Tag Archives: Perry County

Remembering the Red River Campaign Prisoners of War on National POW/MIA Recognition Day

This POW/MIA Recognition Flag designed by Newt Heisley was formally recognized by U.S. House of Representatives Resolution No. 467 on September 21, 1990 (public domain).

During the Army of the United States’ 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana in the American Civil War, multiple members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were declared as “Missing in Action” (MIA) — largely due to the confusion caused by a series of engagements with the enemy in which Union soldiers were repeatedly required to retreat, regroup and resume the fight as they faced down wave after wave of Confederate troops attempting to outflank and perform end runs around the outer edges of Union Army lines.

Each time the cannon smoke began to clear from those battles, many of those MIA members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry found their way back to the regiment, carrying word to senior officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers that members of the regiment had been captured by Confederate troops. By mid-May of 1864, it was clear that at least twenty-three 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were being held as prisoners of war (POWs) by the Confederate States Army.

Regimental leaders would later learn that many of those men had been force marched roughly one hundred and fifty miles to Camp Ford, which was located outside of Tyler, Texas and would become the largest Confederate POW camp west of the Mississippi River by the summer of 1864. Once there, they were starved, given minimal to no medical care for any wounds they had sustained, exposed to extreme variations in temperature and weather, due to inadequate shelter, and sickened by dysentery and other diseases that were spread by living in the cramped, overcrowded conditions that became increasingly unsanitary, due to the placement of latrine facilities near water supplies meant for drinking or bathing. As their days dragged on, their treatment by Confederate soldiers grew more and more harsh. According to representatives of the Smith County Historical Society who have been working on documenting the history of Camp Ford:

On April 8th and 9th 1864 at the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, Confederate forces captured more than 2,000 Union soldiers, who were quickly marched to Tyler…. The existing stockade did not have sufficient area to house them, and an emergency enlargement was undertaken. Local slaves were again impressed, the north and east wall was dug up and the logs cut in half, and the top ten feet of the logs of the south and west walls were cut off. The resulting half logs gave sufficient timber to quadruple the area of the stockade, and it was expanded to about eleven acres.

With additional battles in Arkansas and Louisiana, the prison population had grown to around 5,000 by mid-June. Hard-pressed CS officials had no ability to provide shelter for the new prisoners, and their suffering was intense. The number of tools was inadequate, and many men could only dig holes in the ground for shelter. Rations were often insufficient and the death rate soared…. Of 316 total deaths at the camp, 232 occurred between July and November 1864….

At least three 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers are confirmed to have died while imprisoned at Camp Ford. Another member of the regiment was later removed from that prison and moved to Andersonville, the most notorious of all American Civil War POW camps. Two others died as POWs who were confined to a Confederate hospital.

In recognition of National POW/MIA Recognition Day, which is observed on the third Friday each September in the United States of America, we pay tribute to those twenty-three brave souls.

DeSoto and Sabine Parishes (Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana)

Possibly wounded in action during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Privates Solomon Powell and Jonathan Wantz of Company D were captured during that battle on April 9, 1864. Private Powell died either that same day or on June 7, 1864, while still being held by Confederate troops as a POW at Pleasant Hill. Private Wantz also died while still being held as a POW at Pleasant Hill; his death was reported as having occurred on June 17, 1864. Their exact burial locations remain unidentified.

Confederate Hospital (Shreveport, Louisiana)

G Company Private Joseph Clewell — who had only been a member of the 47th Pennsylvania since mid-November 1863, fell ill sometime after being captured by Confederate troops during one of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Red River Campaign engagements in the spring of 1864. Suffering from chronic diarrhea due to the poor water quality and unsanitary living conditions that he endured while being held as a POW, he was subsequently confined to the Confederate States Army Hospital No. 59 in Shreveport, Louisiana sometime in May or early June. Held at that hospital as a POW, his health continued to decline until he died there on June 18, 1864, according to the U.S. Army’s Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers. His exact burial location also remains unidentified.

This illustration presented a rosier view of life at Camp Ford, the largest Confederate Army prison camp west of the Mississippi River, than was the actual situation for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confined there (Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1865, public domain).

Camp Ford or Camp Groce (Texas)

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confirmed to have been released from Camp Ford or Camp Groce in Texas during a series of prisoner exchanges between the Army of the United States and the Confederate States Army were:

  • Private Charles Frances Brown, Bugler of Company D and Regimental Band No. 2 (date of release: July 22, 1864; discharged after receiving medical treatment; re-enlisted with the 7th New York Volunteers in October 1864);
  • Private Charles Buss/Bress of Company D (fell ill with dysentery while confined as a POW at Camp Ford and developed chronic diarrhea and severe hemorrhoids — conditions that would plague him for the remainder of his life, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment and was honorably discharged from a Union Army medical facility in Philadelphia in May 1865);
  • Private Ephraim Clouser of Company D (captured after being shot in the right knee, date of release: November 25, 1864; placed on Union Army sick rolls after being diagnosed as being too traumatized to remain on duty, he was transferred to the Union Army’s Jefferson Barracks Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, then to a Union Army hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio and then to the Union Army’s general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he remained until the end of the war; still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the war, he was declared by the Pennsylvania court system to be unable to care for himself, and was confined to the Harrisburg State Hospital for the remainder of his life);
  • Sergeant James Crownover of Company D (captured after being shot in the right shoulder, date of release: November 25, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private James Downs of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment and returned to duty; possibly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he fell from a window of the Brookville Memorial Home in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania in 1921);
  • Private Conrad P. Holman, of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Corporal James Huff of Company E (captured after being wounded, date of release: August 29, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty; captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864, was transported and force marched to North Carolina, where he was held as a POW at the Salisbury Prison Camp until his death there from starvation and harsh treatment on March 5, 1865; he was subsequently buried somewhere on the POW camp grounds in an unmarked mass trench grave of Union soldiers);
  • Private John Lewis Jones of Company F (captured after being wounded, date of release: September 24, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Edward Mathews of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Adam Maul/Moll/Moul of Company C (captured on May 3, 1864, while away from his regiment’s encampment in Alexandria, Louisiana — possibly while assigned to duties related to the construction of Bailey’s Dam, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and was assigned to detached duty at Hilton Head, South Carolina on January 3, 1865, but was reportedly not given discharge paperwork by his regiment; his exact burial location remains unidentified);
  • Private John W. McNew of Company C (captured after being wounded, date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Corporal John Garber Miller of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private Samuel W. Miller of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty);
  • Private John Wesley Smith of Company C (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty;
  • Private William J. Smith of Company D (date of release: July 22, 1864; received medical treatment, recovered and returned to duty; and
  • Private Benjamin F. Wieand/Weiand of Companies B and D (captured after being wounded; received medical treatment after his release from captivity and was honorably discharged on July 21, 1865.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers confirmed to have died on the grounds of Camp Ford were:

  • Private Samuel M. Kern of Company D (date of death: June 12, 1864);
  • Private Frederick Smith of Company I (date of death: May 4, 1864); and
  • Private John Weiss, Company F (captured after being severely wounded, he was initially confined to Camp Ford, but was then transferred to a “Rebel hospital” for treatment of his wounds, according to regimental records; died at that Confederate hospital on July 15, 1864).

The burial locations of Privates Samuel Kern, Frederick Smith and John Weiss remain unidentified. (The Confederate hospital where Private John Weiss died may have been the Confederate Army Hospital No. 59 in Shreveport, Louisiana — the same Confederate hospital where G Company Private Joseph Clewell died on June 18, 1864.)

Issuing Rations at the Andersonville POW Camp, August 17, 1864 (view from Main Gate, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andersonville (Fort Sumter, Georgia)

According to an article in the April 12, 1911 edition of the Reading Eagle, Private Ben Zellner of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company K had also begun his imprisonment as a POW at Camp Ford, but was later transported to Georgia, where he was confined to Andersonville, the most notorious Confederate prison camp of them all.

Benjamin Zellner, who was one of the youngest soldiers during the Civil War, was captured by the Confederates at Pleasant Hill, La., April 8, 1864. He was a member of Co. K, 47th Regiment, with Gen. Banks’ army on the Red River expedition. Comrade Zellner was wounded in a charge to the left of the lines and fell on the field. The Union forces being driven back, he, with a number of others was captured. After being kept at Pleasant Hill two weeks, they were removed to Mansfield, La., on a Saturday night and kept over night [sic] in the Court House until Sunday morning. Thence they were removed to Shreveport, La., and again kept in the Court House. From thence they were marched 110 miles to Unionville prison at Tyler, Tex…. The 47th was the only Penn’a Regiment to participate in the Red River campaign.

Although POW records from Camp Ford that are maintained by the Smith County Historical Society note that a “Ben Cellner” was released in that camp’s July 22, 1864 prisoner exchange with the Union Army, interviews by several different newspaper reporters of Zellner in his later life contradict those records. According to Zellner and the Reading Eagle, he had been transported to Camp Sumter near Anderson, Georgia sometime in May or June 1864:

In about a month [after arriving at Camp Ford in Texas, following their 8 April capture in Louisiana] 300 or 400 of the strongest were brought back to Shreveport and then transported down the Red River to an old station and marched four days, when they were taken by train to Andersonville….

At the time of Private Zellner’s internment, Andersonville was under the command of Henry Wirz, who would later be convicted of war crimes for his brutal treatment of Union prisoners. According to the September 21, 1864 edition of The Soldiers’ Journal:

Those Union prisoners recently released from Camp Sumter, at Andersonville, Ga., have made affidavit of the condition of the 35,000 prisoners confined there. The horrors of their imprisonment, plainly and unaffectedly narrated, have no parallel outside of Taeping or Malay annals. Twenty-five acres of human beings – so closely packed that locomotion is made obsolete, compelled to drink from sewers, and to eat raw meat like cannibals – are dwelling under vigilant espionage, hopeless, helpless, and Godless. Some are lunatic, and others have become desperately wicked; all are living, loathing, naked, starved fellow-men.

Reportedly held as a POW for six months and fourteen days, according to the March 26, 1915 edition of The Allentown Leader, Zellner was freed from captivity during a Union and Confederate army prisoner exchange in September 1864 (per a report in the April 12, 1911 edition of the Reading Eagle). The April 8, 1911 Allentown Leader noted that, after this prisoner exchange, which took place “along the James River,” he was then sent with a number of his fellow former POWs “to Washington, to Fortress Monroe, to New York and home.” Following a period of recovery, he then returned to service with his regiment just in time to participate in a key portion of Union Major-General Phillip Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

Read their stories. Remember their names. Honor their individual sacrifices.

 

Sources:

  1. “47 Years Today Since Rebels Caught Him: This Is a Memorable Anniversary for Comrade Ben Zellner.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, April 8, 1911.
  2. Allentown’s Youngest Civil War Veteran (profile of Private Ben Zellner). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle, April 12, 1911.
  3. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  4. “Camp Ford,” in “Texas Beyond History.” Austin, Texas: Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, retrieved online January 24, 2025.
  5. Camp Ford Prison Records (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1864). Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society.
  6. “Camp Sumter,” in “Editorial Jottings.” Washington, D.C.: The Soldiers’ Journal, September 21, 1864.
  7. Civil War Muster Rolls (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  8. Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  9. Gilbert, Randal B. A New Look at Camp Ford, Tyler, Texas: The Largest Confederate Prison Camp West of the Mississippi River, 3rd Edition. Tyler, Texas: The Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
  10. “His Glorious Record as a Soldier: Fought at Gettysburg, Red River and Shenandoah Valley and Besides Enduring the Horrors of Andersonville, Carries Bullet to This Day.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Leader, March 26, 1917.
  11. Horwitz, Tony. “Did Civil War Soldiers Have PTSD?“, in Smithsonian Magazine, January 2015. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
  12. Lawrence, F. Lee. “Camp Ford,” in “Hand Book of Texas.” Austin, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, retrieved online January 24, 2025.
  13. “Newport: Special Correspondence” (notice documenting Ephraim Clouser’s confinement for mental illness and later death at the asylum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Daily Independent, March 18, 1899.
  14. “POW/MIA Recognition Day.” Indianapolis, Indiana: The American Legion National Headquarters, retrieved online September 19, 2025.
  15. Registers of Deaths of Volunteers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1864-1865.
  16. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  17. Simmons, G. W. “Camp Ford, Texas” (sketch, Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1865; retrieved June 9, 2015, via University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Star of the Republic Museum, Washington, Texas).
  18. Slattery, Joe. “Confederate Soldiers Who Died at the Confederate General Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana,” in The Genie, vol. 37, no. 1 (First Quarter, 2003), p. 12. Shreveport, Louisiana: Ark-La-Tex Genealogical Association.
  19. “The Exchange of Prisoners; The Cartel Agreed Upon by Gen. Dix for the United States, and Gen. Hill for the Rebels,” in “Supplementary Articles.” New York, New York: The New York Times, October 6, 1862.
  20. Thoms, Alston V., principal investigator and editor, and David O. Brown, Patricia A. Clabaugh, J. Philip Dering, et. al., contributing authors. Uncovering Camp Ford: Archaeological Interpretations of a Confederate Prisoner-of-War Camp in East Texas. College Station, Texas: Center for Ecological Archaelogy, Department of Anthropology, Texas A & M University.
  21. “Union Army Deaths in Shreveport 1864-1865.” Shreveport, Louisiana: Sons of Union Veterans, Brig. Gen. Joseph Bailey Camp No. 5, retrieved April 29, 2021.
  22. “Up in Perry” (notice of Ephraim Clouser’s arrest and sanity hearing). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Telegraph, September 22, 1892.
  23. Wharton, Henry D. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1866. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

 

 

A Tale of Two Swords: 47th Pennsylvania Officers Lauded by Citizens and Soldiers (Florida, 1863)

Captain Henry Durant Woodruff, commanding officer of Company D, 2nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, April-July 1861, and Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, August 31, 1861-September 18, 1864 (public domain).

On Saturday, August 22, 1863, readers of The Sunbury American turned to page three of their favorite Northumberland County, Pennsylvania newspaper to find the latest “Letter from the Sunbury Guards,” one of the many field reports that would be sent during the American Civil War to the newspaper’s publisher and editor, Henry B. Masser and Emanuel Wilvert, by one of their former employees, Henry D. Wharton, a member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s C Company. The letter from Henry that was published on that day in August provides important insights into what daily life was like for the 47th Pennsylvanians who were stationed at Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida in 1863 and also illustrates the positive rapport that the 47th Pennsylvania’s officers worked hard to build — not only with the regiment’s enlisted men, but with the civilians they encountered while serving the nation as members of an occupying military force in the nation’s Deep South.

Letter from the Sunbury Guards
Key West, Fla., July 30, 1863

Dear Wilvert: — One day last week, I was surprised at the confusion and loud cheering coming from Company D, usually a very quiet set of men. I crossed the Barracks ground to their quarters, when I learned the cause. The men had presented their Captain with a beautiful sword, sash and belt. The presentation was made in a neat speech by Private Baltozer, who in a few preliminary remarks thanked the Captain for his kindness to the members of Company D, and then said “receive this sword as a token of our estimation, and for your chivalrous spirits on the sanguine field, when the heavens glared with fire and the earth trembled ‘neath cannons roar. May it never rest in its scabbard until rebellion is crushed and traitorism is banished from the land, and peace spreads her white wings from the St. John’s to the sunny banks of the Rio Grande. That it may ever benefit you in the hour of peril, and that you may undauntingly use it as opportunity is afforded, is the ardent wish of the donors.” The presentation was unexpected to Captain Woodruff, who, modest man as he is, felt it keenly, so much so, that it was with difficulty he uttered the following reply:

“My companions in arms. — Your beautiful present is accepted with sincere satisfaction and heartfelt thanks. It affords the satisfaction that you still respect and have confidence in your commander; and he is thankful not only for the value of this gift; but, also for the rich token of your kind regard. And while I wear these arms and accoutrements, emblematical of my rank and office, may they never be worn unworthily or the noble donors have cause to blush for any ungallant act of the wearer. Two years have nearly elapsed since we have been associated as commander and commanded. Two years of privation and toil, and yet your love for the cause, and your ardor to serve your country has not abated.”

“When you entered upon this gigantic struggle, you were not prompted by large bribes and bounties, or intimidated by fear of being forced in service by fear of conscription, but, inspired by a noble patriotism, you cheerfully volunteered for the longest period known to the law. Your conduct thus far has been in accordance with the honorable principles which caused you to volunteer. No discipline too strict, no privations too great, no toil too hard, no trials too sore, but that your indomitable spirits have been able to accomplish, undergo and overcome. And now allow me to say to you that I am proud of the noble men who compose this company. I am proud of the honor you have this day conferred on your Captain. In looking forward, I have no fears for you in the future. Whatever you may be called on to do, in garrison, in the tented field, or on the ensanguined plain it will be bravely — it will be well done. Then, until rebels and traitors shall become extinct, or have grounded their arms, and acknowledged the supremacy of the Government and the law, let this ‘Our motto be, Give us death, or give us victory.'”

Colonel Tilghman H. Good, commanding officer, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (public domain image, circa 1863).

Wharton then continued his lengthy letter with a retelling of a second ceremony that took place on July 25, 1863:

On Saturday last, another sword presentation came off. This time Col. T. H. Good was the recipient, and the donors, the citizens. The sword is a magnificent one, and with the sash and belt, cost six hundred and ten dollars. At 4 o’clock P.M., the two companies stationed at the Barracks, were marched to the Fort, where, with the three other companies doing duty, we formed in line, and under command of the Colonel were moved through several streets, to the front of the Custom House. A fine stand was erected, on the piazza of the building seats were placed for the ladies, flags were stretched across the streets, and everything so arranged as to give it the appearance of a holiday. On the stand I noticed Rear Admiral Bailey and Capt. Templeton of the Navy, Gen. Woodbury and staff, Captains Hook and McFarland of the Army, besides Thomas J. Boynton, U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The articles were presented to Col. Good by Mr. Maloney, a lawyer of this city who complimented the Colonel on the fine bearing and appearance of his regiment. He spoke of the trials the citizens had under the military commander Col. Good relieved; of their being saved from banishment and separation of friends and all they held dear; of the wholesome administration of the Colonel, while in command of this Department, and in conclusion placed the sword in Col. Good’s hand, telling him if he used it as he used his own at Pocotaligo, the citizens would be satisfied, and have no fear of it ever being dishonored. The Colonel replied in a very short speech, saying, what he had done was by instructions by Head Quarters — thanked him for the present, and said as he then felt, he could assure the good people of Key West, that their present would never be dishonored through himself. As the Col. concluded, the Band of our regiment struck up the tune ‘Bully for You,’ which was received with cheer after cheer. Several speeches were made, among others, one by Mr. Boynton. He is a Missourian and received his appointment from the present administration. Although a southerner, he is Union all over. He said he hoped the cannon and sword would soon be made into plow shares and pruning hooks, but not until every rebel was on his knees willing to obey the laws and pay respect to the Star Spangled Banner. The Band then played several National airs, cheers were given for the Union, President Lincoln, Army and Navy, Gen. Woodbury, Admiral Baily, &c., when the meeting adjourned, and we were marched to our different quarters, well pleased with the proceedings, though I must say, completely worn out from fatigue and extreme heat.

According to Allentown’s Morning Call newspaper, the sword’s “hilt grip is a golden goddess Columbia, the female personification of the United States.”

Above her head on the pommel, a coiled snake seems ready to strike. On the crossguard a lion’s head roars defiance and Hercules slays the Nemean lion on the sword’s knuckle bow.

The blade is a riot of gilt allegorical figures. In tiny letters just above the hilt is the maker’s name and year: Collins and Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1862. On the other side is the engraver, Ball Black & Company, New York.

In a subsequent description of the sword in 1915, The Morning Call noted that it had been engraved with the following tribute to Colonel Good:

“The Citizens of Key West, Florida, to Col. T. H. Good, 47th Penn Vols., in appreciation of his merit as a gentleman and a soldier, April, 1863.”

That sword would cost more than twenty-five hundred U.S. dollars were it crafted today. But its true value is priceless because it serves as a timeless reminder that effective leadership is possible — even in the darkest of times.

 

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. “July 25” (1995 photograph of the sword presented to Colonel Tilghman H. Good by the citizens of Key West, Florida on July 25, 1863), in “Florida Keys History Center.” Key West, Florida: Key West Library, retrieved online August 16, 2025.
  3. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  4. “Sword Is a Reminder of Friendship Forged Amid War.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, October 3, 2021.
  5. “Veterans of 47th Vols’ Meet in Reunion: Forty-third Annual Gathering Recalls Trying Days.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, 23 October 1915.
  6. Wharton, Henry D. “Letter from the Sunbury Guards” (Key West, Florida, July 7, 1863). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, August 22, 1863.

 

The Backbones of a Nation: The Laborers Who Enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

“Labor Is Life” (U.S. Postal Service’s Labor Day Stamp, 1956, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Bakers, blacksmiths, boatmen, butchers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, cigarmakers, coal miners, factory workers, farmers, gardeners, gold miners, iron workers, masons, quarry workers, teamsters, tombstone carvers. These were just a few of the diverse job titles held by the laborers who enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War.

Many returned to their same occupations after the war ended while others found new pathways for their life journeys. Far too many were never able to return to the arms of their loved ones and still rest in marked or unmarked graves far from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In honor of Labor Day, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story is proud to present this abridged list of blue-collar men and boys who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry between August 1861 and January 1866, as well as the names of two of the women associated with the regiment who made their own unforgettable marks on the world.

* Auchmuty, Samuel S. (First Lieutenant, Company D): A native of Duncannon, Perry County and veteran of the Mexican-American War who was employed as a carpenter during the early 1860s, Samuel Auchmuty responded to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to defend the nation’s capital during the opening weeks of the American Civil War by enrolling as a first lieutenant with Company D of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on August 20, 1861; after completing his three-year term of enlistment, he was honorably discharged in September 1864 and returned home to Pennsylvania, where he resumed his work as a house carpenter and launched a successful contracting business that was responsible for building new business structures, churches, single-family homes, and schools, as well as renovating existing structures; he died in 1891, following a brief illness;

First Sergeant Christian S. Beard, circa 1863 (public domain).

* Beard, Christian Seiler (First Lieutenant, Company C): A twenty-seven-year-old, married carpenter residing in Williamsport, Lycoming County when President Abraham Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to defend the nation’s capital, following the fall of Fort Sumter in mid-April 1865, Chistian S. Beard promptly enrolled for Civil War military service before that month was out as a private with Company D of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers; honorably discharged in July after completing his Three Months’ Service, he re-enlisted as a sergeant with Company C of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers on August 19; after rising up through the ranks to become a first lieutenant, he was honorably discharged on Christmas Day, 1865, and returned home to his wife in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, where he continued to work as a carpenter; after having several children with his wife, he was widowed by her; remarried in 1884, he relocated with his wife and children to Pittsburgh, where he continued to work as a carpenter; ailing with heart and kidney disease, he died there on November 16, 1911 and was interred at that city’s Highwood Cemetery;

* Burke, Thomas (Sergeant, Company I): A first-generation American, Thomas Burke was a twenty-year-old cabinetmaker residing in Allentown at the dawn of the American Civil War; after enrolling for military service on the day that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was founded (August 5, 1861), he was officially mustered in as a private; from that point on, he continued to work his way up the ranks, receiving a promotion to corporal on September 19, 1864 and then to sergeant on July 11, 1865; honorably mustered out with his company in Charleston, South Carolina on December 25, 1865, he returned home to Lehigh County, where he married and began a family; sometime in early to mid-1871, he and his family migrated west to Iowa, settling in Anamosa, Jones County, where he was employed as a carpenter and contractor; he died at his home there on October 22, 1910 and was buried at that town’s Riverside Cemetery;

* Colvin, John Dorrance (Second Lieutenant, Company C): A native of Abington Township, Lackawanna County who was a farmer when he enlisted for Civil War military service on September 12, 1861, John D. Colvin transferred to the U.S. Army Signal Corps on October 13, 1863, and continued to serve with the Signal Corps for the duration of the war; employed as an engineer, post-war, he helped the Pacific Railroad to extend its service from Atchison, Kansas to Fort Kearney in Nebraska before returning home to Pennsylvania, where he married, began a family and resided with them in Olyphant and Carbondale before relocating with them to Parsons in Luzerne County, where he became a prominent civic leader and member of the school board; initially employed as a machinist, he went on to become superintendent of the Delaware & Hudson Coal company before taking a similar job with the Lehigh Valley Coal Company; the U.S. Postal Service’s postmaster of Parsons during the early 1890s, he died there on March 15, 1901 and was buried at the Hollenback Cemetery in Wilkes-Barre;

* Crownover, James (Sergeant, Company D): A twenty-three-year-old teamster residing in Blain, Perry County when he enrolled for Civil War military service on August 20, 1861, James Crownover rose up through the ranks of the 47th Pennsylvania from private to reach the rank of sergeant; wounded in the right shoulder and captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864, he was marched to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River, where he was held as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on November 25, 1864; during captivity, he was commissioned, but not mustered as a second lieutenant; given medical treatment before he was returned to active duty, he was honorably discharged with his regiment in Charleston, South Carolina on December 25, 1865; after returning home, he found work at a tannery near Blain, married, began a family and then relocated with them to East Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, where he worked as a teamster; relocating with them to Braddock in Allegheny County after the turn of the century, he worked at a local mill there; he died in Allegheny County on July 18, 1903 and was buried at the Monongahela Cemetery in Braddock Hills;

Jacob Daub, circa 1862-1865 (carte de visite, Cooley & Beckett Photographers, Savannah, Georgia and Beaufort and Hilton Head, South Carolina, public domain).

* Daub, Jacob and William J. (Drummer Boy, Company A): A German immigrant as a child, Jacob Daub emigrated with his parents and younger brother, William, circa 1852; after settling in Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where his father found work as a stone mason, Jacob grew up to become a cigarmaker, and also became the first of the two brothers to enlist in the American Civil War; after enrolling at the age of sixteen, he was classified as a field musician and assigned to Company A as its drummer boy; his nineteen-year-old brother, William, a carpenter by 1865, followed him into the war when he enlisted as a private with the same company in February of that year; after the war ended, both returned home to Northampton County, where they married, had children and went on to live long, full lives; William eventually died at the age of eighty in 1928, followed by Jacob, who passed away in 1936, roughly two months before his ninety-first birthday;

* Detweiler, Charles C. (Private, Company A): Berks County native Charles Detweiler enrolled for Civil War military service on September 16, 1862; a carpenter who later became a farmer, he served with Company A until he was severely injured in the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, October 19, 1864, when he sustained a musket ball wound to the middle of his thigh; treated at a Union Army hospital in Virginia before being transported to the Union’s Mower General Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he learned that the musket ball had damaged his femur and femoral arteries; following his wound-related death at Mower on March 12, 1865, he was buried at the Fairview Cemetery in Kutztown, Berks County;

* Diaz, John (Private, Company I): An immigrant from Spain’s Canary Islands, John Diaz emigrated sometime between 1862 and 1865 and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he found work as a cigarmaker; on January 25, 1865, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted with the Union Army at a recruiting depot in Norristown, Montgomery County and served as a private with Company I of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry until it was mustered out on Christmas Day, 1865; following his return to Pennsylvania, he resumed work as a cigarmaker in Philadelphia, eventually launching his own cigarmaking firm, which became a family business as his sons became old enough to work for him; sometime between 1906 and 1910, he relocated with his wife and several of his children to Camden County, New Jersey, where he died on September 5, 1915;

James Downs (circa 1880s, public domain).

* Downs, James (Corporal, Company D): A twenty-three-year-old tanner residing in Blain, Perry County when he enrolled for Civil War military service on August 20, 1861, James Downs was captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864 and marched to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River; held there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864, he received medical treatment and was subsequently returned to active duty; following his honorable discharge with his regiment in Charleston, South Carolina, on December 25, 1865, he returned home, married, began a family and relocated with his family to Phillipsburg, New Jersey; suffering from heart and kidney disease, and possibly also from post-traumatic stress disorder, rather than “insane” as physicians at the Pennsylvania Memorial Home in Brookville, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania had diagnosed him, he fell from a window at that home and died at there on September 16, 1921; he was subsequently interred in the Veterans’ Circle of the Brookville Cemetery;

* Eagle, Augustus (Second Lieutenant, Company F): A German immigrant as a teenager, Augustus Eagle arrived in America on June 23, 1855, two years after his brother, Frederick Eagle, had emigrated and made a life for himself in Catasauqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania; both men married and began families there, with Fred employed as a laborer and Gus employed by the Crane Iron Works; when President Abraham Lincoln issued his call for volunteers to defend the nation’s capital during the opening weeks of the American Civil War, both men enrolled for military service on August 21, 1861 as privates with Company F of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; in 1862, Fred fell ill and was honorably discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability, but Gus continued to serve, rising up through the regiment’s enlisted and officers’ ranks; commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was honorably discharged on September 11, 1864, upon completion of his three-year term of service; post-war, Fred became a successful baker with real estate and personal property valued at $4,200 (roughly $155,750 in 2023 dollars) and died in Catasauqua in 1885, while Gus owned a successful restaurant in Whitehall Township before operating the Fairview Hotel, which became a popular spot for political gatherings; after suffering a series of strokes in 1902, Gus died at his home on August 17 and was buried at the Fairview Cemetery in West Catasauqua;

* Eisenbraun, Alfred (Drummer Boy, Company B): A tobacco stripper and first-generation American from Allentown, Lehigh County, fifteen-year-old Alfred Eisenbraun became the second “man” from the 47th Pennsylvania to die when he succumbed to complications from typhoid fever at the Kalorama Eruptive Fever Hospital in Georgetown, District of Columbia on October 26, 1861; he still rests at the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home Cemetery in Washington, D.C.;

* Fink, Aaron (Corporal, Company B): A shoemaker and native of Salisbury Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Aaron Fink, grew up, began a family and established a successful small shoemaking business, first in Allentown and then in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) in Carbon County; on August 20, 1861, he chose to respond to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to help bring the American Civil War to a quick end when he enrolled for military service; shot in the right leg during the fighting at the Frampton Plantation during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862, he was treated at the Union Army’s hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina, but died there from wound-related complications on November 5, 1862; initially buried near that hospital, his remains were later exhumed by Allentown undertaker Paul Balliet and returned to Pennsylvania for reinterment at that city’s Union-West End Cemetery;

* Fornwald, Reily M. (Corporal, Company G): Born in Heidelberg Township, Berks County, Reily Fornwald was raised there on his family’s farm near Stouchsberg; educated in his community’s common schools and then at Millersville State Normal School, he became a railroad worker before returning to farm life shortly before the dawn of the American Civil War; after enlisting for military service at the age of twenty on September 11, 1862, he was wounded in the head and groin by an exploding artillery shell during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862; stabilized on the battlefield before being transported to a field hospital for more advanced medical care, he spent four weeks recuperating before returning to active duty with his regiment; promoted to the rank of corporal on January 19, 1863, he continued to serve with his regiment until he was honorably discharged at Berryville, Virginia on September 18, 1864, upon expiration of his term of enlistment; after returning home, he spent four years operating a blast furnace for White & Ferguson in Robesonia, Berks County; he also married and began a family; sometime around 1870, he left that job to become an engine operator for Wright, Cook & Co. in Sheridan and then moved to a job as an engine operator for William M. Kauffman—a position he held for roughly a decade before securing employment as a shifting engineer with the Reading Railway Company at its yards in Reading; following his retirement in 1905, he and his wife settled in Robesonia, where he became involved in buying and selling real estate; following a severe fall in May 1925, during which he fractured a thigh bone, he died at the Homeopathic Hospital in Reading on June 1 and was buried at Robesonia’s Heidelberg Cemetery;

Captain Reuben Shatto Gardner, Company H, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

* Gardner, Reuben Shatto, John A. and Jacob S. R.: Natives of Perry County, Reuben Shatto Gardner and his brothers, John A. Gardner and Jacob S. R. Gardner, began their work lives as laborers; among the earliest responders to President Abraham Lincoln’s call to defend the nation’s capital, following the fall of Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861, Reuben was a twenty-five-year-old miller who resided in Newport, Perry County; after enlisting as a private with Company D of the 2nd Pennsylvania Volunteers on April 20, he was honorably mustered out after completing his term of service; he then re-upped for a three-year tour of duty, mustering in as a first sergeant with Company H of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; also enrolling with him that same day were his twenty-three-year-old and twenty-one-year-old brothers, John A. Gardner and Jacob S. R. Gardner; John officially mustered in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg on September 18 (the day before Reuben arrived), while Jacob officially mustered in on September 19; both joined their brother’s company, entering at their respective ranks of corporal and private, but Jacob’s tenure was a short one; sickened by typhoid fever in late December 1861, he died at the 47th Pennsylvania’s regimental hospital at Camp Griffin, near Langley, Virginia on January 8, 1862; his remains were later returned to Perry County for burial at the Old Newport Cemetery; soldiering on, Reuben and John were transported with their regiment by ship to Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida and subsequently sent to South Carolina with their regiment and other Union troops; shot in the head and thigh during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862, Reuben was treated at the Union Army’s hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina for an extended period of time, and then returned to active duty with his regiment; meanwhile, John was assigned with H Company and the men from Companies D, F and K to garrison Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas; both brothers then continued to work their way up the regiment’s ranks, with John promoted to corporal on September 18, 1864 and Reuben ultimately commissioned as a captain and given  command of Company H on February 16, 1865; both then returned home after honorably mustering out with the regiment in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day, 1865; sometime around 1866 or 1867, Reuben and his wife migrated west, first to Elk River Station in Sherburne County, Minnesota and then to Stillwater, Washington County, before settling in the city of Minneapolis; through it all, he worked as a miller; Reuben and his family then relocated farther west, arriving in King County, Washington after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889; initially employed in the restaurant industry, Reuben later found work as a railroad conductor before prospecting for gold with son Edward in the western United States and British Columbia, Canada during the 1890s Gold Rush; employed as a U.S. Post Office clerk in charge of the money order and registry departments in Seattle from 1898 to 1902, Reuben died in Seattle at the age of sixty-eight on September 25, 1903 and was interred at that city’s Lakeview Cemetery; meanwhile, his brother John, who had resumed work as a fireman with the Pennsylvania Railroad after returning from the war, was widowed by his wife in 1872; after remarrying and welcoming the births of more children, he was severely injured on October 9, 1873 while working as a fireman on the Pacific Express for the Pennsylvania Railroad; unable to continue working as a fireman due to his amputated hand, he worked briefly as a railroad call messenger before launching his own transfer business in Harrisburg; after he was widowed by his ailing second wife, John was severely injured in a second accident in 1894 while loading his delivery wagon; still operating his business after the turn of the century, he remarried on January 3, 1900, but was widowed by his third wife when she died during a surgical procedure in 1911; he subsequently closed his business and relocated to the home of his daughter in the city of Reading, Berks County; four years later, he fell on an icy sidewalk and became bedfast; aged eighty and ailing from arteriosclerosis and lung congestion, he died at her home on February 20, 1918 and was buried at Reading’s Charles Evans Cemetery;

* Gethers, Bristor (Under-Cook, Company F): Born into slavery in South Carolina circa 1829, Bristor Gethers was married “by slave custom at Georgetown, S.C.” on the Pringle plantation in Georgetown sometime around 1847 to “Rachael Richardson” (alternate spelling “Rachel”); a field hand at the dawn of the Civil War, he was freed from chattel enslavement in 1862 by Union Army troops; he then enlisted as an “Under-Cook” with Company F of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in Beaufort, South Carolina on October 5, 1862, and traveled with the regiment until October 4, 1865, when he was honorably discharged in Charleston, South Carolina upon completion of his three-year term of enlistment; at that point, he returned to Beaufort and resumed life with his wife and their son, Peter; a farmer, Bristor was ultimately disabled by ailments that were directly attributable to his Union Army tenure; awarded a U.S. Civil War Soldiers’ Pension, he lived out his days with his wife on Horse Island, South Carolina, and died on Horse Island, South Carolina on June 24 or 25, 1894; he was then laid to rest at a graveyard on Parris Island on June 26 of that same year;

* Gilbert, Edwin (Captain, Company F): A native of Northampton County and a carpenter residing in Catasauqua, Lehigh County at the dawn of the American Civil War, Edwin Gilbert enrolled as a corporal on August 21, 1861; after rising up through his regiment’s officer ranks, he was ultimately commissioned as a captain and placed in charge of his company on New Year’s Day, 1865, and then mustered out with his company in Charleston, South Carolina of Christmas of that same year; resuming his life with his wife and children in Lehigh County after the war, he continued to work as a carpenter; after suffering a stroke in late December 1893, he died on January 2, 1894 and was buried at the Fairview Cemetery in West Catasauqua;

Mrs. Caroline Bost and Martin L. Guth celebrated the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday with fellow Grand Army of the Republic and ladies auxiliary members in February 1933 (public domain).

* Guth, Martin Luther (Corporal, Company K): A native of Lehigh County and son of a farmer, Martin L. Guth was a seventeen-year-old laborer and resident of Guthsville in Whitehall Township at the dawn of the American Civil War; after enrolling for military service on September 26, 1862, he was officially mustered in as a corporal; he continued to serve with his regiment until he was honorably mustered out on October 1, 1865, upon expiration of his term of service; at some point during that service, he broke his leg—an injury that did not heal properly and plagued him for the remainer of his life; after returning home to the Lehigh Valley, he found work again as a laborer; married in 1883, he became the father of four children, one of whom was born in New Mexico and another who was born in California; he had moved his family west in search of work in the mining industry; documented as a “prospector” or “miner” records created in Nevada during that period, he was also documented on voter registration rolls of Butte City in Glenn County, California in August 1892; by 1900, he was living separately from his wife, who was residing in Bandon, Coos County, Oregon with their two children while he was residing at the Veterans’ Home of California in Yount Township, Napa County, California; subsequently admitted to the Mountain Branch of the network of U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Johnson City, Tennessee on February 11, 1912, his disabilities included an old compound fracture of his right leg with chronic ulceration, defective vision (right eye), chronic bronchitis, and arteriosclerosis; discharged on December 12, 1920, he was admitted to the U.S. National Soldiers’ Home in Leavenworth, Kansas on July 30, 1912, but discharged on September 29, 1913; by 1920, he was living alone on Fruitvale Avenue in the city of Oakland, California, but was remaining active with his local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic as he rose through the leadership ranks of chapter, state and national G.A.R. organizations; after a long, adventure-filled life, he died on October 11, 1935, at the age of ninety-one, at the veterans’ home in San Francisco and was interred at the San Francisco National Cemetery (also known as the Presidio Cemetery);

Lieutenant Charles A. Hackman, Company G, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1864 (public domain).

* Hackman, Charles Abraham and Martin Henry (First Lieutenant and Sergeant, Company G): Natives of Rittersville, Lehigh County, Charles and Martin Hackman began their work lives as apprentices, with Charles employed by a carpenter and Martin employed by master coachmaker Jacob Graffin; members of the local militia unit known as the Allen Rifles, they were among the earliest responders to President Abraham Lincoln’s call to defend the nation’s capital, following the fall of Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861; both enlisted as privates with Company I of the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers on April 20 and were honorably mustered out in July after completing their service; Charles then re-upped for a three-year tour of duty, mustering in as a sergeant with Company G of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; he then spent most of his early service in Virginia; meanwhile, his younger brother, Martin H. Hackman, who was employed as a coach trimmer in Lehigh County, re-enlisted for his own second tour of duty, as a private with Charles’ company, on January 8, 1862; working their way up the ranks, Charles was commissioned as a first lieutenant on June 18, 1863, while Martin was promoted to sergeant on April 26, 1864; Charles was then breveted as a captain on November 30, 1864 after having mustered out on November 5; Martin was then honorably discharged on January 8, 1865; initially employed, post-war, with the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad’s train car facility in Reading, Berks County, Charles was promoted to car inspector at the company’s Philadelphia facility in December 1866; he subsequently married, but had no children and was widowed in 1904; remarried, he remained in Philadelphia until the early 1900s, when he relocated to Allentown; Martin, who worked as a bricklayer in Allentown, did have children after marrying, but he, too, was widowed; also remarried, he became a manager at a rolling mill; ailing with pneumonia in early 1917, Charles was eighty-six years old when he died in Allentown on January 17; he was buried at Allentown’s Union-West End Cemetery, while his brother Martin was buried at the Nisky Hill Cemetery in Bethlehem, following his death in Bethlehem from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 14, 1921;

* Junker, George (Captain, Company K): A German immigrant as a young adult, George Junker emigrated sometime around the early 1850s and settled in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, where he found employment as a marble worker and tombstone carver, and where he also joined the Allen Infantry, one of his adopted hometown’s three militia units; responding to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to defend the nation’s capital during the opening weeks of the American Civil War, George enlisted with his fellow Allen Infantrymen, honorably completed his Three Months’ Service, and promptly began his own recruitment of men for an “all-German company” for the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; commissioned as a captain with the 47th Pennsylvania, he was placed in charge of his men who became known as Company K; mortally wounded by a Confederate rifle shot during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina on October 22, 1862, he died from his wounds the next day at the Union Army’s division hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina; his remains were returned to his family in Hazleton, Luzerne County for reburial at the Vine Street Cemetery;

* Kern, Samuel (Private, Company D): A native of Perry County who was employed as a farmer in Bloomfield, Perry County when he enrolled for Civil War military service on August 20, 1861, Samuel Kern was wounded and captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864; marched to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River, he was held there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he died from harsh treatment on June 12, 1864; buried somewhere on the grounds of that prison camp, his grave remains unidentified;

* Kosier, George (Captain, Company D): A native of Perry County and twenty-four-year-old carpenter residing in that county’s community of New Bloomfield at the dawn of the American Civil War, George Kosier became one of the earliest men from his county to respond to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for to defend the nation’s capital, following the fall of Fort-Sumter in mid-April 1861, when he enrolled for military service on April 20 as a corporal with Company D of the 2nd Pennsylvania Volunteers; honorably discharged in July after completing his Three Months’ Service, he re-enlisted as a first sergeant with Company D of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; joining him were his younger brothers, Jesse and William S. Kosier, aged nineteen and twenty-three, who were enrolled as privates with the same company; all three subsequently re-enlisted with their company at Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida in 1863; sadly, Jesse fell ill with pleurisy and died at the Union Army’s Field Hospital in Sandy Hook, Maryland on August 1864; initially buried at a cemetery in Weverton, Maryland, his remains were later exhumed and reinterred at the Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Maryland; both George and William continued to serve with the regiment, with George continuing his rise up the ranks; commissioned as a captain, he was given command of Company D in early June 1865; both brothers were then honorably discharged with their regiment on Christmas Day, 1865; post-war, both men married and began families; William died in Pennsylvania sometime around 1879, but George went on to live a long full life; after settling in Ogle County, Illinois, where he was employed as a carpenter, he relocated with his family to Wright County, Iowa, where he built bridges; he died in Chicago on December 3, 1920 and was buried at that city’s Rosehill Cemetery;

Anna (Weiser) Leisenring (1851-1942) , circa 1914 (public domain).

* Leisenring, Annie (Weiser): The wife of Thomas B. Leisenring (Captain, Company G), Annie Leisenring was employed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a factory inspector after the American Civil War; she became well known through newspaper accounts of her inspection visits and also became widely respected for her efforts to improve child labor laws statewide;

* Lowrey, Thomas (Corporal, Company E): An Irish immigrant as a young adult, Thomas Lowrey emigrated sometime around the late 1840s or early 1850s and settled in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where he found work as a miner, married and began a family; responding to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to defend the nation’s capital during the opening weeks of the American Civil War, Thomas enlisted with Company E of the 47th Pennsylvania on September 16, 1861; after completing his three-year term of enlistment, he was honorably discharged in September 1864 and returned home to Pennsylvania, where he resumed work as a coal miner near Shenandoah, Schuylkill County, and where he resided with his wife and children; after witnessing the dawn of a new century, he died in Shenandoah on January 11, 1906;

This image of Julia (Kuenher) Minnich, circa 1860s, is being presented here through the generosity of Chris Sapp and his family, and is being used with Mr. Sapp’s permission. This image may not be reproduced, repurposed, or shared with other websites without the permission of Chris Sapp.

* Magill, Julia Ann (Kuehner Minnich): Widowed and the mother of a young son at the time that her husband, B Company’s Captain Edwin G. Minnich, was killed in battle during the American Civil War, Julia Ann (Kuehner) Minnich became a Union Army nurse at Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C. during the war in order to keep a roof over her son’s head; she then spent the remainder of her life battling the U.S. Pension Bureau to receive and keep both the U.S. Civil War Widow’s Pension and U.S. Civil War Nurse’s Pension that she was entitled to under federal law; forced to go on working into her later years by poverty, she finally found work as a cook at a hotel in South Bethlehem; she died sometime after 1906;

* Menner, Edward W. (Second Lieutenant, Company E): A first-generation American who was a native of Easton, Northampton County, Edward Menner was a sixteen-year-old carpenter when he enrolled for Civil War military service on August 25, 1861; working his way up from private to second lieutenant before he was honorably discharged with his regiment in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day, 1865, he was wounded in the left shoulder during the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864; after returning home to the Lehigh Valley, he secured employment as a hooker with the Bethlehem Iron Company (later known as Bethlehem Steel) on March 15, 1866; he married, begam a family and continued to work in the iron industry for much of his life; he died in Bethlehem on April 25, 1913 and was buried at that city’s Nisky Hill Cemetery;

* Miller, John Garber (Sergeant, Company D): A native of Ironville, Blair County, John G. Miller was a twenty-one-year-old laborer living in Duncannon, Perry County when he enrolled for Civil War military service on August 20, 1861; captured by Confederate troops during the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on April 9, 1864 and marched to Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River, he was held there as a prisoner of war (POW) until he was released during a prisoner exchange on July 22, 1864; returned to active duty with his regiment after receiving medical treatment, he continued to serve until he was honorably discharged with the regiment in Charleston, South Carolina on December 25, 1865; after returning home, he married, began a family and relocated with his family to Philipsburg, Centre County, Pennsylvania, where he was employed as a teamster; returning to Blair County with his family, he resided with them in Logan Township before relocating with them again to Coalport, Clearfield County; suffering from heart disease, he died in Coalport on February 16, 1921 and was interred at the Coalport Cemetery;

Captain Theodore Mink, Company I, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (circa 1870s-1880s, courtesy of Julian Burley; used with permission).

* Mink, Theodore (Captain, Company I): A native of Allentown, Lehigh County who was apprenticed as a coachmaker and then tried his hand as a whaler and blacksmith prior to the American Civil War, Thedore Mink became one of the “First Defenders” who responded to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to defend the nation’s capital after the fall of Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861; after honorably completing his Three Months’ Service in July, he re-enlisted on August 5 as a sergeant with Company I of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; after steadily working his way up through the ranks, he was commissioned as a captain and placed in charge of his company on May 22, 1865; he continued to serve with his regiment until it was mustered out on Christmas Day, 1865; following his return to Pennsylvania, he was hired as a laborer with a circus troupe operated by Mike Lipman before finding longtime employment in advertising and then as head of the circus wardrobe for the Forepaugh Circus before he was promoted to management with the circus; felled by pneumonia during late 1889, he died in Philadelphia on January 7, 1890 and was interred in Allentown’s Union-West End Cemetery;

* Newman, Edward (Private, Company H): A German immigrant who left his homeland sometime around 1920, Edward Newman chose to settle in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, where he found work as a baker; after enlisting for Civil War military service in August 1862, he mustered in as a private with Company I of the 127th Pennsylvania Volunteers and fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg from December 11-15 of that year; honorably mustered out with his regiment in May 1863, he re-enlisted on October 23, 1863 for a second tour of duty—but as a private with a different regiment—Company H of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers; he continued to serve with the 47th Pennsylvania until he was officially mustered out in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day, 1865, he returned to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where he worked briefly as a baker; suffering from rheumatism that developed while the 47th Pennsylvania was stationed near Cedar Creek, Virginia during the fall of 1864, he was admitted to the network of U.S. Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers at the Central Branch in Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio on July 17, 1877; still unmarried and still living there in 1880, his health continued to decline; diagnosed with acute enteritis, he died there on January 22, 1886 and was buried at the Dayton National Cemetery;

Captain Daniel Oyster, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1864 (public domain).

* Oyster, Daniel (Captain, Company C): A native of Sunbury, Northumberland County who was employed as a machinist, Daniel Oyster became one of the earliest men from his county to respond to President Abraham Lincoln’s call to defend the nation’s capital, following the fall of Fort-Sumter in mid-April 1861, when he enrolled for Civil War military service on April 23 as a corporal with Company F of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers; honorably discharged in July after completing his Three Months’ Service, he re-enlisted as a first sergeant with Company C of the newly-formed 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers on August 19; his brother, John Oyster, subsequently followed him into the service, enrolling as a private with his company on November 20, 1863; after rising up through the ranks to become captain of his company, Daniel was shot in his left shoulder near Berryville, Virginia on September 5, 1864 and then shot in his right shoulder during the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19; successfully treated by Union Army surgeons for both wounds, he was awarded a veteran’s furlough in order to continue his recuperation and returned home to Sunbury; he then returned to duty and was honorably discharged with his company on Christmas Day, 1865; post-discharge, he and his brother, John, returned home to Sunbury; Daniel continued to reside with their aging mother and was initially employed as a policeman, but was then forced by a war-related decline in his health to take less-taxing work as a railroad postal agent; his brother John, who was married, lived nearby and worked as a fireman, but died in Sunbury on April 20, 1899; employed as a bookkeeper after the turn of the century, Daniel never married and was ultimately admitted to the Southern Branch of the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Hampton, Virginia, where he died on August 5, 1922—exactly sixty-one years to the day after the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was founded; he was given a funeral with full military honors before being laid to rest in the officers’ section at the Arlington National Cemetery on August 11;

* Sauerwein, Thomas Franklin (First Sergeant, Company B): The son of a lock tender in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, Thomas Sauerwein was employed as a carpenter at the dawn of the American Civil War; following his enrollment for military service in Allentown, Lehigh County on August 20, 1861, he was officially mustered in as a private with Company B of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; from that point on, he steadily worked his way up the ranks of the regiment, ultimately being promoted to first sergeant on New Year’s Day, 1865; following his honorable discharge with his company on Christmas Day of that same year, he returned home to the Lehigh Valley, where he found work as a carpenter, married and began a family; by 1880, he had moved his family west to Williamsport in Lycoming County, where he had found work as a machinist; employed as a leather roller with a tanning factory, he was promoted to a position as a leather finisher after the turn of the century, while his two sons worked as leather rollers in the same industry; he died in Williamsport on July 29, 1912 and was buried at the East Wildwood Cemetery in Loyalsock;

* Slayer, Joseph (Private, Company E; also known as “Dead Eye Dick” and “E. J. McMeeser”): A native of Philadelphia, Joseph Slayer was a nineteen-year-old miner residing in Willliams Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania at the dawn of the American Civil War; after enrolling for military service in Easton, Northampton County on September 9, 1861, he was officially mustered in as a private with Company E of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers; he continued to serve with his company, re-enlisting as a private with Company E, under the name of Joseph Slayer, at Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas on January 4, 1864; honorably mustered out with his company in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day, 1865, he relocated to Zanesville, Ohio sometime after the war, where he joined the Grand Army of the Republic’s Hazlett Post No. 81; he may then have relocated briefly to St. Paul, Minnesota sometime around the 1870s or early 1880s, or may simply have had a child and grandchild living there, because newspaper reports of his death noted that he had been carrying a photograph of a toddler named Robert—a photo that had “To Grandpa” inscribed on it and indicated that the grandchild, Robert, was a resident of St. Paul in 1892; by the 1880s, Joseph had made it as far west as the Dakota Territory—but this was where his life’s journey took a strange twist; discarding the name he had used in the army (“Joseph Slayer”), he changed his name several times over the next several years, as if he were trying to shed his prior life and all of its associations; acquaintances he met in the southern part of the Dakota Territory during the early to mid-1880s knew him as “Dead Eye Dick” while others who met him after he had resettled in Bismarck, in the northern part of the Dakota Territory, knew him as “Eugene McMeeser” or “E. J. McMeeser” (alternate spelling: “McNeeser”); by the time that the federal government conducted its special census of Civil War veterans in June 1890, Joseph was so comfortable fusing parts of his old and new lives together that he was convincingly documented by an enumerator as “Eugene McMeeser,” a veteran who had served as a private with Company E of the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry from September 9, 1861 until January 11, 1866; in 1890, Joseph became a married man; documented as having rheumatism so severe that he was “at times confined at home,” he filed for a U.S. Civil War Pension from North Dakota on March 28, 1891—but he did so as “Joseph Slayer”—the name under which he had first enrolled for military service in Pennsylvania in 1861; ultimately awarded a pension—which would not have happened if federal officials had not been able to verify his identity and match it to his existing military service records, he was diagnosed with angina pectoris in 1904, but still managed to secure a U.S. patent for one of his inventions—a napkin holder; he died in Bismarck less than a month later, on January 12 or 13, 1905; found on the floor of his rented room, his death sparked a coroner’s inquest which revealed that he had been living under an assumed name; he was buried at Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Bismarck; the name “Joseph Slayer” was carved onto his military headstone;

* Snyder, Timothy (Corporal, Company C): A carpenter who was born in Rebuck, Northumberland County, Tim Snyder was employed as a carpenter and residing in the city of Sunbury in that county by the dawn of the American Civil War; after enlisting for military service as a private in August 1861, he was wounded twice in combat, once during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina (1862) and a second time, in the knee, during the Battle of Opequan, Virginia (1864), shortly after he had been promoted to the rank of corporal; he survived and returned to Pennsylvania, where he resumed work as a carpenter; after relocating to Schuylkill County, he settled in the community of Ashland; in 1870, he married Catharine Boyer and started a family with her; he continued to work as a carpenter in Schuylkill County until his untimely death in May 1889 and was laid to rest with military honors at the Brock Cemetery in Ashland; John Hartranft Snyder, his first son to survive infancy, grew up to become a co-founder of the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company, while his second son to survive infancy, Timothy Grant Snyder, became a corporal in the United States Marine Corps during the Spanish-American War; stationed on the USS Buffalo as it visited Port Said, Egypt, he also served aboard Admiral George Dewey’s flagship, the USS Olympia, in 1899;

Drummer Boy William Williamson, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company A, circa 1863 (public domain).

* Williamson, William (Drummer, Company A): A farmer from Stockertown, Northampton County, William Williamson was documented by a mid-nineteenth-century federal census enumerator as an unmarried laborer who lived at the Easton home of Northampton County physician John Sandt, M.D.—an indication that William’s parents may have either died or were struggling so much financially during the 1850s and early 1860s that they had encouraged him to “leave the nest” and begin supporting himself, or had hired him out as an apprentice or indentured servant; like so many other young men from Northampton County, when President Abraham Lincoln issued his call for help to protect the nation’s capital from a likely invasion by Confederate States Army troops, he stepped forward, raised his hand, and stated the following:

I, William Williamson appointed a private in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.

Later in life, William Williamson became a champion for an older woman who had been struggling to convince officials of the federal government that she was worthy enough to be awarded a U.S. Civil War Mother’s Pension, after her son had died in service to the nation as a Union Army soldier.

Post-war, William Williamson found work at a slate quarry, married, began a family in Belfast, Northampton County, and lived to witness the dawn of a new century. Following his death at the age of sixty in Plainfield Township on June 17, 1901, he was laid to rest at the Belfast Union Cemetery.

 

Sources:

  1. “A Badge from Admiral Dewey and Schuylkill County” (announcements of Timothy Grant Snyder’s service on Admiral Dewey’s flagship). Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Eagle: October 3, 1899 and November 21, 1899.
  2. Baptismal, census, marriage, military, death, and burial records of the Snyder family. Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Ohio, etc.: Snyder Family Archives, 1650-present; and in Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records (baptismal, marriage, death and burial records of various churches across Pennsylvania). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1776-1918.
  3. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  4. James Crownover, James Downs and Samuel Kern, et. al., in Camp Ford Prison Records. Tyler, Texas: The Smith County Historical Society, 1864.
  5. Civil War Muster Rolls, 1861-1866 (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  6. Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  7. Registers of Deaths of Volunteers, U.S. Army; Admissions Ledgers, U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers; federal burial ledgers, and national cemetery interment control forms, 1861-1935. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of the Adjutant General (Record Group 94), U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  8. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  9. U.S. Census Records, 1830-1930. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  10. U.S. Civil War Pension Records, 1862-1935. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

January-Early February 1862: New Year, New Civil War Mission — A Pennsylvania Regiment Heads for Florida

Unknown regiment, Camp Griffin, Virginia, Fall 1861 (public domain, U.S. Library of Congress).

“He was the light and life of our company, and his death has caused a blight and sadness to prevail, that only the rude wheels of time can efface….” — Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin to the parents of drummer boy John Boulton Young, mid-October, 1861

“I passed the night in ‘watching,’ but somewhat differently from the watch meetings at home. I spent from 8 to 12 at night on the outposts, and we were in expectation of an attack all the time…. At 12, I was relieved and moved with my men back to the main reserve where we built a huge fire, and six to eight officers of us gathered around the fire and spent the time in telling yarns, cracking jokes.” — Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin to his own parents in a letter penned on New Year’s Day, 1862

“Will write again if I am spared to do so.” — G Company Sergeant John Gross Helfrich to his parents in a letter penned on January 12, 1862

 

As America’s Civil War dragged on, the contemplation of life’s biggest questions became an increasing preoccupation for more than a few members of the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Initially elated by their August 1861 enrollment for service in the fight to preserve their nation’s Union, many were propelled heart and headlong into a valley of grief just weeks later by the untimely deaths of John Boulton Young and Alfred Eisenbraun, two of the regiment’s beloved drummer boys.

Their equilibrium was gradually restored by their work as Union Army soldiers, however, and their spirits were raised further by the approaching Christmas season—largely thanks to surprise shipments by families and friends of “care packages” stuffed with favored foods and other items of comfort. Naturally, though, many members of the regiment began ruminating again as the New Year’s Eve of 1861 gave way to the New Year’s Day of 1862—as shown by this January 1, 1862 letter written to family by C Company Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin:

“I went on picket yesterday morning, and was relieved this morning. So the entire programme [sic] of the departure of the old and advent of the New Year was open to me. I passed the night in ‘watching,’ but somewhat differently from the watch meetings at home. I spent from 8 to 12 at night on the outposts, and we were in expectation of an attack all the time. This kept me constantly in the line, among the men preparing for an attack. At 12, I was relieved and moved with my men back to the main reserve where we built a huge fire, and six to eight officers of us gathered around the fire and spent the time in telling yarns, cracking jokes. Officers from the 7th Maine, 49th & 53d New York were present. Occasionally a shot or two would bring us all to our feet, but as all would be quiet again down we would go into the fire again. About four oclock [sic] this morning, I spread my blanket on the ground, and with a stone for a pillow, slept peaceably my first sleep for 1862. I got to Camp about 9 a.m. and found your letters awaiting me.

…. I would like to have been at home on Christmas, and had set my heart upon going, but somehow or other Col Good and Gen Brannen [sic] both do not want me to leave at present. The fact is we are daily expecting an engagement and they seem to think my company will not do as well as they expect it to unless I am there. I have the crack company in the Regiment. Yesterday was muster day and Sam Miller received the premium for having the cleanest arms in the Regiment….

…. I will make a desperate effort to spend my birthday at home. Mother if I get there I want you to cook a dish of schnitz und knep [sic]. I have been wishing for them all day. Yesterday I went into a house on the line and bought a mince pie and cup of coffee of a girl there. They were first rate, but Mother could beat them.”

* Note: Schnitz und knepp, which translates from the Pennsylvania German to English as “apples and buttons,” was a traditional fall recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch families during the 1800s, and remains so today. Made in a large kettle with dried apples, ham, and dumplings, and flavored with brown sugar and other seasonings, its aroma, taste, and warmth have long come together to create the very definition of “comfort food” on the chilly fall days of the Great Keystone State.

“I had not intended mentioning the following but for fear some of the boys may and an incorrect story gets out, I will tell you the other night while on picket, Mark Shipman fired upon one man crawling up to him, or he supposed he was. Sergeant Piers [sic] and I went out to the line to see the cause of the report, and someone attempted to shoot at us, but his cap snapped. The fellow made tracks in a hurry before we could catch him, but I think he got badly frightened anyhow. You do not say anything about this and do not be alarmed as he could not hit us. It was too dark. And if he had fired, or his gun gone off, we could have shot him, by the flash. We have not lost a man on picket in our entire division.

…. The wind is blowing a perfect hurricane around the house. I have my house papered all over now, and I tell you it is the best this side of Gen Smiths head quarters [sic]. Jake Keaffer [sic] just came in. He was on picket with me last night and tried for about two hours to catch some guinea hens for a New Year dinner. They were too wild for him and so he filled his haversack with potatoes out of a hole he found. He wont [sic] starve in this country. Remember me to all friends and all write soon.

Then, barely a week into the New Year, the regiment’s most persistent and dangerous foe to date resumed its assault, claiming H Company Private Jacob S. R. Gardner as one of the first of what would be a stunning number of casualties for the 47th Pennsylvania in 1862. Unable to withstand the “one-two punch” he absorbed from contracting measles after having just survived a battle with Variola (smallpox), the former Perry County laborer died on January 8. His brothers, Sergeant Reuben Shatto Gardner and Corporal John A. Gardner, who had both been serving side-by-side with him in H Company, saw to the shipping arrangements which sent Jacob’s body back home for interment at the Newport Cemetery in Newport, Pennsylvania, but they did not accompany the transport. Instead, they tamped down their grief and returned to duty—a difficult act that would continue to be repeated by numerous other heartbroken brothers for years to come across a bitterly divided United States.

Meanwhile, at dawn on the same day of Private Gardner’s passing, the bulk of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had just begun to carry out the latest directive from superior officers. Marching from Camp Griffin toward the Army of the Potomac’s central command—the headquarters of Brigadier-General William F. (“Baldy”) Smith, the 47th Pennsylvanians met up with six additional Union infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and a ten-piece artillery unit. Moving on as part of this larger force, they continued on to Lewinsville, where they picked up the support of an additional 233 Union wagons.

Heading out again, they trekked on for eight miles until reaching Peacock Hill, where they chased off a significantly smaller group of Confederate States Army troops from picket duty, and then proceeded to remove 200 bushels of corn and 30 loads of hay.

Sergeant-Major William M. Hendricks, central regimental command, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (c. 1863, public domain).

In his subsequent recap of the event, Sergeant-Major William M. Hendricks noted, “We just marched up to a corn crib, and off went the roof, and the wagons were backed up and filled.” The 47th Pennsylvanians were back in camp that same day by 4 p.m.

According to Gobin in his own letter home, which was penned on the same day of the expedition:

“Yesterday our division of about ten thousand men went out to Hunters Mill, and got 252 wagon loads of forage. We drove in the Rebel pickets and waited a long time for them to come at us, but they did not show themselves. The march was a hard one. I was very tired, but one nights [sic] sleep, and all as sound as ever.”

On Friday, January 10, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were informed that they had performed their duties so admirably up to this point that they had been chosen by Union Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan to join a new expedition under his leadership. Shortly thereafter, the members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry began packing up their regiment’s tents, Springfield rifles, ammunition, cooking utensils, and other equipment critical to any Union Army unit on the move.

Excerpt of letter from Sergeant John Helfrich, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, January 12, 1862 (used with permission from Colin Colfield).

In the midst of all of this, G Company Sergeant John Helfrich carved time out to pen the following letter:

“Camp Griffin,
Jan. 12th 1862

Dear Parents,

I will again address you, in order to inform you of my getting along, and at the same time I will remark that this will to all probability be the last letter that I may be able to write, while at this place, as we have orders to leave at almost any moment. The place of our destination I can not [sic] name for certain, however, it is rumored that we would go to Florida.

While I am writing, I am informed that we will first go either to Baltimore or Anapolis [sic], and there join the fleet just about being fitted out for some southern seaport. Our going is a certainty, as Gen. Brannan, has gone to either of the above named places to make the necessary arrangements, preparatory to our going.

Yesterday, (Saturday) our regiment was paid for the preceeding [sic] two month service. The monthly wages of a sergeant is seventeen and those of a private thirteen, dollars.

Our company has first passed through the usual Sunday morning inspection, when each man is [to] have a suit of clean clothes in his knapsack, and must also have his arms, and accoutrements, in perfect good condition. This inspection, greatly promotes the healthy, as well as the good appearances of the soldier, and in fact is indispensable.

Our company is in excellent health not a man is at present in the hospital. The health of the regt. has always been pretty good during the first four month [sic] we are now in service, which is verified by the fact that there occurred but seven cases that proved fatal, out of our nine hundred men, and we can not [sic] find language to express our thanks to the Great giver of this our greatest and blessing, that a mortal being can enjoy, and it is our prayer that He may continue to bless us in the future.

I would very much like to see my friends and relations first before we go, but time, and circumstances, will not permit me to do so. I hope however that the time may soon be at hand, when peace may again be restored to our former blessed land, and when those who are now separated from their Parents and friends, fighting for their country, cause and honor, may again be permitted to return home, and enter the circle of their Parents, families, and friends, left and home in peace and prosperity.

Enclosed find ten dollars of my wages. I would send you more, but perhaps I may need it myself, from this until next payday. I must now close by saying that I am well, hoping that you and all the rest of the family are enjoying the same. Remember me kindly to all my friends at home and abroad.

A friendly goodby [sic] to you all.

Your son,

John G. Helfrich

Will write again soon if I am spared to do so.

J. G. Helfrich”

The City of Richmond, a sidewheel steamer which transported Union troops during the Civil War (Maine, c. late 1860s, public domain).

Lined up and ready to move out early on the morning of Wednesday, January 22, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers “gave three cheers for Camp Griffin” after listening to the 47th Pennsylvania’s Regimental Band play “Auld Lang Syne,” according to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt. Marching forth at 8:30 a.m., the men of B Company brought up the rear as the regiment slogged through snow and deep mud for three miles in order to reach the Vienna railroad depot in Falls Church, Virginia. Arriving at 9:30 a.m., they boarded a train and departed at 11 for Alexandria, Virginia where, a half hour later, they marched behind their band to the strains of “Yankee Doodle.”

Arriving at the docks nearby, they quickly began loading their equipment on the City of Richmond, a steamship which ultimately transported them along the Potomac River to the Washington Arsenal, where they disembarked sometime around 4 p.m. Marched from the arsenal area’s docks to the munitions storage area, regimental leaders replenished the ammunition supplies of the regiment, one company at a time—a process which took roughly two hours. They were then marched off for dinner and rest at the Soldiers’ Retreat in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Naval Academy Barracks and temporary hospital, Annapolis, Maryland (c. 1861-1865, public domain).

The next day (January 23), the 47th Pennsylvanians reloaded their equipment onto and then boarded a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train. Departing for Annapolis, Maryland at 2 p.m., they arrived around 10 p.m., were assigned quarters in barracks at the U.S. Naval Academy, and turned in for the night. They then spent that Friday through Monday (January 24-27) loading their equipment and other supplies onto the 210-foot steamship S.S. Oriental. Those preparations ceased on Monday, January 27, at 10 a.m., however, in order to make time for a very public dismissal of one member of the regiment—Private James C. Robinson—who was dishonorably discharged from the 47th Pennsylvania (effective on that same date). According to regimental historian Schmidt and letters home from members of the regiment:

“The regiment was formed and instructed by Lt. Col. Alexander ‘that we were about drumming out a member who had behaved himself unlike a soldier.’ …. The prisoner, Pvt. James C. Robinson of Company I, was a 36 year old miner from Allentown who had been ‘disgracefully discharged’ by order of the War Department. Pvt. Robinson was marched out with martial music playing and a guard of nine men, two men on each side and five behind him at charge bayonets. The music then struck up with ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as the procession was marched up and down in front of the regiment, and Pvt. Robinson was marched out of the yard.”

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were transported to Florida aboard the steamship S.S. Oriental in January 1862 (public domain).

Reloading then resumed and, that same afternoon (January 27), the enlisted members of the 47th Regiment, Volunteer Infantry began to board the Oriental, followed by their superior officers. Ferried to that Philadelphia-built steamship by smaller steamers, they sailed away for America’s Deep South at 4 p.m., per the directive of Brigadier-General Brannan. They were headed for Florida which, despite its secession from the Union, remained strategically important to the Union due to the presence of Forts Taylor and Jefferson in Key West and the Dry Tortugas. Their ship, which was captained by Benjamin F. Tuzo, was rocked by rough seas for much of their trip; consequently, many members of the regiment suffered from intense seasickness—particularly as the Oriental made its way down the stormy coast of the Carolinas and passed the Bahamas and Great Abaco Island.

On February 2, Regimental Chaplain William DeWitt Clinton Rodrock gathered his flock together for Sunday services, which began with the tolling of the ship’s bell at 11 a.m., a selection of hymns performed by the Regimental Band, and an opening prayer and scripture reading by Rodrock. Following the regiment’s singing of “From All That Dwell Below the Skies” (accompanied by the band to the music of “Old Hundred”), Rodrock presented that week’s sermon, which was based on the Bible’s “Acts of the Apostles,” chapter 17, verse 23. The service then closed with the singing of “Lord Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing” and the Doxology, followed by Rodrock’s benediction.

That day and the next, the men’s spirits were boosted further by the sight of dolphins swimming alongside the Oriental.

Rendering of Fort Taylor, Key West, Florida (Harper’s Weekly, 1864, public domain).

Arriving in the waters off Key West, Florida at 8 p.m. on Monday, February 3, the 47th Pennsylvanians were forced to endure a waiting game aboard ship until a pilot could be brought aboard to bring the ship into a safe place in the harbor—a process the pilot began at 7 a.m. the next morning.

According to Schmidt, “The deck was crowded with the regiment’s men, with the band playing as they passed some of the men-at-war…. Arriving in the harbor at 8 AM, the bands playing ‘national songs’ and numerous onlookers, including many ‘colored women,’ along the shore watching the ship sail into port.”

“After disembarking at 9 AM on the dock about one mile west of Fort Taylor, the regiment marched down the main street of the city in their regular order of column of divisions, and stacked their weapons, waiting until the unit would be notified where to make camp…. At 12 in the afternoon, the men were ordered to fall in and stand to attention, and with their 23 member band playing and the ladies of Key West waving their handkerchiefs, and with quite a crowd of followers, the 1000 men marched to their new camp ‘one fourth mile out of the city, near the beach,’ across from the barracks of the 90th New York Regiment.”

Led to the area of Key West that is now known as Palm and White streets, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were, in fact, initially housed just 350 feet from the ocean—a locale which may sound breathtakingly luxurious to the modern day reader until one realizes that the 47th Pennsylvanians’ first nights were “spent in blankets on the beach, with knapsacks for pillows”—a vexing, sandy state of affairs which persisted until their tents were unloaded and assembled on Thursday, February 6.

Even so, the members of the regiment still managed to make an early, favorable impression on Key West residents, including a New York Herald reporter who “commented on the fact that the 47th was equipped with the best weapons available, and was the best looking Volunteer Regiment he had ever seen.’’

Adjutant and 1st Lieutenant Washington H. R. Hangen (c. 1862-1864, public domain).

This was in very large part due to the leadership of Colonel Tilghman H. Good, the founder and commanding officer of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, who had been placed in charge not just of the 47th Pennsylvania, but of all of the men who had been assigned to serve under Brannan in Key West, including two volunteer regiments from New York and U.S. Army artillery units. Good would continue to perform this role until Brannan was able to reach Florida and assume command of his brigade. The 47th Pennsylvania’s Regimental Adjutant Washington H. R. Hangen was then also appointed as Adjutant General for Brannan’s brigade.

And those tents which took so long to be delivered and assembled? They were officially designated as “Camp Brannan” in honor of the brigadier-general who had requested that the 47th Pennsylvania be assigned to his command.

* NOTE: Three months after dropping the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers off in Key West, the steamship Oriental ran aground and sank north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Its boiler may still be seen from shore while walking along the beach at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

 

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, Vol 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.

2. Faust, Drew G. “The Civil War soldier and the art of dying,” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 67, No. 1, pp. 3-38. Houston, Texas: Southern Historical Association (Rice University), 2001.

3. Gobin, John Peter Shindel. Personal Letters, 1861-1865. Northumberland, Pennsylvania: Personal Collection of John Deppen.

4. Helfrich, John G. Personal Letters, 1862. Mesa, Arizona: Personal Collection of Colin Cofield.

5. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

6. Wharton, Henry D. Letters from the Sunbury Guards. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 1861-1868.

 

 

October 1861: Drummer Boys, Disease, and Death

U.S. Soldiers’ Asylum Home Cemetery, Washington, D.C., circa 1861 (public domain).

“[T]he impact and meaning of the war’s casualties were not simply a consequence of scale, of the sheer numbers of Union and Confederate soldiers who died. Death’s significance for the Civil War generation derived as well from the way it violated prevailing assumptions about life’s proper end — about who should die, when and where, and under what circumstances.”

— Drew Gilpin Faust, Ph.D., President Emeritus and the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor, Harvard University and author, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War

 

Less than a month after leaving the great Keystone State for the Eastern Theater of America’s shattering Civil War, the members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry encountered their most fearsome foe — the one they would consistently find the most difficult to defeat throughout the long war — disease.

It was an enemy, in fact, that turned out to be the deadliest not just for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, but for the entire Union Army as it fought to preserve the nation’s Union while ending the practice of slavery across the United States. Per The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, sixty-two percent of all Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War were felled by disease, rather than by the shrapnel-spewing blasts of Confederate cannon or the accurately targeted minié balls of CSA rifles.

Surprising as this may seem to this century’s students of American History, it shouldn’t be, according to infectious disease specialist Jeffrey S. Sartin, M.D.:

“The American Civil War represents a landmark in military and medical history as the last large-scale conflict fought without knowledge of the germ theory of disease. Unsound hygiene, dietary deficiencies, and battle wounds set the stage for epidemic infection, while inadequate information about disease causation greatly hampered disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Pneumonia, typhoid, diarrhea/dysentery, and malaria were the predominant illnesses. Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 deaths of soldiers were caused by uncontrolled infectious diseases, and epidemics played a major role in halting several major campaigns. These delays, coming at a crucial point early in the war, prolonged the fighting by as much as 2 years.”

With respect to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, the two diseases which wreaked such devastating havoc early on were Variola (smallpox) and typhoid fever.

Variola

A transmission electron micrograph of an 1849 strain of Variola shows several smallpox virions. Note the “dumbbell-shaped” structure. Located inside the virion, this is the viral core, and contains the DNA of the virus (Temple University, public domain via Wikipedia).

Variola, more commonly known as “smallpox,” was an acute infectious disease that, even in the mildest of cases in 1861, was highly contagious. Notable for the high fever it caused, it also produced individual, boil-like eruptions across the human body. Known as “pocks,” these eruptions would quickly become fluid-filled pustules — even with the weakest strains of the disease — that would, if sufferers survived, eventually burst, leaving them badly scarred.

If, however, the soldier contracted the most virulent form of the disease — Variola confluens — as happened with at least one member of the 47th Pennsylvania — the suffering and likelihood of death was much, much greater. Far more severe than the strain that would have typically sickened the average child or adult during the mid-1800s, Variola confluens produced patches of pustules, rather than individual pocks. Forming on the face in such large swaths, the skin of the soldier who had been unfortunate to contract this strain of the disease would have appeared to have been burned or blistered. In addition to the horrific facial disfigurement, that soldier would also likely have experienced hair loss, severe pain and damage to his mucous membranes, mouth, throat, and eyes as the fever ravaged his body and continued to climb. If the disease devolved into the hemorrhagic phase prior to his death, the pocks on his face and mucous membranes would then also have begun to bleed.

Most likely exposed to the disease sometime while they were encamped in Virginia with their regiment, the first of the 47th Pennsylvanians to contract Variola would not initially have noticed any symptoms during this disease’s ten to fourteen-day incubation period. The first symptoms they would have experienced would have been due to rigor (sudden chills as the onset of fever began, alternating with shivering and sweating). As this primary fever increased, their temperatures would have risen to 103° or 104° Fahrenheit or higher over a two-day period, quickening the pulse and causing intense thirst, headache, constipation, vomiting, and back pain. As their conditions worsened, they might also have experienced convulsions and/or a redness on their abdomens or inner thighs — markings which might have appeared to be a rash of some sort or the beginnings of scarlet fever, but which were, in fact, a series of small, flat, circular spots on the body caused by bleeding under the skin and known as “petechiae.”

It would only have been on roughly the third day, post-incubation period, that these same men would have noticed that their faces were erupting with boils, but even then, they might have missed this sign because such pocks typically appeared as a single patch of redness on the sufferer’s forehead, near the roots of the hair. Within hours of this first eruption, however, the soldiers would most certainly have realized that something was wrong as they began scratching to relieve the itching on patches that had spread across their faces and bodies — particularly when the pocks began to fill with fluid and swelled to pea-sized bumps.

Likely sent to the regiment’s hospital sometime around this time, these 47th Pennsylvanians would have been transferred to the eruptive fever hospital on the Kalorama Heights in Georgetown before the week was out because, by day eight or nine, their skin would have become inflamed and swollen as the fluid in the pocks changed from clear to yellow, began to smell, and spread to their mouths, throats, noses, and eyes, putting their breathing and vision at risk. Increasingly hoarse, despite the increase in saliva they were experiencing, their bodies would then also have been overtaken by secondary fever, followed possibly by delirium and then coma.

If they somehow managed to survive until the disease’s latter phase, the pustules would have eventually dried up (typically on the twelfth day, post-incubation); if they didn’t, death most likely would have ensued due to myocardial insufficiency caused by the weakening of their heart muscles.

Typhoid Fever

An image of Salmonella typhi, the bacteria which cause typhoid fever (U.S. Armed Forces. Institute of Pathology, public domain).

Often confused with the insect-borne typhus fever, typhoid fever is caused by bacteria. Poorly understood well into and beyond the mid-nineteenth century, despite having sickened countless numbers of individuals since the time of Hippocrates, according to American University historian Thomas V. DiBacco, typhoid fever’s method of transmission remained unidentified until 1856. That year, it finally dawned on scientists that fecal matter contaminated with Salmonella typhosa, one of the strains of bacteria now known to cause food poisoning, was at the root of the “persistently high fever, rash, generalized pains, headache and severe abdominal discomfort,” and intestinal bleeding of the patients physicians were failing to save.

Spread by the unsanitary conditions so common to the close living quarters shared by America’s Civil War-era soldiers, as well as by their respective regimental company cooks who were often forced to prepare meals with unclean hands when their regiments stopped briefly during long marches, the typhoid fever-causing Salmonella typhosa bacterium would typically enter a soldier’s body “through food, milk or water contaminated by a carrier,” but might also have been contracted just as easily via a bite from one of the many flies swarming around a regiment’s latrine facilities or horses.

And, because the “worst manifestations” of the disease did not appear until two or three weeks into an individual’s illness, according to DiBacco, typhoid fever was able to spread like wildfire not just during its incubation period, but even when soldiers were aware that others within their respective companies were ill because “typhoid victims were disposed to think the malady less serious as time went by.”

It is this latter fact alone that, perhaps, explains why outbreaks of typhoid fever continued to plague the 47th Pennsylvania throughout the duration of the war when Variola did not.

The First ”Men” to Die

Court House, Sunbury, Pennsylvania, 1851 (James Fuller Queen, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

The first “man” to die from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was John Boulton Young, a thirteen-year-old drummer boy who was known affectionately as “Boulty” (alternatively, “Boltie”). A member of the regiment’s C Company, he served under Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, but was known to, and beloved by, the majority of the roughly one thousand men who served with the 47th.

Born on 25 September 1848 in Sunbury, Pennsylvania as the second oldest son of Pennsylvania natives, Michael A. and Elizabeth (Boulton) Young, Boulty was still in school at the time of his enlistment for Civil War military service in his hometown on 19 August 1861. He clearly lied about his age on military paperwork that day, indicating that he was fourteen, rather than twelve — a fiction which was maintained by Gobin and his fellow C Company officers throughout the boy’s tenure of service.

* Note: According to historians at the American Battlefield Trust, “For most of the war, the minimum enlistment age in the North was legally held at 18 for soldiers and 16 for musicians, although younger men could enlist at the permission of their parents until 1862. In the South, the age limit for soldiers stayed at 18 until 1864 when it was legally dropped to 17.”

Just four feet tall at the time of his official muster in at the rank of musician (drummer boy) at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg on 2 September, Boulty was so small that his superiors needed to customize both his uniform and his drum to make it easier for him to function as a member of the 47th Pennsylvania.

The Kalorama Eruptive Fever Hospital (also known as the Anthony Holmead House in Georgetown, D.C. after it was destroyed in a Christmas Eve fire in 1865 (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

After completing basic training and traveling by train with his regiment to the Washington, D.C. area in mid-September, Boulty subsequently endured several long marches, including at least one undertaken in a driving rain. By late September or early October of 1861, Boulty had contracted such a challenging case of Variola (smallpox) that regimental surgeons ordered his superiors to ship him from Virginia, where the 47th Pennsylvania was encamped as part of the Army of the Potomac, to the eruptive fever hospital on the Kalorama Heights in Georgetown, District of Columbia.

Diagnosed by the physicians there with Variola confluens, the most virulent form of the disease, he died at that hospital on 17 October 1861. His body was then quickly prepared and transported for burial. Initially interred in Washington, D.C. at the Soldiers’ Asylum Cemetery (now known the United States Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home Cemetery), his remains were disinterred in early 1862, and returned to Pennsylvania for reburial at Penn’s Cemetery in his hometown of Sunbury.

To learn more about Boulty’s life before and during the Civil War, as well as what happened to the surviving members of his family, read his biographical sketch, The First “Man” to Die: Drummer Boy John Boulton Young.

Alfred Eisenbraun

Allentown, circa 1840 (public domain).

The second “man” from the 47th Pennsylvania to die was also a drummer boy — fifteen-year-old Alfred Eisenbraun, who served with the regiment’s B Company. A native of Allentown, Pennsylvania who was born in June of 1846, he was a son of Johann Daniel Eisenbraun, a noted Frakturist and tombstone carver who had emigrated from Württemberg, Germany to the United States in 1820, and Lehigh County, Pennsylvania native Margaret (Troxell) Eisenbraun.

Unlike “Boulty,” however, Alfred Eisenbraun had already left his studies behind, and had joined his community’s local workforce in order to help support his family. Employed as a “tobacco stripper,” he separated tobacco leaves from their stems before stacking those leaves in piles for the creation of cigars or chewable tobacco. As he did this, he likely would have been “breathing foul air, in rooms bare and cold or suffocatingly hot”, possibly “in a damp basement, musty with mould [sic] or lurking miasma,” according to Clare de Graffenried, a 19th-century U.S. Bureau of Labor employee who researched and wrote extensively about child labor.

So, it comes as no surprise that a boy in Eisenbraun’s situation would have viewed service with the military as a vast improvement over his existing job — especially if the pay was higher — which it most certainly was. Just barely fifteen when he enrolled for Civil War service in his hometown on 20 August 1861, Eisenbraun officially mustered in at the rank of musician (drummer boy) with the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company B at Camp Curtin on 30 August. Military records at the time described him as being five feet, five inches tall with black hair, black eyes and a dark complexion. His commanding officer was Captain Emanuel P. Rhoads.

Like Boulty, Eisenbraun completed basic training, traveled by train with his regiment to the Washington, D.C. area in mid-September, and then endured several long marches, including the same one that was undertaken in a driving rain. And, like Boulty, Eisenbraun also fell ill in late September or early October.

The Union Hotel in Georgetown, District of Columbia became one of the U.S. Army’s general hospitals during the American Civil War (image circa 1861-1865, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

But unlike Boulty, Eisenbraun was felled by typhoid fever. According to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt, the teen “had been sick almost from the time the regiment left Camp Curtin” in mid-September. After initially receiving treatment from regimental physicians through at least mid-October, he was sent back to the Washington, D.C. area to receive more advanced care. Per Schmidt, two of Eisenbraun’s fellow B Company members “visited Alfred at the fort on the 21st … and found him getting better, pleased to see them, and happy to engage in some conversation.”

But on Thursday morning, 24 October, after Captain Rhoads headed over to the fort’s hospital nearby, he was informed that Eisenbraun “and all the other sick men had been moved to the General Hospital in Georgetown.” Assuming that Eisenbraun’s condition had improved, since he’d apparently been deemed well enough to travel, Rhoads returned to his camp site, confident that he’d see the boy again — but he was wrong.

Eisenbraun, it turned out, had been transported to the former Union Hotel in Georgetown, which had been converted into one of the U.S. Army’s general hospitals. He died there from typhoid fever on 26 October 1861. Like Boulty, he was laid to rest at the Soldiers’ Asylum Cemetery in Washington, D.C.; unlike Boulty, however, his remains were never brought home.

To learn more about Alfred’s life before and during the Civil War, read his biographical sketch, Alfred Eisenbraun, Drummer Boy – The Regiment’s Second “Man” to Die.

The Third to Die: Sergeant Franklin M. Holt

Court House, Amherst, New Hampshire, circa 1858 (public domain).

Franklin M. Holt had already distinguished himself before becoming the first “true man” from the 47th Pennsylvania’s rosters to die. The regiment’s third fatality, he was also one of a handful of non-Pennsylvanians serving with this all-volunteer Pennsylvania regiment.

Born in New Hampshire in 1838, Frank Holt was a son of Cambridge, Massachusetts native, Edwin Holt, and Mont Vernon, New Hampshire native, Susan (Marden) Holt. A farmer like his father, he left his home state sometime around the summer of 1860, and took a job as a “map agent” in Monmouth County, New Jersey. But by the spring of 1861, he had relocated again, and had adopted the Perry County, Pennsylvania community of New Bloomfield as his new hometown.

That same spring, when President Abraham Lincoln issued his call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to help defend the nation’s capital following the fall of Fort Sumter to troops of the Confederate States Army, Holt enrolled with Company D of the 2nd Pennsylvania Infantry, completing his Three Months’ Service from 20 April to 26 July 1861 under the leadership of Henry D. Woodruff.

Realizing that the fight to preserve America’s Union was far from over, Holt re-enlisted in the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s D Company, which was also commanded by Captain Woodruff. Following his re-enrollment on 20 August in Bloomfield, he then re-mustered at Camp Curtin on 31 August at the rank of sergeant and, like drummer boys John Boulton Young and Alfred Eisenbraun, completed basic training before traveling with the regiment to the Washington, D.C. area for service with the Army of the Potomac.

Enduring a climate of torrential rain and pervasive, persistent dampness during his early days of service, Holt ultimately also fell ill with Variola (smallpox) and, like drummer boy Young who had also contracted the disease, he was transported to the eruptive fever hospital on the Kalorama Heights in Georgetown, District of Columbia, where he was treated by at least one of the same physicians who treated Boulty. Despite having apparently been diagnosed with a less severe form of the disease (according to military records which noted that Holt was sickened by Variola rather than the Variola confluens that felled Boulty), Sergeant Holt died at Kalorama on 28 October 1861.

“Kind, gentlemanly courteous, and honest in all his transactions,” according to the New Bloomfield Democrat, Holt had also “won for himself the esteem of all who knew him” prior to his untimely death. Like the two young drummer boys before him, he too was buried quickly at the Soldiers’ Asylum Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Although his remains were also never returned home, Holt was ultimately honored by members of his family, who erected a cenotaph in his honor at the Meadow View Cemetery in Amherst, New Hampshire.

To learn more about Frank’s life before and during the Civil War, read his biographical sketch, Holt, Franklin M. (Sergeant).

To learn more about Civil War Medicine, in general, as well as the battle wounds and illnesses most commonly experienced by members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, please visit the Medical section of this website.

 

Sources:

  1. Affleck, M.D., J. O. “Smallpox,” in “1902 Encyclopedia.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th and 10th editions (online), 2005-2019.
  2. Alfred Eisenbraun (obituary). Allentown, Pennsylvania: Lehigh Register, 30 October 1861.
  3. Alfred Eisenbraun (obituary), in “Gestörben.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: Der Lecha Caunty Patriot, 6 November 1861.
  4. Allen Eisenbraun (death notice), in “Deaths of Soldiers.” Washington, D.C.: The Evening Star, 28 October 1861.
  5. Barker, M.D., Lewellys Franklin. Monographic Medicine, Vol. II: “The Clinical Diagnosis of Internal Diseases,” p. 431 (“Variola confluens”). New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1916.
  6. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol.1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  7. Burial Ledgers (Eisenbraun, Alfred; Holt, Franklin M.; Young, J. Bolton), in Records of The National Cemetery Administration and U.S. Departments of Defense and Army (Quartermaster General), 1861. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  8. “Casualties and Costs of the Civil War.” New York, New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
  9. Civil War General Index Cards (Eisenbraun, Alfred and Eisenbrown, Allen), in Records of the U.S. Department of the Army. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and Fold3: 1861.
  10. Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1865 (Eisenbraun, Alfred; Holt, Franklin M.; Young, J. Bolton). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  11. “Death of a Young Soldier” (obituary of John Boulton Young). Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania: Star of the North, Wednesday, 30 October 1861 (reprinted from the Sunbury Gazette).
  12. “Deaths of Soldiers” (death notice for John Boulton Young). Washington, D.C.: The National Republican, 18 October 1861.
  13. de Graffenried, Clare. “Child Labor,” in Publications of the American Economic Association, Vol. 5, No. 2. New York, New York: March 1890 (accessed 22 March 2016).
  14. DiBacco, Thomas V. “When Typhoid Was Dreaded.” Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post, 25 January 1994.
  15. “The Drummer Boy’s Monument” (monument erected to John Boulton Young). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 6 February 1864.
  16. Fabian, Monroe H. John Daniel Eisenbrown, in “Pennsylvania Folklife Book 62,” in Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 2. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: 1975.
  17. Faust, Drew G. “The Civil War soldier and the art of dying,” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 67, No. 1, pp. 3-38. Houston, Texas: Southern Historical Association (Rice University), 2001.
  18. Holt Eulogy. New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania: New Bloomfield Democrat, 1861. Inkrote, Cindy. “Civil War drummer boy was different kind of hero.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 4 October 2009.
  19. Letters of John Peter Shindel Gobin, 1861-1900. Various Collections (descendants of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, et. al.).
  20. “Registers of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865: 47th Regiment” (Companies B, C, and D) in Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs (Record Group 19, Series 19.11). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  21. Sartin, M.D., Jeffrey S. “Infectious diseases during the Civil War: The triumph of the ‘Third Army,’” in Clinical Infectious Diseases, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 580-584. Cary, North Carolina: Oxford University Press, April 1993.
  22. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  23. U.S. Census. Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania (Allentown and Sunbury, Pennsylvania; Amherst, New Hampshire; Monmouth, New Jersey): 1840-1930.
  24. U.S. Registers of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861 (Eisenbraun/Eisenbraum, Alfred; Holt, Franklin/Frank M; Young, J. Bolton/Jno. B.). Washington, D.C.: United States Army and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

 

September 1861: A New Pennsylvania Regiment Heads for Washington, D.C. and War

First State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Presented to the Regiment by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin on 20 September 1861. Retired 11 May 1865. Source: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee (1985.057, State Color, Evans and Hassall, v1p126).

As the days of September 1861 rolled away and summer turned to fall, the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which had been founded by Colonel Tilghman H. Good on 5 August 1861, and had been trained in Hardee’s Light Infantry Tactics as its men mustered in by company at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg from mid-August through mid-September, was finally given its first official assignment — to defend its nation’s capital, which had been threatened with invasion by troops of the Confederate States Army.

Roughly seventy percent of the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry hailed from the Keystone State’s Lehigh Valley, including the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton and surrounding communities in Lehigh and Northampton counties. Company C, which had been formed primarily from the men of Northumberland County and was led by Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, was more commonly known as the “Sunbury Guards.” Companies D and H were staffed largely by men from Perry County. Company K was formed with the intent of creating an “all German” company comprised of German-Americans and German immigrants. In actuality, the majority of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were men of German descent — a noteworthy fact when considering the significant role played by German immigrants and German-Americans prior to, during, and after the American Civil War. Curriculum developers at Boston’s WGBH Educational Foundation, which produced the 1998 PBS television series, Africans in America, note that:

“As early as 1688, four German Quakers in Germantown near Philadelphia protested slavery in a resolution that condemned the “traffic of Men-body.” By the 1770s, abolitionism was a full-scale movement in Pennsylvania. Led by such Quaker activists as Anthony Benezet and John Woolman, many Philadelphia slaveholders of all denominations had begun bowing to pressure to emancipate their slaves on religious, moral, and economic grounds.

In April 1775, Benezet called the first meeting of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage at the Rising Sun Tavern. Thomas Paine was among the ten white Philadelphians who attended; seven of the group were Quakers. Often referred to as the Abolition Society, the group focused on intervention in the cases of blacks and Indians who claimed to have been illegally enslaved. Of the twenty-four men who attended the four meetings held before the Society disbanded, seventeen were Quakers.

Six of these original members were among the largely Quaker group of eighteen Philadelphians that reorganized in February 1784 as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage (commonly referred to as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, or PAS). Although still occupied with litigation on behalf of blacks who were illegally enslaved under existing laws, the new name reflected the Society’s growing emphasis on abolition as a goal. Within two years, the group had grown to 82 members and inspired the establishment of anti-slavery organizations in other cities.

PAS reorganized once again in 1787. While previously, artisans and shopkeepers had been the core of the organization, PAS broadened its membership to include such prominent figures as Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, who helped write the Society’s new constitution. PAS became much more aggressive in its strategy of litigation on behalf of free blacks, and attempted to work more closely with the Free African Society in a wide range of social, political and educational activity.

In 1787, PAS organized local efforts to support the crusade to ban the international slave trade and petitioned the Constitutional Convention to institute a ban. The following year, in collaboration with the Society of Friends, PAS successfully petitioned the Pennsylvania legislature to amend the gradual abolition act of 1780. As a result of the 2000-signature petition and other lobbying efforts, the legislature prohibited the transportation of slave children or pregnant women out of Pennsylvania, as well as the building, outfitting or sending of slave ships from Philadelphia. The amended act imposed heavier fines for slave kidnapping, and made it illegal to separate slave families by more than ten miles.”

Although the Pennsylvania Abolition Society’s influence had begun to wane by the early 1800s, men and women of German descent helped to reinvigorate support for the abolition of slavery in the lead-up to and during the Civil War. According to Kenneth Barkin, professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Riverside, “it is increasingly evident that German immigrant opposition to slavery was so pervasive that it may have been a crucial, albeit, ignored factor in the victory of Union forces.”

“Of the 1.3 million German immigrants in the United States before 1860, approximately 200,000 either volunteered for or were drafted into the Union Army. They produced a considerably higher percentage of Union soldiers per hundred thousand immigrants in the U.S. population than either the British or the Irish. About 24 percent of Union troops were born outside of the United States, and 10 percent of all Union soldiers were of German origin. There were several battalions with German soldiers and officers in which the German language was used for communication.”

In the case of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, many of the men who were of German heritage and their families still spoke German or “Pennsylvania Dutch” at their homes and churches more than a century after their ancestors emigrated from Germany in search of religious or political freedom.

The 47th Pennsylvania was also noteworthy because it attracted males of diverse ages. Its youngest member was John Boulton Young, a thirteen-year-old drummer boy from Sunbury, Pennsylvania; its oldest was Benjamin Walls, a sixty-five-year-old, financially successful farmer from Juniata County who would, at the age of sixty-eight, attempt to re-enlist after being seriously wounded while protecting the American flag in combat. They and their comrades were initially led by Colonel Tilghman Good, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander, and Major William H. Gausler.

Thomas Coates, “Father of Band Music in America,” led the 47th Pennsylvania’s Regimental Band from August 1861 to September 1862 (public domain).

On Friday the 13th, there were frequent bouts of inspiration among Harrisburg residents, rather than of superstitious worry, as three thousand men from the 47th Pennsylvania and other volunteer regiments from the Keystone State marched in an impromptu parade from Camp Curtin through the city’s main streets.

The next day, members of the 47th Pennsylvania marched forth again — this time to welcome the arrival of their Regimental Band, which was led by the “Father of Band Music in America,” Professor Thomas Coates, and was comprised primarily of musicians from the Easton-based ensemble known as Pomp’s Cornet Band, as well as members of the Allentown Band. Later that evening, the band performed for Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin.

With the majority of the regiment’s officers and enlisted men mustered in by 19 September 1861, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was ordered to head south for Washington, D.C.

A Journey of Heroes Begins

President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train passes through the train station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 22 April 1865 (public domain).

Their epic journey began on 20 September 1861. Directed to begin packing at 5:00 a.m. so that they would be ready for a 7:00 a.m. departure by train, the men of the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry pulled their gear together and assembled in formation at Camp Curtin. They were then presented with the Pennsylvania State Battle Flag (shown at the top of this article). Also known as the First State Color, it had “a field of 34 white stars, one for each state both north and south, on a blue background in the upper left corner in the shape of a rectangle covering approximately 19% of the flag’s total area, with 17 stars above and below the state emblem, which consisted of two white horses, eagle, seal and inscription,” according to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt. “The remainder of the flag was composed of 7 red and 6 white alternating horizontal stripes, and the whole was fringed with gold braid. The unit designation was painted in gold on the center red stripe to the right of the bottom of the blue field. As battle citations were awarded each unit, they would be painted on the red stripes in gold lettering.”

This flag would ultimately be carried by regimental color-bearers between the fall of 1861 and 11 May 1865 into Confederate States of America-held territories of the United States, as well as throughout multiple U.S. territories that were recaptured by Union troops, and would also serve as a rallying point during the intense, smoke-filled battles fought by the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Virginia in 1862 and 1864.

Marched to the train station in Harrisburg, they boarded cattle and hog cars on a Northern Central Railway train, and then did what military men have done throughout the ages. They waited — and waited. By the time of their 1:30 p.m. departure, a crowd “had gathered and lined both sides of the track, all the way from the depot to the other side of the bridge which crosses the Susquehanna River,” according to Schmidt. “Everyone was cheering, flags were flying, and the men were hanging from the cars, all in a great state of excitement. Many railroad friends of the Easton contingent that had been part of the 1st Regiment during earlier service, turned out to see them off with their new unit, having transported them to the seat of war on earlier occasions.”

Traveling by way of York, Pennsylvania, they finally reached the Bolton Depot in Baltimore, Maryland, where they disembarked, refilled their canteens with water, lined up behind their Regimental Band, and marched with their loaded rifles across the city to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station. Once there, they clambered aboard “glorious to tell, real genuine passenger cars” and departed for Washington, D.C., according to Captain Gobin, who added that the “lateness of the hour did not prevent the appearance, at a great many windows, of white robed fair ones, who had evidently risen from their beds to greet and cheer us as we passed.”

Soldier’s Rest, Washington, D.C., circa 1860s (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Just outside of Baltimore, according to Schmidt, “the troop train had to ‘switch off’ for a short time, as the regular passenger train passed.” Consequently, the 47th Pennsylvanians did not arrive in the nation’s capital until 9:00 a.m. on 21 September. Disembarking after the train came to a stop, they were granted a brief respite at the Soldier’s Rest there, according to C Company Musician Henry Wharton, who later penned a recap of their travels for 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.”

Gobin, who was Wharton’s direct superior, added that, when they arrived at the Soldier’s Rest, “we found the Union Relief Association had provided ice water in abundance for us, while hot coffee could be obtained for three cents a cup. I indulged in several of the latter.” Schmidt later uncovered these additional details about their brief period of respite:

“At 9 AM, the regiment arrived in Washington and Col. Good left to find a place for the men to camp and get some rest, while Lt. Col. Alexander busied himself seeing to the problem of procuring some cooked rations for the troops. The first building that they saw when they arrived was a very large structure near the railroad which displayed a sign with prominent letters that read ‘The Soldier’s Rest’, a place they intended to head for at the first opportunity. Lt. Col. Alexander returned shortly thereafter and instructed the Captains to take their companies, two at a time, to another building conveniently in view in the distance, and identified by its large sign with letters in bold relief advertising ‘Soldier’s Retreat’, where the men were served cooked beef, bread and coffee. The soldiers satisfied their hunger with this excellent meal, and ‘partook that which sticks to your ribs’, before settling down and enjoying a few hours rest and free [time], after which they washed up and had their pictures taken.”

Afterward, according to Wharton, they “were ordered into line and marched, about three miles” to “Camp Kalorama” on the Kalorama Heights near Georgetown — just two miles from the White House.

“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.”

Union General George B. McClellan on Horseback (Harper’s Weekly, January 1862, public domain).

The length of that march was, in fact, closer to four miles, and was “considerably more difficult,” according to Schmidt, “since the men had not had any sleep the night before and they were marching in the warmest part of the day with a strong, bright sun in their faces the whole way.” That march also turned out to be a noteworthy one for an entirely different reason, according to Wharton:

“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 [sic] they had missed the sight of, and the neglect of not saluting the soldier next in command to Gen. Scott.”

The weary 47th Pennsylvanians finally arrived at Camp Kalorama around 5:00 p.m. on 21 September, and immediately began to erect their white soldiers’ tents — an activity they continued to engage in even as the region’s rainy weather began to increase in intensity.

The U.S. Capitol, under construction at the time of President Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration (shown here), was still not finished when the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers arrived in Washington, D.C. in September 1861 (public domain).

The next day, as Wharton was penning his 22 September recap to the Sunbury American, he described Colonel Tilghman Good as “an excellent man and a splendid soldier” and “a man of very few words” who continually attend[ed] to his duties and the wants of the Regiment,” and added that C Company’s William Hendricks had been promoted to the rank of regimental sergeant-major. “He made his first appearance at guard mounting this morning; he looked well, done up his duties admirably, and, in time, will make an excellent officer.” Gobin observed that their new home was “a very fine location for a camp…. Good water is handy, while Rock Creek, which skirts one side of us, affords an excellent place for washing and bathing.”

Within short order, several 47th Pennsylvanians were given passes to the city, including members of Company D who “climbed to the top of the unfinished Capitol,” and B Company’s Corporal Henry Storch and Private Luther Mennig, who were sent to the Washington Arsenal on regimental business. On 24 September 1861, the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry finally became part of the Union Army when its men were officially mustered into federal service. Members of the regiment dressed in the standard dark blue wool uniforms worn by the regular troops of the U.S. Army.

Three days later, the regiment was attached to the Army of the Potomac, and assigned to Brigadier-General Isaac Stevens’ 3rd Brigade, 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.

Chain Bridge across the Potomac above Georgetown looking toward Virginia, 1861 (The Illustrated London News, public domain).

Marching behind their Regimental Band, the Mississippi rifle-armed 47th Pennsylvania infantrymen reached Camp Lyon, Maryland on the Potomac River’s eastern shore. At 5:00 p.m., they joined the 46th Pennsylvania in moving double-quick (onehundred 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 trudged into 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, and were situated fairly close to Brigadier-General William Farrar Smith’s headquarters. 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 of 1862 when the men of the 47th Pennsylvania would be shipped south.

Once again, 47th Pennsylvanians took pen to paper to recap their regiment’s activities, including Privates George Washington Hahn, David Huber and Frederick Scott of E Company who sent this letter to the editor of the Easton Express:

“Most likely you have already published the letter from the headquarters of the company, but it may also be interesting to some of your readers to hear from the boys.

We left Harrisburg at 1-1/2 p.m. on Friday last, and after a ride of about twenty-four hours in those delightful cattle cars, we came in sight of the Capitol of the U.S. with colors flying and the band playing and everyone in the best of spirits. After waiting a few minutes, we were provided with an excellent dinner of bread, beef and coffee, and then proceeded to Camp Kalorama, near Georgetown Heights and about three miles from Washington. We have one of the best camps in the Union; plenty of shade trees, water and food at present; we have had no ‘Hardees’ [hardtack] yet in this camp, but no doubt we will have them in abundance by and by. But we can cook them in so many different ways, they are better than beef. We soak them overnight, fry them for breakfast, stew them for dinner, and warm them over for supper. Who wouldn’t be a soldier and get such good living free gratis?

We are all happy boys. The way we pass our time in the evening is as follows: first, after supper, we have a good Union song, then we read, write, crack jokes and sing again. We are ‘gay and happy’ and always shall be while the stars and stripes float over us.

We have one of the best regiments we have yet seen, and no doubt in a few months, it will be the crack regiment of the army. We have a noble Colonel and an excellent Band, and the company officers throughout are well drilled for their positions. Our boys are well and contented; satisfied with their clothing, satisfied with their rations, and more than all satisfied with their officers, from Captain to the 8th Corporal. Our boys will stand by the Captain till the last man falls. We had the pleasure this morning of meeting an old Eastonian, Major Baldy. He looks well and hearty and says he is ready for action. His men are in the rifle pits every night and think nothing of facing the enemy.

This morning we took a French pass [leave without authorization] and visited Georgetown Heights; we stood on top of the reservoir and from there had a fine view of the Federal forts and forces on the other side of the Potomac. It looks impossible for an enemy to enter Washington, so strongly fortified is every hill and the camps connect for miles along the river. We saw General McClellan and Professor Lowe taking a view of the Confederate army from the balloon. The rebels are now only four miles from here. But we are afraid we have taken too much of your room. You may expect to hear from us again soon.”

Company C Musician Henry Wharton then noted via this 29 September letter 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], 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.”

According to G Company Private George Xander, after their initial arrival at Camp Advance/Fort Ethan Allen, the 47th Pennsylvanians immediately began building “defensive works” that “were thrown up with logs, in front of which a ditch eight feet wide and eight feet deep was dug. A powder magazine was also built.” On 28 September, the regiment was ordered to relocate yet again. After marching two more miles, they re-pitched their tents along a hill at the back of the fort, becoming part of the 4th Provisional Brigade, along with the men from Colonel Cosgrove’s 27th Indiana Volunteers, Colonel Leasure’s Roundheads, Colonel McKnight’s Wildcats, and Colonel Robinson’s 1st Michigan Volunteers.

The military action described by Wharton above in which “our boys were supplied with twenty rounds of ball and cartridge” actually began at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, 28 September in response to intelligence received by senior Union Army officials that Fort Ethan Allen was likely to be attacked by Confederate forces that night. After making their way inside the fort at 10:30 p.m., the 47th Pennsylvanians formed battle lines “against the breastworks where they remained until 2 AM, when they were relieved by the 33rd New York Regiment and told to rest and sleep on their arms,” according to Schmidt. Around 4:00 a.m., they were then “ordered to march ‘double-quick for about three miles to Vandersburg Farm, where encountering no officers with instructions, Col. Good decided to advance another mile…. Here he found Gen. Smith who ordered the 47th into position in reserve. Many ambulances were coming up the road with the dead and wounded, and there were dead horses and broken gun carriages lying all about. It was reported that there were about 17 killed and 25 wounded.”

Although the 47th Pennsylvania was later reported to have been involved in the fighting, they were not. They had narrowly missed being ensnared in a “friendly fire” incident between the 69th and 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and instead had been ordered to return to their campsite on the hill after having completed their guard duties inside the fort. Finally able to enjoy a hearty breakfast that Sunday morning, the regiment then participated in the Sunday religious services which were being presented by Chaplain Rizer of the 79th New York Highlanders. The sermon was delivered by Rizer in German out of respect for the significant number of men in the 47th Pennsylvania who were German immigrants or were German-Americans who spoke “Pennsylvania Dutch.”

Simon Cameron, President Lincoln’s first Secretary of War, shown between 1860 and 1870 (public domain).

That evening of Sunday, 29 September, Simon Cameron, a native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania who was serving as President Lincoln’s Secretary of War, officially welcomed the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry to Washington.

The month then closed with the men of 47th’s B and D Companies marching four miles away from the camp to perform a 48-hour stint of picket duty, beginning on 30 September 1861.

Exactly two months later, the sentiments of Civil War-era soldiers regarding their assignment to picket duty was eloquently evoked by a 30-something, female poet and short story writer in the “The Picket Guard.” Penned by Ethel Lynn Beers, the poem was initially published in the 30 November 1861 edition of Harper’s Weekly. It was then later set to music, and became more commonly known as “All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night”:

“ALL quiet along the Potomac to-night!”
Except here and there a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
‘Tis nothing! a private or two, now and then,
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost, only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night!
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
And the light of the camp-fires are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping;
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard o’er the army sleeping.
There’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.

His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother—”may Heaven defend her!”
The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then—
That night when the love, yet unspoken,
Leaped up to his lips, when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.

Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to his breast
As if to keep down the heart’s swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree,
And his footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.

Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle: “Ha! Mary, good-by!”
And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.
“All quiet along the Potomac to-night!”
No sound save the rush of the river,
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
The picket’s off duty forever!

 

Sources:

  1. Barkin, Kenneth. “Ordinary Germans, Slavery, and the U.S. Civil War,” in “Essay Reviews,” in The Journal of African American History, Vol. 93, No. 1, Winter 2008, pp. 70-79. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press (published for the Association for the Study of African American and History), 2008.
  2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, Prepared in Compliance with Acts of the Legislature, vol. 1, 1150-1190. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  3. Beers, Ethel Lynn. “The Picket Guard.” New York, New York: Harper’s Weekly, 30 November 1861.
  4. Egle, William H. Life and Times of Andrew Gregg Curtin, pp. 127, 250. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Thompson Publishing Co., 1896.
  5. “47th Infantry, First State Color,” in “Pennsylvania Civil War Battle Flags.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee.
  6. “Founding of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,” in Africans in America. Boston, Massachusetts: WGBH Educational Foundation, 1998.
  7. Hahn, George Washington, David Huber and Frederick Scott. Letter from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Easton, Pennsylvania: Easton Daily Evening Express, September 1861.
  8. Hardee, William Joseph. Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics. Memphis, Tennessee: E.C. Kirk & Co., 1861.
  9. Henry, Matthew Schropp. History of the Lehigh Valley, Containing a Copious Selection of the Most Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, etc., etc., Relating to Its History and Antiquities, pp. 141-143. Easton, Pennsylvania: Bixler & Corwin, 1860.
  10. “Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting the report of Major General George B. McClellan upon the organization of the Army of the Potomac, and its campaigns in Virginia and Maryland, from July 26, 1861, to November 7, 1862.” Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office (Ex. Doc. No. 15 produced for the 38th Congress, 1st Session, U.S. House of Representatives), 1864.
  11. Mathews, Alfred and Austin N. Hungerford. History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Everts & Richards, 1884.
  12. Newman, Richard S. “The PAS and American Abolitionism: A Century of Activism from the American Revolutionary Era to the Civil War,” in “Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers,” in “History Online: Digital History Projects.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, retrieved online 28 August 2019.
  13. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  14. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 1861-1862.

 

Faces of the 47th Project Honors History-Making Civil War Soldiers from Pennsylvania

First Lieutenant William Wallace Geety, Co. H, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, c. 1864-1865.

A tantalizing new video released by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story just opened an important new portal to the 19th century for Civil War enthusiasts, teachers, students, and genealogists.

Faces of the 47th is part of a larger, ongoing initiative to document and raise public awareness about the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry – the only regiment from the Keystone State to fight in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign  across Louisiana. The video presents the photographic and illustrated images of more than two dozen men who fought with the all-volunteer unit between 1861 and 1865.

“Each one of these images holds the potential to help family history researchers feel closer to their Civil War-era ancestors while also enabling teachers, students and Civil War enthusiasts to deepen their connections to one of the most painful chapters in the American narrative,” explains Laurie Snyder, managing editor for the project. “By ‘putting faces to the names’ on military muster rolls, we’re bringing history to life while also paying tribute to those who fought to eradicate slavery and preserve our nation’s union.”

The photo digitization project received early support from Thomas MacEntee, founder of High-Definition Genealogy, via The Genealogy Fairy™ program, which enabled Snyder to locate and digitize photographs of key members of the regiment. Among the images preserved in this initial collection are the faces of a regimental chaplain, musicians, prisoners of war (POWs), military surgeons, and officers and enlisted men who were grievously wounded or killed in combat, as well as several men who became inventors, leading business executives and elected officials in and beyond Pennsylvania after the war.

George Dillwyn John (third from left; formerly, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers), Grand Army of the Republic gathering, Will Robinson Post, Illinois, c. 1926.

“At the time I applied for the grant, there were hundreds of photographs tucked away in public libraries, historical societies, universities, and private family history collections from Maine to California and Michigan to Louisiana. Most had not yet been digitized and might have been lost for all time had Thomas MacEntee not provided the support he did when he did,” said Snyder. “More work still needs to be done, of course, because there are photos still not yet scanned, but the project took more than two dozen giant steps forward with just that one grant from Thomas. He’s a hero in my book.”

Other significant support for the project has been provided by the Burrowes and Wasserman families.

About the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers

Joseph Eugene Walter, Regimental Band, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, c. 1861.

Recruited primarily at community gathering places in their respective home towns, the soldiers who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were primarily men of German heritage whose families still spoke German or “Pennsylvania Dutch” more than a century after their ancestors emigrated from Germany in search of religious and political freedom. Still others were recent immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Cuba. Formerly enslaved black men who had been freed by the regiment from plantations in South Carolina and Louisiana were added to regimental rosters in 1862 and 1864.

In addition to fighting in the battles of Sabine Cross Roads/Mansfield, Pleasant Hill and Monett’s Ferry/Cane River during the Red River Campaign, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers also engaged in the defense of Washington, D.C. in 1861 and again in 1865, following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln; the capture of Saint John’s Bluff, Florida and Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina (1862); the garrisoning of Forts Taylor and Jefferson in Key West and the Dry Tortugas, Florida (1863); Union Major-General Philip Sheridan’s tide-turning Shenandoah Valley Campaign (1864), including the battles of Berryville, Opequon, Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek; and provost (military police) and Reconstruction duties in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina (1865). Most were finally released from duty when the regiment formally mustered out on Christmas Day in 1865.

Learn More and Support

To learn more about the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers and lend your support to this historic initiative, visit the website of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, and follow the project on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube.

 

 

Blest Be the Tie That Binds – Putting Aside Differences to Become One Nation, Indivisible on Memorial Day

Ottumwa today showed her honor to the nation’s defenders by closing shop and factory, school and place of merchandising, that all might lend their token of honor and veneration to the memory of those who fought, bled and died that the country might live. The Grand Army of the Republic, the Women’s Relief corps, those who were orphaned through the great strife of nearly half a century ago, and others that represent a grateful nation, have devoted this day to the memory of the Union soldiery of the civil war, both living and dead. The dead are being remembered by eulogy and flower tribute, the living by the willingness manifest by the people generally to honor the dead and the cause that all feel a like interest in. Music and eloquence, silent tears and prayers, the floral tribute that adds a fragrance incense-like to the solemn occasion – all are blended with the full heart of gratitude and esteem paid the memory of the dead and living veterans who made possible the happiness and prosperity, peace and security that today is the blessed heritage of the citizens of the United States. – Ottumwa Courier (1 June 1911)

 

Ottumwa, Iowa. Most Americans recognize the name of this community in the nation’s heartland as the hometown of fictional television character Walter O’Reilly – better known as “Radar,” the young corporal at the 4077th M.A.S.H. who slept with a teddy bear while coming of age at an army hospital during the Korean War. His eyes witnessed the worst of humanity; his responses to the most painful of those moments tweaked the collective conscience of the millions of television viewers tuning in each week, reminding us that displays of kindness, compassion and hope are still possible even in the midst of hate and horror.

But Ottumwa also has ties to very real wars, including to America’s terrible Civil War – and to one of that war’s lesser known, but valiant regiments – the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. For it was in Ottumwa where Lewis W. Saylor (1845-1877) chose to resettle after serving two terms as a Private with Company H of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, and where he closed his eyes for the final time and was buried with military honors.

Memorial Day Planning Headline, Ottumwa Courier, 9 May 1901 (public domain).

Memorial Day Planning Headline, Ottumwa Courier, 9 May 1901 (public domain).

On Memorial Day in 1911, Ottumwans honored Lewis Saylor and more than 200 other Civil War veterans with pomp and poignant oratory. The day began with a gathering by members of the Grand Army of the Republic’s Cloutman post who rode or marched from the court house to the Ottumwa Cemetery, the place where the largest number of Civil War soldiers had been laid to rest. The 1 June 1911 edition of the Ottumwa Courier described the procession as follows:

Led by six police officers each of whom carried a large bouquet of flowers to place upon the graves of the veteran dead, the parade formed and wended its way up Court hill. The Fifty-fourth regiment band attired in its military uniforms added a martial aspect to the pageant which was inspired by the national melodies that were rendered by this excellent musical organization. The local guardsmen of Co. G.I.N.G. were also in the line as were a number of Sons of Veterans aiding by their presence to the occasion that honored their fathers’ memory. The speakers in carriages and the old soldiers in vehicles were also in evidence and excited the love and esteem of the onlookers as the parade moved forward to the cemetery. Both Cloutman and Tuttle posts of the G.A.R. and the Relief corps of the two posts were a part of the parade. Citizens voluntarily fell in to swell the ranks and lend their aid to the expression of honor and esteem of the veterans. 

A large crowd was gathered in the city park preliminary to the starting of the parade and in the band stand of the park, the Fifty-fourth rendered several selections while the crowds assembled. Carriages and autos gathered about the park ready to join in the parade to the cemetery, and the street cars carried hundreds to the graves of the departed veterans and relatives as the pageant moved slowly toward the cemetery.

The Courier went on to report that members of the G.A.R and Women’s Relief Corps also decorated the graves of Union veterans at the Calvary Cemetery, and added:

Honorable Ellsworth Rominger of Bloomfield this morning made the Memorial day address in South Ottumwa. He told a remnant of the Grand Army of the Republic, their wives who largely comprised the Women’s Relief Corps and the children of the veterans, of the great debt the nation owes the noble sons who in the stormy days of the nation’s strife and her hour of greatest need, responded to the call. He graphically sketched and in a realistic panorama brought before the minds of the assemblage the days of the civil war, and equally effective was his treatment of the fruits of this terrible conflict so great in cost to the nation.

 Noting that the ranks of the aging Civil War veterans were now “somewhat thinner,” the Courier also observed that:

The ravages of passing years was made more evident in the expressions and step of the veterans who each year have assembled at this memorial gatherings. There were present those who had to be wheeled to the hall in a chair, some who are bent with age an infirmity, but all seemed young once more as the days of the civil war were recalled by the speakers.”

The Program

Memorial Day Headline, Ottumwa Courier, 31 May 1900 (public domain).

Memorial Day Headline, Ottumwa Courier, 31 May 1900 (public domain).

Commander J. Trisler began the day’s events at the 1911 Memorial Day ceremony in Ottumwa with a brief speech, followed by prayers delivered by the pastor of the Davis Street Christian Church, Rev. S. I. Elder, and the formal Memorial Day address by Major Hamilton. The regimental band of the Fifty-Fourth Iowa then led the G.A.R marchers into the ceremonial gathering, and Ellsworth Rominger began his aforementioned address. Declaring that the Grand Army of the Republic would continue to live on in the hearts and minds of Americans even after the passing of the G.A.R.’s final member, Rominger added:

If you would ask me what this great war cost, I would ask you to accompany me through the soldiers’ home of this state and look into the faces of 600 veterans. There your answer would be plain and you would readily appreciate the great cost the war had been. It is said that this strife cost the nation $400,000,000 and 100,000 lives, more than enough to purchase all of the slaves. But that was not the cost, for it cannot be computed in money.

Rominger then said something which still holds a powerful truth, and is worthy of taking to heart in the midst of America’s recent heated election season. Despite the extreme divisiveness which erupted before and during America’s Civil War, Americans who had opposed each other in battle later went on to come together to work for the betterment of their nation and respective communities. They found the strength to forgive, to put aside their differences, and to compromise. To illustrate his point, he recalled the dignity accorded to a Confederate soldier’s recent burial. Accompanied by a Grand Army of the Republic honor guard, the soldier’s casket was draped with both the Confederate flag (“stars and bars”) and the American flag.

To solidify that sentiment and close that 1911 Memorial Day program, Ottumwans joined in singing Blest Be the Tie That Binds:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above. 

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our alms, are one,
Our comforts and our cares. 

We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear,
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear. 

When here our pathways part,
We suffer bitter pain;
Yet, one in Christ and one in heart,
We hope to meet again. 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way,
While each in expectation lives
And longs to see the day. 

From sorrow, toil, and pain,
And sin we shall be free
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity. 

– John Fawcett (1772)

Others who had served with East Coast or federal units during the Civil War and were also lionized that day included:

  • Applegate, N. S.: Co. E, 9th New Jersey Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Barnhart, Ira: Co. H, 124th New York Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Buckley, Thomas R.: Co. M, 3rd New York Cavalry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Best, Nelson: Co. I, 47th New York Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Bannister, D.: Colonel and paymaster, U.S. Volunteers, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Caton, James C.: 50th U.S. Infantry, interred at the Catholic Cemetery;
  • Conlin, Michael: Co. K, 160th New York Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Carter, Josiah: Co. C, 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Davenport, W.D.: Co. H, 3rd New York Cavalry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Davis, Edmund: 24th Pennsylvania Reserves, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Dodd, Zachariah: Co. C, 18th U.S. Colored Troops, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Dougherty, Constantine: 1st Mechanical Engineering Corps, interred at the Catholic Cemetery;
  • Fetzer, W. H.: 10th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Fleming, John: 16th U.S. Infantry, interred at the Catholic Cemetery;
  • Grebby, George: Co. F, 8th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Hutchison, J. G.; 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Hoffman, William: Pennsylvania Reserves, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Jolliff, Jas.: Co. K, 116th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Keister, J. D.: Co. I, 44th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Kilby, L. W.: Co. F, 147th New York Volunteers, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Manchester, J. C.: Co. E, 1st Connecticut Artillery, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Mahon, S. K.: Captain, 16th U.S. Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Miller, William: 55th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Mills, Robert: 11th U.S. Cavalry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Morley, George: Co. C, 19th U.S. Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Peck, Jesse: Co. H, 85th Pennsylvania Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Powell, C. C.: Co. I, 9th Delaware, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Shaw, F. B.: 33rd Massachusetts Infantry, interred at Shaul Cemetery;
  • Smith, Zachias: Corporal, Co. G, 1st U.S. Battery, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery;
  • Stewart, Calloway: Co. G, 2nd U.S. Infantry, interred at Shaul Cemetery;
  • Stoddard, John C.: Surgeon, 56th U.S. Infantry, interred at Ottumwa Cemetery; and
  • Wilson, J. H.: Co. C, 15th New York Artillery.

As you celebrate Memorial Day this year, take a moment to give thanks to the men, women and children who gave so much so that we might remain “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

 

Battle Flags – 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

First State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Presented to the Regiment by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin on 20 September 1861. Retired 11 May 1865. Source: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee (1985.057, State Color, Evans and Hassall, v1p126).

First State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Presented to the Regiment by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin on 20 September 1861. Retired 11 May 1865. Source: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee (1985.057, State Color, Evans and Hassall, v1p126).

Second State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Presented to the Regiment, Spring 1865; documents the Regiment's major engagements. Source: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee (1985.058. State Color, Horstmann Brothers and Company, v1p127).

Second State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Presented to the Regiment, 7 March 1865; documents the Regiment’s major engagements. Source: Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee (1985.058. State Color, Horstmann Brothers and Company, v1p127).