom of Württemberg. Salt Lake City: FamilySearch, 2013.
6. “Immigrants in the Union Army.” Washington, D.C.: The American University, retrieved online 25 November 2023.
7. “Immigration Timeline.” New York, New York: The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., retrieved online 1 September 2017.
8. Muench [sic], Augusta (sister of Martin Münch) and Mathias (father) and Hirninger, Maria Catharina, in Births and Baptisms, Germany, 1558-1898 (Kirchen, Kingdom of Württemberg, 28 August 1810). Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
9. Muench [sic], Martinus, in Births and Baptisms, Germany, 1558-1898 (Kirchen, Kingdom of Württemberg, 27 September 1807). Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
10. Muench [sic], in Civil War Muster Rolls (Co., K, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
11. Muench [sic], Martin, in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Co. K, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
12. Muench [sic], Martin in U.S. Registers of Deaths of Volunteers, in U.S. Adjutant General’s Office (Record Group 94; ARC ID: 656639). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
13. Muench [sic], Martin (groom) and Mathias (father) and Maria Catharina Hirninger (mother); Frankenhauser, Aloisia (bride) and Andreas (father) and Magdalena Mayer (mother), in Germany, Marriages, 1558-1929 (Catholic Church, Kirchen, Kingdom of Württemberg, 1 October 1833). Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
14. Muench [sic], Theresia (a daughter of Martin Münch), in Germany, Deaths and Burials, 1582-1958 (Kirchen, Germany, 23 and 25 September 1840). Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
15. Muench [sic], Wilhelmine (a daughter of Martin Münch), in Germany, Births, 1582-1958 (Kirchen, Germany, 28 May 1839), and in Germany, Deaths and Burials, 1582-1958 (Kirchen, Germany, 5 and 7 January 1840). Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
16. Münch, Martin and Aloisia, in U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
17. Munch, Martin and Aloisia, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (application by the soldier’s widow: 148101, filed on 4 June 1867; certificate no.: 99311). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
18. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.