Tag Archives: Washington

Honoring President George Washington, Fort Taylor, Key West, Florida (February 22, 1862)

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

Letter from the Sunbury Guards
Camp Brannan. Key West, Fla., Feb. 27, 1862.

DEAR WILVERT:– Gen. Brannan and staff arrived here on Friday last, on the steamer Philadelphia. He made his first appearance, to us, on our parade ground, at dress parade, and seemed pleased at the improvement the men had made with their new arms, in the manual. After dress parade he rode passed [sic] the different streets of the regiment, and the enthusiastic cheers given him showed that he was liked, and that the men had perfect confidence in him.

Saturday last, the anniversary of the birth of “the Father of his Country,” WASHINGTON, was celebrated in a becoming manner. The whole Brigade was formed in Divisions, which made three sides of a square; the officers in the centre [sic]. A prayer was then offered to the Throne of Grace asking for success to our arms, that this wicked rebellion might be put down, and that we might hereafter celebrate the anniversary of Washington’s birthday in peace. The farewell ‘Address’ was then read….

Washington & Lincoln (Apotheosis), J. A. Arthur, 1865 (public domain).

When 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Henry D. Wharton penned those words from his duty station at Fort Taylor in Key West on February 27, he was referring to the final public address given by the first President of the United States, GeorgeWashington, as he prepared to retire from his life of public service. Written on September 19, 1796, Washington’s insightful words reminded Wharton and his fellow Union Army soldiers what they were fighting to preserve.

Picture them as they stood there, attired in their blue uniforms, the American flag wafting gently in the breeze under the brilliant blue sky of a sunny, Florida day, as a senior officer solemnly read Washington’s final guidance to his beloved fellow Americans–guidance that remains relevant even now.

Washington’s Final Address (Excerpt)

Friends and Fellow Citizens:

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn….

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.

With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole….

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views.

One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection….

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another….

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy….

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, hunanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an eual and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed–in order to give to trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit … constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another….

Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence….

The reading of Washington’s lengthy final address continued on. The full address is available online here. It is well worth reading–and re-reading, on an annual basis.

 

Sources:

  1. “Farewell Address (1796).” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: National Constitution Center, retrieved online February 17, 2025.
  2. “George Washington’s Farewell Address.” Mount Vernon, Virginia: George Washington’s Mount Vernon, retrieved online February 17, 2025.
  3. Wharton, Henry. “Letter from the Sunbury Guards: Camp Brannan, Key West, Florida, February 27, 1862.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American, 15 March 1862.

 

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.

April 17, 1865: A Nation in Mourning Begins to Move Forward

Andrew Johnson, photographed by Matthew Brady sometime between 1860 and 1875, was sworn in as president of the United States on April 15, 1865 (Matthew Brady Collection, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, is now President of the United States. The mysterious purposes of Divine Providence, far beyond the extremest perception of man’s mere judgment, in shaping the ends his wisdom deems to be wisest for our chastisement or in promoting our good, will chasten us while humbling us in the dust in the bereavement the People have sustained through that most wicked act, the bold and daring assassination of the President of the United States. Such an act of perfidy and atrocity has no parallel in the annals of deep and damning crime. The world will stand aghast in horror and detestation of the brutal murder, when the terrible tidings will have reached earth’s remotest extremity.

— The Constitutional Union newspaper, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday, April 17, 1865

 

That opening paragraph of Philadelphia’s Constitutional Union article, “The New President,” illustrates both the State of the Union and the state of mind of the average American during the first days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—the collective and individual states of bewilderment and grief while looking back and reflecting on Lincoln’s life and death while also worrying about what the future held as a new leader was introduced to the nation.

That new leader—President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who had been quietly sworn in as the seventeenth president of the United States on the same day that Lincoln died—April 15, 1865—had worked his way up from an early-career job as mayor of a local town in Tennessee to a later-life election to the United States Senate, becoming the only senator from America’s Deep South to remain in service with the Senate when southern states began their secession from the Union in December 1860. Subsequently appointed by Lincoln as Tennessee’s military governor in March 1862, he had then been placed on the Republican ticket as Lincoln’s running mate during the pivotal presidential election of November 1864, and had been sworn in as the nation’s vice president in March 1865—just forty-two days before he succeeded Lincoln.

Like Lincoln and Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, Andrew Johnson had also been the target of the assassination conspiracy that unfolded on April 14, 1865. But Johnson was luckier. George Atzerodt, the man who had been assigned to assassinate him, changed his mind as he reached Kirkwood House, the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel where Johnson lived, and, instead, left Washington, D.C., hoping to evade capture.

Shortly before sunrise, while still the sitting vice president, Johnson visited the unconscious, dying president at his bedside at the Petersen House, spent a few moments consoling Lincoln’s family, and then walked the short distance back to his residence to prepare for the possibility of being sworn in as the nation’s next president.

Depiction of Andrew Johnson being sworn as the seventeenth president of the United States, April 15, 1865. The ceremony, attended by only a handful of senior government officials, was a subdued affair due to the death earlier that day of President Lincoln. It was held at Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C., where Johnson had resided since his inauguration as vice president forty-two days earlier (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 6, 1866).

Less than four hours after Lincoln’s death, Johnson was administered the Oath of Office by Chief Justice Salmon Chase of the United States Supreme Court, as several members of Lincoln’s former cabinet and Johnson’s former fellow senators looked on:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

After speaking those words, President Andrew Johnson told the small group:

The duties of the office are mine; I will perform them—the consequences are with God. Gentlemen, I shall lean upon you; I feel I shall need your support. I am deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the responsibilities of the duties of the office I am assuming.

It was at that moment, during the morning of April 15, 1865, that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry entered its tenure of Reconstruction Era service under a new commander-in-chief.

Members of the regiment began that new phase of duty with heavy hearts and hope for a brighter day, according to C Company’s Henry Wharton. Writing to the editor of his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American, from an unidentified “Camp Near Washington, D.C.” on April 24, Wharton mused:

It is true we have sustained a great loss in the death of our much beloved President, but as it has pleased Divine Power to remove him from our midst, we should be thankful that He has given us such a great and determined man in his stead (Andrew Johnson) to drive on the machinery of the Government. It was a wise thing in the framers of the Constitution when they put in that clause, where if we lose our President the wheels of the Government can never be stopped. This is done by the Vice President, a plain unpretending citizen, on the death of the Chief Magistrate, stepping forward so to take the oath administered by the Chief Justice, and at once takes the responsibility of the office. No flourish of trumpets, nor convulsion of nations, but by the simple power vested in a Judge, a fellow citizen assumes power. This little fact proves that our Republic can never die.

I cannot describe to you the feeling of the army when the news reached us that Abraham Lincoln had been murdered by the assassin. I will not attempt it, for in doing so, I would work myself into a state to make me miserable. One thing – if the boys had gone into a fight that morning no prisoners would have been taken – no quarters given.

In Washington, the train containing the remains of our late President, passed us near the Annapolis Junction. There was [sic, were] nine cars heavily draped in mourning. Our train stopped on a siding. It was a solemn time. The men all uncovered in respect, and stout men wept as the last of him they loved, passed them, to be conveyed to its resting place. Along the whole route, houses were draped in mourning, and the American flag hung at half mast [sic, half-mast] with mourning. This showed the deep hold Mr. Lincoln had in the hearts of our people.

 

Sources:

  1. “Andrew Johnson’s Inauguration.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  2. “Andrew Johnson: The 17th President of the United States.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  3. “The New President” (announcement of President Andrew Johnson’s recent inauguration). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Constitutional Union, April 17, 1865.
  4. “The Swearing in of Andrew Johnson.” Washington, D.C.: Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) and the United States Senate, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  5. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

 

April 16, 1865: Stanton and Grant Inform the Union Army That President Lincoln Has Been Assassinated

Broadside showing the text of General Orders, No. 66 issued by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant on 16 April 1865 to inform Union Army troops about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and provide instructions regarding the appropriate procedures for mourning (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

General Orders, No. 66
War Department, Adjutant-General’s Office
Washington, April 16, 1865

The following order of the Secretary of War announces to the Armies of the United States the untimely and lamentable death of the illustrious ABRAHAM LINCOLN, late President of the United States:

WAR DEPARTMENT,
WASHINGTON, CITY, April 16, 1865

The distressing duty has devolved upon the Secretary of War to announce to the armies of the United States, that at twenty-two minutes after 7 o’clock, on the morning of Saturday, the 15th day of April, 1865, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, died of a mortal wound inflicted upon him by an assassin.

The Armies of the United States will share with their fellow-citizens the feelings of grief and horror inspired by this most atrocious murder of their great and beloved President and Commander-in-Chief, and with profound sorrow will mourn his death as a national calamity.

The Headquarters of every Department, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal will be draped in mourning for thirty days, and appropriate funeral honors will be paid by every Army, and in every Department, and at every Military Post, and at the Military Academy at West Point, to the memory of the late illustrious Chief Magistrate of the Nation and Commander-in-Chief of its Armies.

Lieutenant-General Grant will give the necessary instructions for carrying this order into effect.

EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War

On the day after the receipt of this order at the Headquarters of each Military Division, Department, Army, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal and at the Military Academy at West Point the troops and cadets will be paraded at 10 o’clock a. m. and the order read to them, after which all labors and operations for the day will cease and be suspended as far as practicable in a state of war.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of thirty-six guns.

The officers of the Armies of the United States will wear the badge of mourning on the left arm and on their swords and the colors of their commands and regiments will be put in mourning for the period of six months.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:
W. A. NICHOLS, Assistant Adjutant-General.

 

Sources:

  1. “General Orders No. 66: War Department, Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, April 16, 1865.” Washington, D.C.: United States Library of Congress, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
  2. “Stanton, Edwin McMasters (1814-1869) General Orders No. 66.” New York, New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
  3. Wooley, John and Gerhard Peters. “Announcement to the Army of the Death of President Lincoln,” in “The American Presidency Project.” Santa Barbara, California: Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, retrieved online April 16, 2024.

 

Black History Month: Paving the Way for the Integration of the Union Army

Abraham Lincoln in New York City on Monday morning, February 27, 1860, several hours before he delivered his Cooper Union address (Matthew Brady, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Acutely aware that Union military casualty figures had continued to climb as the American Civil War moved into and through its second year, President Abraham Lincoln and his senior military advisors soon realized that more drastic measures would need to be taken—and far more volunteer soldiers would need to be recruited if they were to ever begin healing their divided nation.

During the summer of 1862, President Lincoln kicked off that series of drastic measures by issuing his July 2 call for volunteers in which he pressed state governors of Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, as well as the president of the Military Board of Kentucky, to furnish an additional three hundred thousand men for military service. That action was followed by the passage, two weeks later, of the Militia Act of 1862 on July 17, through which the U.S. Congress empowered Lincoln to “make all necessary rules and regulations to provide for enrolling the militia,” and also authorized state and federal military units in Union-held territories to recruit and enroll enslaved and free Black men to fill labor-related jobs.

Starting on July 17, according to section twelve of that legislation, President Lincoln was “authorized to receive into the service of the United States, for the purpose of constructing intrenchments, or performing camp service or any other labor, or any military or naval service for which they may be found competent, persons of African descent.” In addition, the new law’s next section specified that “when any man or boy of African descent, who by the laws of any State shall owe service or labor to any person who, during the present rebellion, has levied war or has borne arms against the United States, or adhered to their enemies by giving them aid and comfort, shall render any such service as is provided for in this act, he, his mother and his wife and children, shall forever thereafter be free, any law, usage, or custom whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, That the mother, wife and children of such man or boy of African descent shall not be made free by the operation of this act except where such mother, wife or children owe service or labor to some person who, during the present rebellion, has borne arms against the United States or adhered to their enemies by giving them aid and comfort.”

The subsequent two sections of this act then spelled out how the newly enlisted Black soldiers would be compensated for their work, stating that “the expenses incurred to carry this act into effect shall be paid out of the general appropriation for the army and volunteers,” and that “all persons who have been or shall be hereafter enrolled in the service of the United States under this act shall receive the pay and rations now allowed by law to soldiers, according to their respective grades: Provided, That persons of African descent, who under this law shall be employed, shall receive ten dollars per month and one ration, three dollars of which monthly pay may be in clothing.”

Adding More Teeth to the Fight’s Bite

That same day (July 17 1862), the U.S. Congress then also passed the Confiscation Act of 1862, proclaiming that “every person who shall hereafter commit the crime of treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty thereof, shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free.”

A subsequent push that same summer by President Lincoln and his senior military advisors to state leaders to furnish an additional three hundred thousand men—for a revised total of six hundred thousand new volunteer soldiers—resulted in the enlistment of more than half a million men—with an additional ninety thousand troops added to Union rosters through the implementation of a nationwide draft.

Freeing More Enslaved Men and Enabling Them to Enlist

Page one of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln, September 22, 1862 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

President Lincoln followed up his blistering recruitment drive of the summer of 1862 by adding even more support for his plan to increase federal troop strength by issuing his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. Giving a preview of what he intended to do in 1863 if Confederate States officials failed to cease hostilities and rejoin the Union, he began paving the road for Union regiments to rescue and recruit larger numbers of enslaved men:

By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and part of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled ‘An Act to make an additional Article of War’ approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:

‘Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

Article-All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

Sec.2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled ‘An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,’ approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:

Sec.9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or) being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held as slaves.

Sec.10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.’

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act, and sections above recited.

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

[Signed:] Abraham Lincoln
By the President

[Signed:] William H. Seward
Secretary of State

Page one of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, January 1, 1863 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

When those state officials failed to comply, President Lincoln officially issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863:

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

‘That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.’

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Adding More Teeth to the Fight’s Bite

This Civil War-era recruiting flyer documents the service of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at Forts Taylor and Jefferson, Florida, under the leadership of Colonel Tilghman Good, as well as the premium and bounty added to standard pay to inspire more men to enlist (public domain).

Just over a month later, in February 1863, the United States Congress passed U.S. Senate Bill 511 (“An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes”). Better known as the “Enrollment Act of 1863” or “Conscription Act,” it was signed into law by President Lincoln on 3 March 1863, and gave state officials throughout the north the ability to draft men to serve whenever those officials were unable to meet their federal troop quotas through volunteer recruitment drives. It also allowed draftees to recruit others to muster in and serve for them.

Whereas there now exist in the United States an insurrection and rebellion against the authority thereof, and it is, under the Constitution of the United States, the duty of the government to suppress insurrection and rebellion, to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, and to preserve the public tranquility; and whereas, for these high purposes, a military force is indispensable, to raise and support which all persons ought willingly to contribute; and whereas no service can be more praiseworthy and honorable than that which is rendered for the maintenance of the Constitution and Union, and the consequent preservation of free government: Therefore—

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all able-bodied male citizens of the United States, and persons of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath their intention to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, except as hereinafter excepted, are hereby declared to constitute the national forces, and shall be liable to perform military duty in the service of the United States when called out by the President for that purpose.

SEC 2. And be it further enacted, That the following persons be, and they are hereby, excepted and exempt from the provisions of this act, and shall not be liable to military duty under the same, to wit: Such as are rejected as physically or mentally unfit for the service; also, First the Vice-President of the United States, the judges of the various courts of the United States, the heads of the various executive departments of the government, and the governors of the several States. Second, the only son liable to military duty of a widow dependent upon his labor for support. Third, the only son of aged or infirm parent or parents dependent upon his labor for support. Fourth, where there are two or more sons of aged or infirm parents subject to draft, the father, or, if he be dead, the mother, may elect which son shall be exempt. Fifth, the only brother of children not twelve years old, having neither father nor mother dependent upon his labor for support. Sixth, the father of motherless children under twelve years of age dependent upon his labor for support. Seventh, where there are a father and sons in the same family and household, and two of them are in the military service of the United States as non-commissioned officers, musicians, or privates, the residue of such family and household, not exceeding two, shall be exempt. And no persons but such as are herein excepted shall be exempt: Provided, however, That no person who has been convicted of any felony shall be enrolled or permitted to serve in said forces.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the national forces of the United States not now in the military service, enrolled under this act, shall be divided into two classes: the first of which shall comprise all persons subject to do military duty between the ages of twenty and thirty-five years, and all unmarried persons subject to do military duty above the age of thirty-five and under the age of forty-five; the second class shall comprise all other persons subject to do military duty, and they shall not, in any district, be called into the service of the United States until those of the first class hall have been called.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That, for greater convenience in enrolling, calling out, and organizing the national forces, and for the arrest of deserters and spies of the enemy, the United States shall constitute one or more, as the President shall direct, and each congressional district of the respective states, as fixed by a law of the state next preceding the enrolment, shall constitute one: Provided, That in states which have not by their laws been divided into two or more congressional districts, the President of the United States shall divide the same into so many enrolment districts as he may deem fit and convenient.

SEC 8. And be it further enacted, That in each of said districts there shall be a board of enrolment, to be composed of the provost-marshal, as president, and two other persons, to be appointed by the President of the United States, one of whom shall be a licensed and practising physician and surgeon.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That the enrolment of each class shall be made separately, and shall only embrace those whose ages shall be on the first day of July thereafter between twenty and forty-five years.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That all persons thus enrolled shall be subject, for two years after the first day of July succeeding the enrolment, to be called into the military service of the United States, and to continue in service during the present rebellion, not, however, exceeding the term of three years; and when called into service shall be placed on the same footing, in all respects, as volunteers for three years, or during the war, including advance pay and bounty as now provided by law.

SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That whenever it may be necessary to call out the national forces for military service, the President is hereby authorized to assign to each district the number of men to be furnished by said district; and thereupon the enrolling board shall, under the direction of the President, make a draft of the required number, and fifty per cent, in addition, and shall make an exact and complete roll of the names of the person so drawn, and of the order in which they are drawn, so that the first drawn may stand first upon the said roll and the second may stand second, and so on; and the persons so drawn shall be notified of the same within ten days thereafter, by a written or printed notice, to be served personally or by leaving a copy at the last place of residence, requiring them to appear at a designated rendezvous to report for duty. In assigning to the districts the number of men to be furnished therefrom, the President shall take into consideration the number of volunteers and militia furnished by and from the several states in which said districts are situated, and the period of their service since the commencement of the present rebellion, and shall so make said assignment as to equalize the numbers among the districts of the several states, considering and allowing for the numbers already furnished as aforesaid and the time of their service.

SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That any person drafted and notified to appear as aforesaid, may, on or before the day fixed for his appearance, furnish an acceptable substitute to take his place in the draft; or he may pay to such person as the Secretary of War may authorize to receive it, such sum, not exceeding three hundred dollars, as the Secretary may determine, for the procuration of such substitute; which sum shall be fixed at a uniform rate by a general order made at the time of ordering a draft for any state or territory; and thereupon such person so furnishing the substitute, or paying the money, shall be discharged from further liability under that draft. And any person failing to report after due service of notice, as herein prescribed, without furnishing a substitute, or paying the required sum therefor, shall be deemed a deserter, and shall be arrested by the provost-marshal and sent to the nearest military post for trial by court-martial, unless, upon proper showing that he is not liable to do military duty, the board of enrolment shall relive him from the draft.

SEC. 16. And be it further enacted, That as soon as the required number of able-bodied men liable to do military duty shall be obtained from the list of those drafted, the remainder shall be discharged; and all drafted persons reporting at the place of rendezvous shall be allowed travelling pay from their places of residence; and all persons discharged at the place of rendezvous shall be allowed travelling pay to their places of residence; and all expenses connected with the enrolment and draft, including subsistence while at the rendezvous, shall be paid form the appropriation for enrolling and drafting, under such regulations as the President of the United States shall prescribe; and all expenses connected with the arrest and return of deserters to their regiments, or such other duties as the provost-marshal shall be called upon to perform, shall be paid from the appropriation for arresting deserters, under such regulations as the President of the United States shall prescribe: Provided, The provost-marshals shall in no case receive commutation for transportation or for fuel and quarters, but only for forage, when not furnished by the government, together with actual expenses of postage, stationery, and clerk hire authorized by the provost-marshal-general.

SEC. 17. And be it further enacted, That any person enrolled and drafted according to the provisions of this act who shall furnish an acceptable substitute, shall thereupon receive from the board of enrolment a certificate of discharge from such draft, which shall exempt him from military duty during the time for which he was drafted; and such substitute shall be entitled to the same pay and allowances provided by law as if he had been originally drafted into the service of the United States.

SEC. 18. And be it further enacted, That such of the volunteers and militia now in the service of the United States as may reenlist to serve one year, unless sooner discharged, after the expiration of their present term of service, shall be entitled to a bounty of fifty dollars, one half of which to be paid upon such reenlistment, and the balance at the expiration of the term of reenlistment; and such as may reenlist to serve for two years, unless sooner discharged, after the expiration of their present term of enlistment, shall receive, upon such reenlistment, twenty-five dollars of the one hundred dollars bounty for enlistment provided by the fifth section of the act approved twenty-second of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, entitled “An act to authorize the employment of volunteers to aid in enforcing the laws and protecting public property.”

SEC. 25. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall resist any draft of men enrolled under this act into the service of the United States, or shall counsel or aid any person to resist any such draft; or shall counsel or aid any person to resist any such draft; or shall assault or obstruct any officer in making such draft, or in the performance of any service in relation thereto; or shall counsel any person to assault or obstruct any such officer, or shall counsel any drafted men not to appear at the place of rendezvous, or wilfully dissuade them from the performance of military duty as required by law, such person shall be subject to summary arrest by the provost-marshal, and shall be forthwith delivered to the civil authorities, and upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or by both of said punishments.

SEC. 33. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and empowered, during the present rebellion, to call forth the national forces, by draft, in the manner provided for in this act.

Those combined actions by President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress enabled the officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry to enroll the first four of nine formerly enslaved men in their regiment in early October 1862 while it was stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina—and then enabled the regiment’s officers to enroll five more formerly enslaved men in early April 1864 while the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were stationed in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Initially assigned the rank of “Under-Cook,” and entered on regimental muster rolls below the names of the men who had enrolled at the rank of private, several of these nine formerly enslaved men were later awarded the rank of private, according to subsequent regimental records. After completing their respective terms of enlistment, all but one were honorably discharged during the fall of 1865 with several also being awarded U.S. Civil War Pensions in later life. Their life stories are now being documented on the website, “Faces of the 47th: Freedmen of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.”

Next: Black History Month: The Authorization, Duties and Pay of “Under-cooks”

 

Sources:

  1. “An Act for enrolling and calling out the national Forces, and for other Purposes,” Congressional Record. 37th Cong. 3d. Sess. Ch. 74, 75. 1863. March 3, 1863.” New Haven, Connecticut: Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, retrieved online February 1, 2024.
  2. “Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863,” in “Presidential Proclamations, 1791-1991” (Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  3. “Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862,” in “Presidential Proclamation 93” (Record Group 11, vault, box 2: General Records of the U.S. Government). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  4. “The Conscription Act.; Judge Cadwallader’s Opinion Establishing Its Constitutionality.” New York, New York: The New York Times, September 13, 1863.
  5. “The Law of the Draft.; Important Circulars Issued by the Provost-Marshal General. No Escape After a Name is Enrolled. Penalties of a Failure to Respond The Treatment of Deserters. The Question of Exemptions.” New York, New York: The New York Times, July 19, 1863.

 

 

Attempts to End Chattel Slavery Across America: President Abraham Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863)

President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 (W.E. Winner, painter, J. Serz, engraver, circa 1864; public domain, U.S. Library of Congress).

“I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.”

—President Abraham Lincoln, “Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, 1863

 

With those words, President Abraham Lincoln and the United States of America took another step forward in the nation’s long process of ending the brutal practice of chattel slavery in America. Issued on January 1, 1863, “the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways,” according to historians at the U.S. National Archives. “It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.”

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery’s final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

By the time that President Lincoln had issued this proclamation, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had already become an integrated regiment, having enrolled four formerly enslaved Black men in October and November 1862 while the regiment was assigned to occupation duties with the United States Army’s Tenth Corps (X Corps) in Beaufort, South Carolina—a process the regiment would continue during its tenure as the only regiment from Pennsylvania to participate in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana—an integration process that was supported by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

Page one of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, January 1, 1863 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

The Full Text of the Emancipation Proclamation

January 1, 1863
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

‘That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.’

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

 

 

Sources:

  1. “Establishing Slavery in the Lowcountry,” in “African Passages, Lowcountry Adaptations.” Charleston, South Carolina: Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, retrieved online January 1, 2024.
  2. “Franklin, John Hope. “The Emancipation Proclamation: An Act of Justice,” in Prologue Magazine, Summer 1993, vol. 25, no. 2. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  3. Snyder, Laurie. “Freedmen from South Carolina,” in “Freedmen of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.” 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, 2023.
  4. “The Emancipation Proclamation.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, May 5, 2017.
  5. “Transcript of the Proclamation” (transcription of the Emancipation Proclamation).” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, May 5, 2017.

 

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Road to the Presidency

Abraham Lincoln in New York City on Monday morning, February 27, 1860, several hours before he delivered his Cooper Union address (Matthew Brady, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

During the almost quarter of a century that he resided in his adopted hometown of Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln was transformed from an average, young adult, who was embarking upon a crucial phase of his life’s journey in early nineteenth-century America, into the lawyer-turned-civic leader that would place his feet on the path to the White House.

A product of rural America, his formative years had been spent in Kentucky and southern Indiana. A resident of New Salem, Illinois in 1831, he was just twenty-five when he was elected to his first term in the Illinois State Legislature and began to study law more seriously. By 1837, he was a solicitor who lived and practiced law in Springfield. Married to Mary Todd five years later, he built his life with her at their Eighth and Jackson street-corner home, while also carving out a name for himself as a skilled and trustworthy legal scholar and successful courtroom attorney. Avidly interested in politics, he also became an active member of the Whig Party.

Persuaded by his wife and political associates to run for federal office in 1846, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in that same year. His initial service was short-lived, however; he had pledged to serve only one, two-year term, hoping to secure a more stable, federal government job in the administration of U.S. President Zachary Taylor. But when that opportunity fell through, he returned home to Springfield and threw himself back into the practice of law.

* Note: During his tenure with the U.S. House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln co-wrote a bill with Congressman Joshua R. Giddings that he hoped would end the practice of slavery in the District of Columbia. Lacking support from his fellow Whig Party members, however, he subsequently chose to withdraw that bill.

By the mid-1850s, Abraham Lincoln was realizing that his conscience would no longer permit him to sit on the sidelines, politically, when there was so much in his country that needed to be changed. Incensed by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which paved the way for the brutal practice of chattel slavery to spread like a wave of toxic sludge over newly-forming states, Lincoln left the Whigs behind to join a new, more forward-thinking political organization—the Republican Party.

Four years later, he mounted a campaign against U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Although he lost that race, he would forever become linked to that Democrat as a result of their famously intense Lincoln-Douglas Debates, a forum that gave him a nationwide name recognition so high that it enabled him to become President of the United States.

Chosen by the Republican Party in 1860 to be its candidate for the highest office in the nation, Abraham Lincoln was elected as President on November 6, 1860.

How That Crucial Election Day Unfolded

Hand-sewn banner used in Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 campaign for President of the United States (Lincoln Home, U.S. National Park Service, public domain).

According to Jamie Malanowski, a former editor at Time magazine:

“There were no surprises: the long-settled Yankees in Maine and New Hampshire and pioneering Germans of Michigan and Wisconsin delivered the expected victories. And then came news from Illinois: ‘We have stood fine. Victory has come.’ And then from Indiana: ‘Indiana over twenty thousand for honest Old Abe.’

The throngs in the streets cheered every report, every step towards the electoral college number, but news from the big Eastern states was coming painfully slowly…. The advisers paced the floorboards, jumping at every eruption of the rapid clacking of Morse’s machine….

It wasn’t until after 10 that reports of victory in Pennsylvania arrived in the form a telegram from the canny vote-counter Simon Cameron, the political boss of the Keystone State, who tucked within his state’s tallies joyfully positive news about New York: ‘Hon. Abe Lincoln, Penna seventy thousand for you. New York safe. Glory enough.’

Not until 2 a.m. did official results from New York arrive … the one-time rail-splitter won by 50,000 votes.”

The Aftermath

“As the votes were counted, Lincoln had about 40 percent of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes, compared with 133 for his opponents combined,” according to historians at the National Constitution Center, but events in America’s Deep South “cast a pall over the upcoming Electoral College voting process”:

“What if the southern states refused to take part in the Electoral College? Or what if a unified front to avoid secession could convince enough ‘faithless electors’ to switch sides to derail the election?

And what if the southern states boycotted the Electoral College?”

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer sums up what was in the minds of many Americans in the days following the 1860 presidential election:

“If these states did not participate in the traditional process, could the Electoral College proceed? What would constitute a quorum? No one, least of all Lincoln, knew the answers to these vexing questions.”

Those questions were finally answered when those southern states agreed to participate in the Electoral College process of the United States.

“But there was a greater than normal military presence on Capitol Hill” to ensure that the peaceful transfer of power would take place that certification day, according to historians at the National Constitution Center. And it did.

Abraham Lincoln’s election was officially certified by the U.S. Congress on February 15, 1861.

 

Sources:

  1. Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
  2. Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010.
  3. Harris, William C. Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
  4. “Lawyer to President,” in “Virtual Museum Exhibit.” Springfield, Illinois: Lincoln Home National Historic Site, retrieved online November 6, 2023.
  5. Malanowski, Jamie. “Lincoln Wins. Now What,” in “Disunion.” New York, New York: The New York Times, November 7, 2010.
  6. Oates, Stephen B. “Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865,” in C. Vann Woodward, ed. Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct. New York City: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. pp. 111–123, 1974.
  7. Oates, Stephen B. With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York, New York: Harper Collins, 2011.
  8. “On This Day, Abraham Lincoln Is Elected President.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: National Constitution Center, November 6, 2023.
  9. “President Abraham Lincoln.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online November 6, 2023.

Uniforms and Insignia of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Captain Richard A. Graeffe, Company A, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1862 (public domain).

Upon mustering in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in August and early September of 1861, the men who had enrolled for military service with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were assigned to their respective companies and issued standardized uniforms—the same style of dark blue, wool uniforms that were worn by the regular officers or enlisted members of the U.S. Army. The uniform of Captain Richard Graeffe (pictured at right) shows the typical details of a company commander’s uniform with shoulder bars, hat and sword.

Initially equipped with Mississippi rifles, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were then provided with basic training in light infantry tactics through mid-September. Presented with the regiment’s First State Color on September 20, 1861 by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin, they were subsequently marched to Harrisburg’s train station, and were transported to Washington, D.C., where they participated in the first of multiple duty assignments that would take them from the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to the Western and Trans-Mississippi theaters between early 1862 and March of 1864 before being transported back to the Eastern Theater for the fateful and tide-turning Shenandoah Valley Campaign, which unfolded during the summer and fall of 1864.

Army of the United States, Corps Badges, 1865 (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

Along the way, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry would be attached to the:

  • U.S. Army of the Potomac (“Mr. Lincoln’s Army”) in the Eastern Theater (1861);
  • U.S. Army’s Tenth Corps (X Corps) in the Western Theater (Occupying force duties and battles in Florida and South Carolina, early winter 1862 through early winter 1864);
  • U.S. Army’s Nineteenth Corps (XIX Corps) in the Trans-Mississippi Theater (Red River Campaign, spring and early summer 1864);
  • U.S. Army of the Shenandoah, Nineteenth Corps (XIX Corps) in the Eastern Theater (Battle of Cool Spring and Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, summer and fall 1864);
  • U.S. Army of the Shenandoah, Nineteenth Corps (XIX Corps) in the Eastern Theater (Defense of Washington, D.C., late winter 1864 through the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865);
  • Selected units of the U.S. Army’s former Nineteenth Corps (XIX Corps (Reconstruction duties in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, June through late December 1865); and
  • Camp Cadwalader (final discharge, early January 1866).
Each time that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were attached to a different Union Army corps, they were issued specific insignia that were then sewn onto their uniforms. The chart pictured above shows the different insignia that were worn by the various Union corps’ members.

Learn More About the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers

First State Color, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (presented to the regiment by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin, 20 September 1861; retired 11 May 1865, public domain).

Largely forgotten by mainstream historians, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was a Union Army unit which served for nearly the entire duration of the American Civil War. Formed by the fruit of the Great Keystone State’s small towns and cities, the regiment was born on August 5, 1861, when its founder, Tilghman H. Good, received permission from Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin to form an entirely new regiment in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for additional volunteers to help preserve American’s Union. It ended its service during the early months of the nation’s Reconstruction Era, officially mustering out at Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day in 1865, its members receiving their final discharge papers at Camp Cadwalader in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in early January of 1866.

Along the way, the 47th Pennsylvania made history, becoming an integrated regiment in 1862 and the only regiment from Pennsylvania to participate in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana. Its members also distinguished themselves in battle, repeatedly, including during Union General Philip Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign, which unfolded between August and December of 1864.

Learn more about key moments in this regiment’s history by reading the following posts:

1861:

1862:

1863:

1864:

1865:

Research Update: More New Details Regarding the Lives of Formerly Enslaved Black Men Who Enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Union Army at Morganza Bend, Louisiana, c. 1863-1865_USLOC, pubdom

Union Army base at Morganza Bend, Louisiana, circa 1863-1865 (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Researchers investigating the lives of nine formerly enslaved Black men who enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War recently uncovered new details about two of those soldiers.

In addition to finding more data related to the immediate post-war life of Aaron French (learn more about him in this article here), including how and why he ended up settling in Mississippi following the Civil War, researchers have also now found important information about the life of Hamilton Blanchard—who enrolled with Bullard on the same day.

Born into slavery in Natchitoches, Louisiana sometime around 1843, Hamilton Blanchard was able to secure his freedom twenty-one years later when the United States Army arrived in town as part of an expedition led by Union Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks. Determined not to be forced back into bondage after the Union troops moved on in their ill-fated quest to capture the city of Shreveport, he chose to enlist with one of the units serving under Banks—the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—the only regiment from Pennsylvania that was involved in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana.

After enrolling in the military, Hamilton Blanchard was then assigned to Company D at the rank of “Cook” on 5 April 1864.

Crop_Bullard, Aaron and Hamilton Blanchard_Co. D, 47th PA_Muster Roll

Muster roll entries for Aaron Bullard and Hamilton Blanchard, Company D, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (U.S. National Archives, public domain).

The official muster-in of Blanchard, Aaron Bullard, and three other young Black men who enrolled that day did not take place immediately, however, because the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were ordered to move out shortly after their arrival, and were quickly drawn into intense combat with enemy troops commanded by Confederate Major-General Richard Taylor (a plantation owner and son of Zachary Taylor, former President of the United States). Battered badly during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads near Mansfield, Louisiana on 8 April and in the Battle of Pleasant Hill the next day (9 April), they fought the Confederate Army again on 23 April near Monett’s Ferry in the Battle of Cane River and on 16 May in the Battle of Mansura near Marksville.

Continuing on toward the southeastern part of Louisiana, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers marched for Morganza, which had been held in Union hands since the fall of 1863 and was now the site of a major Union Army encampment. While there, the officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry officially mustered in all nine of the formerly enslaved Black men who had enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania in Beaufort, South Carolina (1862) and Natchitoches, Louisiana (April 1864)—a process which took place between 20-24 June 1864.

From that point on, those nine men traveled with the 47th Pennsylvania as it returned to the East Coast and engaged in multiple battles associated with Union Major-General Philip Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign across Virginia, the protection of the nation’s capital following the April 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the early days of Reconstruction in Georgia and South Carolina.

On Christmas Day in 1865, Hamilton Blanchard then joined his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers in mustering out from their final duty station in Charleston, South Carolina.

Post-War Life

Having been honorably discharged from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry when the regiment mustered out, at least two of the nine formerly enslaved Black men who had enlisted with the regiment evidently made their way north—possibly when the other members of their former regiment returned home to Pennsylvania. (It is also possible, however, that they made the journey independently of their former regiment because both men appear to have resettled in the Washington, D.C. area, post-war, while the other 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were transported by ship directly to New York City and then by train to Camp Cadwalader in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they were given their final discharge papers on 9 January 1866.)

Blanchard-Bullard_Madison Co., MS_Freedmen's Bureau Contract, Feb-Dec 1866, p. 1

Freedmen’s Bureau contract between Madison County, Mississippi farm owner John P. Arvile [sic] and farm laborers Hamilton Blanchard, Aaron Bullard, et. al., Washington, D.C., 16 February 1866 (excerpt, p. 1, U.S. National Archives).

What is known for certain is that Hamilton Blanchard and Aaron Bullard made contact with a representative of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands sometime in late 1865 or early 1866. They then signed a contract with the Freedmen’s Bureau during the early winter of 1866 in which they both agreed to join a large group of formerly enslaved Black men, women, and children who would be providing farm labor to a man named John P. Avrill (alternate spellings: “Averile”, “Averill”, “Arvile”, “Arville”, or “Avrille”) at his property in Canton, Madison County, Mississippi.

That Freedmen’s Bureau contract was slated to be in effect between 16 February and 16 December of 1866, and begins with a cover page which states:

Washington D.C.
February 1866
Contract No.
John P. Arvill
With (66) Freedmen

John Arville
Contract with
46 Farm Hands

The main body of the document goes on to reveal the following details of the contract:

Articles of Agreement made and concluded this the Sixteenth day of February 1866 between John P. Arvile of Canton P.O. County of Madison State of Mississippi party of the first part and

Charles Matthews, Henry Long, Joseph Thompson, Samuel Johnson, Robert Johnson, John Thomas … Charles Ford, Caroline Carter, Agnes Fitzhugh and child (infant), Benjamin Smith, Anna Smith, Thomas Reed [sp?], Aaron Bullard, Hamilton Blanchard, Isaiah Wiggins, James Lewis, Charles K. [illegible], Baily Taylor, William Carter, and Andy Hampton [sp?].

The next paragraph lists Hamilton Blanchard and Aaron Bullard a second time, along with multiple names from the aforementioned group of farm laborers. Subsequent paragraphs spell out further points of the agreement:

All of Washington City, County of Washington, District of Columbia, parties of the second part, the said Charles Matthews, Henry Long, Joseph Thompsen, Samuel Johnson, Robert Johnson, John Thomas … Aaron Bullard, Hamilton Blanchard, Isaiah Wiggins, James Lewis … Field Laborers, agree to enter the service of the said John P. Averile as Laborers and that they will faithfully and diligently apply themselves and perform the duties of Laborers on the premises of said John P. Averile for and during the period of time from the Sixteenth day of February 1866 until the sixteenth day of 1866; and they further agree that their employer shall retain one half their monthly wages until the expiration of their term of service.

And the said John P. Arvile hereby agrees to employ them (the said Field laborers) for the period of time aforesaid. Viz from the Sixteenth day of February 1866 until the sixteenth day of December 1866; and to pay for their services the sum set opposite their respective names per month, monthly (one half of which shall be retained each month) and all stoppages and arranged promptly, paid at the expiration of their respective terms of service to wit…..

In equal monthly payments; and the said John P. Arvile further agrees to furnish said Freed laborers … quarters, fuel, full substantial and healthy rations, and all necessary attendance and supplies in case of sickness, in addition to the compensation … named, and that he will assist and encourage efforts for the education of the children of his employees, and it is further agreed by the said John P. Arvile, that in case he at any time fails to perform his part of this contract agreement he will pay to each of the said laborers the full sum of One hundred and twenty dollars [strikethrough made by someone’s hand to original contract], as fixed, agreed and liquidated damages. This contract can be annulled by the mutual consent of the Employer and the employee, but only in the presence of an Authorized Agent of the Bureau of Refugees Freedmen and Abandoned Lands and such annullment [sic] on the part of the Employer and anyone [sic] employee shall in no wise affect the validity of the Contract in respect to the employer and the other employees and should either party violate this contract then the other party shall make complaint to the nearest authorized agent of the Bureau Refugees Freemen & Abandoned Lands.

The contract continues on, specifying that both Aaron Bullard and Hamilton Blanchard were to each be paid a wage of $10 per month, and stating that some of the other men on the list would be paid as much as $12 per month while others would be paid $8 per month. (Teenaged boys and women on the list were to be paid even less—$6 per month.)

In all cases, the reality was far different. Per the contract, they were initially paid only half of what their monthly wages were because the Freedmen’s Bureau agent in charge of looking out for the welfare of these formerly enslaved men, women, and children allowed the white farmer—their “employer”—to “retain one half their monthly wages until the expiration of their term of service.”

No further data has been uncovered from Freedmen’s Bureau records about the status of those unpaid wages or the outcome of that contract, but because these Black men, women, and children were essentially returned to an unequal system of servitude by the Freedmen’s Bureau agent (as evidenced by the manner in which this contract was drafted—favoring the White “employer” over the Black “field laborer” and including multiple after-the-fact revisions, such as word insertions and strikethroughs)—it is highly unlikely that Hamilton Blanchard, Aaron Bullard, or the other Black men, women, and children mentioned in the contract were ever paid the full amount they were entitled to for what was most assuredly very hard labor.

Blanchard-Bullard-Chapman_Treasury Inquiry, 10 Nov 1866

Letter of inquiry from J. H. Chapman on behalf of Hamilton Blanchard to E. B. French, second auditor, U.S. Treasury Department, 10 November 1868 (Freedmen’s Bureau records, U.S. National Archives). 

This hypothesis posed by researchers investigating the history of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry is backed up by a letter of inquiry penned on 10 November 1868 by J. H. Chapman, a Sub-Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau working at an office in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to E. B. French, Second Auditor of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.

In this letter, Chapman asks French that he “be informed what disposition has been made of the claim of Hamilton Blanchard, late of Co. “D” 47 Penn Vol. Inft., his discharge was received by J. R. Schuchard [sp?]” of the “Freedmen’s Aid Commission, March 15, 1866.” Chapman added that he was requesting this update on Blanchard’s behalf “for the purpose of prosecuting his claim against the Gov.” He then also requested “information concerning the claim of Aaron Bullard (Col.) who belonged to same company & regiment.”

* Note: An unidentified individual added an undated notation to the bottom of this letter in handwriting that is clearly different from that of the original letter writer, Chapman. That notation correctly states: “The 47th Pa was not a colored regt. See Form R enclosed. A.M.R. 103.” (The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry became an integrated regiment on 5 October 1862, but its African American members were not considered to be part of the U.S. Colored Troops, also known as the USCT.)

Researchers have not yet located the “Form R” referred to in the notation to Chapman’s letter, but will be pursuing this lead, as well as investigating the claims filed by Hamilton Blanchard and Aaron Bullard, and searching for additional information regarding what happened to Hamilton Blanchard during and after the 1870s. 

An additional avenue of inquiry will be the potential relationship that may have developed between Aaron Bullard and E. B. French during or after this time—a new theory being considered in light of the discovery of French’s name on this letter. (Aaron Bullard changed his surname, “Bullard,” which had been associated with his enslavement in Louisiana, to “French” sometime between his 1868 appeal to E. B. French in the U.S. Treasury Department and the day he was visited at home in Issaquena County, Mississippi by an enumerator of the 1870 U.S. Census—possibly indicating that he wanted to both shed his “slave name” and honor someone who had been helpful to him.)

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. Civil War Muster Rolls, in Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs (Record Group 19, Series 19.11). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1861-1865.
  3. Civil War Veterans’ Card File. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  4. “Records of the Field Offices for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870” (NARA Series Number: M1902; NARA Reel Number: 18; NARA Record Group Number: 105; NARA Record Group Name: Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1861 – 1880; Collection Title: District of Columbia Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office Records 1863-1872: Aaron Bullard and Hamilton Blanchard, 1866 and 1868). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  5. Schmidt, Lewis. 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.