#the-union-army — Public Fediverse posts

Music of the American Civil War Era

“The Songs of the War,” Homer Winslow (Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain; click image to enlarge).

“Music has done its share, and more than its share, in winning this war.” — Major-General Philip H. Sheridan

“The Civil War played an instrumental role in the development of an American national identity,” according to historians at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “Specifically for American folk music, the war inspired songwriting on both sides of the conflict, as amateurs and professionals wrote new, timely lyrics to old English, Scottish, and Irish ballads as well as original compositions.”

That new music, in turn, inspired one American artist, Winslow Homer, to capture the support he was witnessing and hearing for the United States government and its Union Army defenders during the mid-nineteenth century — support that was conveyed through the enthusiastic singing of pro-Union songs by soldiers, abolitionists and others who had dedicated themselves to the preservation of America’s Union and the eradication of the brutal practice of chattel slavery.

His sketch, “The Songs of the War,” which first appeared in print in the November 23, 1861 edition of Harper’s Weekly, featured seven of the most popular songs during the first year of the American Civil War: “The Bold Soldier Boy,” “Hail to the Chief,” “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” “Rogue’s March,” “Glory Hallelujah,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and “Dixie.”

“The Bold Soldier Boy,” excerpt from the illustration, “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“The Bold Soldier Boy” was an old folk song that had been arranged by multiple composers in different ways throughout the nineteenth century prior to Homer’s first hearing of it. The specific variant of the tune that sparked Homer’s imagination as he drew the scene in the upper left corner of “The Songs of the War” was most likely the version that had been arranged by S. Lover and William Dressler. Published by Wm. Hall & Son of New York in 1851, that variant was one of the selections that was included in book one of Dressler’s Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists.

According to Dressler’s obituary in the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, William Dressler had created this arrangement shortly after his emigration to the United States. A native of Nottingham, England, he was a son of the “court flutist to the King of Saxony” and an 1847 graduate of the Cologne Conservatory of Music in Germany, and had become well-known across the United States as an “organist and professor of music.”

“Hail to the Chief,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861).

“Hail to the Chief,” has since become familiar to generations of Americans as the triumphal tune performed by the United States Marine Band (“The President’s Own“) to herald the arrival of presidents of the United States at State of the Union addresses presented to the United States Congress, as well as other functions of the United States government. According to military music historian Jari Villaneuva, this particular piece of music “was already very popular when the Marine Band played it from a barge for the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on July 4, 1828, in the presence of President John Quincy Adams.”

During the American Civil War, “Hail to the Chief” was frequently performed by the bands of state and federal military regiments to announce the arrival of Union Army generals at special events, including the often well-attended public ceremonies when generals reviewed their troops. On September 17, 1861, for example, the Lancaster Intelligencer noted that Major-General George B. McClellan was greeted with a performance of “Hail to the Chief” as he arrived with a group of dignitaries at the camp of the Seventy-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry on September 10.

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

With his scene, “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” Homer was referencing a song that had been promoted in broadside advertisements in London, England as far back as 1832. The song had been made popular thanks to its frequent performance in music halls across Great Britain during the 1840s.

According to historians at the U.S. Library of Congress, the melody was included as “Free and Easy,” in a medley of songs for cornet that was arranged by David L. Downing circa 1861 for concert band performance, and had been included in one of the manuscript books of the Manchester Cornet Band.

The source for the tune appears to have been the chorus of “‘Gay and Happy.’ Composed and sung by Miss Fanny Forrest (with unbounded applause) (Baltimore: Henry McCaffrey [1860])…. This version, or one similar to it, was almost certainly what Winslow Homer had in mind:

I’m the lad that’s free and easy,
Wheresoe’er I chance to be;
And I’ll do my best to please ye,
If you will but list to me.

Chorus.–So let the world jog along as it will,
I’ll be free and easy still….

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still” had become so popular by the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, that composer Stephen Foster referenced it in his 1866 song, “The Song of All Songs.

“Rogue’s March,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Rogue’s March can be traced to an even earlier time — the mid-eighteenth century. It “was one of the most widespread and recognized melodies in martial repertory of the era,” according to Andrew Kuntz and Valerio Pelliccioni, creators of The Traditional Tune Archive. Also known as “Poor Old Robinson Crusoe,” this English march in G Major “was played in the British and American armies when military and civil offenders and other undesirable characters were drummed from camps and cantonments, sometimes with a halter about their necks, sometimes with the final disgrace of a farewell ritual kick from the regiment’s youngest drummer.” Also according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni:

[T]he actual ceremony consisted of as many drummers and fifers as possible (to make it the more impressive) [who] would parade the prisoner along the front of the regimental formation to this tune, and then to the entrance of the camp. The offender’s coat would be turned inside out as a sign of disgrace, and his hands were bound behind him…. The sentence would then be published in the local paper.

The fifers and drummers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were actually called upon to play the “Rogue’s March” during the punishment and dismissal of one of their regiment’s own while the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were preparing for the regiment’s departure for America’s Deep South. According to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt, the public shaming of Private James C. Robinson of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company I began at 10 a.m. on Monday, January 27, 1862, at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where the regiment was briefly stationed.

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

“Glory Hallelujah,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“Glory Hallelujah” was almost certainly a reference to the chorus verse of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the song which quickly became an anthem for the Union Army after the lyrics were written by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe during November 1861. Set to the melody (and partially derived from the lyrics) of “John Brown’s Body,” a song sung often by Union soldiers during the earliest months of the war, Howe’s “Battle Hymn” was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862 and remains one of the most popular patriotic songs in the United States.

The chorus of “Glory Hallelujah” was also then employed by Mrs. M. A. Kidder in an arrangement for piano by Augustus Cull of “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!“, which was published by Horace Waters of New York in 1862.

“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” excerpt from “The Songs of War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Dating back to the 1700s, “The Girl I Left Behind Me” was derived from a popular Irish folk tune that reportedly served as the melody for multiple popular and military songs during the eighteenth and ninetenth centuries, according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni.

There are a few literary references to the song or melody. For example, “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” clearly a reference to the military use of the song, was the title of a chapter (XXX) in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848)…. The English novelist Thomas Hardy, himself an accordianist and fiddler, mentioned the tune in scene notes to The Dynasts….

James Fenimore Cooper mentions the tune in his novel of the sea, The Pilot (1824)….

“The Girl I Left Behind Me” has a long and illustrious history in America…. [I]t appears in Riley’s Flute Melodies, published in several volumes in New York beginning in 1814…. The melody appears in Bruce and Emmett’s Drummers’ and Fifers’ Guide, published in 1862 to help codify and train the hordes of new musicians needed for service in the Union Army early in the American Civil War. Therein it is remarked: “This air and (drum) beat is generally played at the departure of the soldiers from one city (or camp) to another….

“Dixie,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

The final song that Homer chose to include in his pro-Union music montage, “Dixie” (an anthem of the Confederacy), might seem to have been an odd choice on his part, were in not for the way in which he chose to illustrate it. In the foreground, a free Black man looks thoughtfully off into the distance as he sits atop a barrel labeled with the word, “Contraband,” while a still-enslaved Black man struggles to move a heavy bale of cotton in the background, his body buckling from the burden he shoulders. That image was Homer’s powerful way of reminding Harper’s Weekly readers that, although some progress had already been made in the fight against the brutal practice of chattel slavery in parts of the United States, that fight was not yet won in “Dixie,” where many who were still enslaved continued to suffer greatly.

Sources:

1. “Band Instruments,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
2. “Band Music,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
3. Baxter, John. “Free and Easy,” in “Folk Song and Music Hall.” Self-published, John Baxter, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
4. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “New Music,” in “Local Items.” Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Times, 9 February 1862.
5. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
6. “Civil War Music: Dixie.” Washington, D.C.: American Battlefield Trust, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
7. “Free and Easy,” in “A Concert for Brass Band Voice and Piano,” in “Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
8. Homer, Winslow. “The Songs of the Civil War.” New York, New York: Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861.
9. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “Rogue’s March.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, November 14, 2024.
10. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, December 22, 2024.
11. McCollum, Sean. “Battle Hymn of the Republic: The Story Behind the Song.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, September 17, 2019.
12. “Pennsylvanians at Washington” (performance of “Hail to the Chief” to honor Major-General George B. McClellan). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster Intelligencer, September 17, 1861.
13. “Songs of the Civil War,” in “Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.” Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
14. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
15. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists, in “New Music.” Cleveland Ohio: Morning Daily True Democrat, December 25, 1861.
16. “The Civil War Bands,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
17. Thomas, Anne Elise. “Music of the Civil War.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
18. Thompson, Beth. in “The Song of All Songs,” in “Beth’s Notes: Supporting and Inspiring Music Educators.” Self-published: Beth Thompson, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
19. Villanueva, Jari. “Hail to the Chief.” Catonsville, Maryland: TapsBugler, January 17, 2025.
20. “William Dressler” (obituary). Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1914.

#America #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #CivilWar #CivilWarBands #CivilWarMusic #FatherOfBandMusicInAmerica #History #Music #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy #WinslowHomer

A New Year and Our Second Decade of Storytelling

“New Year’s” (Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, 8 January 1881, public domain).

Out with the old and in with the … old? Such are the lives of researchers and students of the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras as we move forward from 2024 into the New Year of 2025.

Unlike millions of other human beings across our pale blue dot (as Carl Sagan called our planet), we will continue to spend a significant portion of our lives looking back as 2025 progresses. We will do so not because we are backward in our ways of thinking, however, but because we’re hoping to better understand how our nation and world came to be what it is at present — as we also try to answer questions about our respective ancestors and the roles they played in shaping how we became who we are as individuals today.

My promise, as the founder and managing editor of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, is that our travels back in time, during what is now our second decade of operation, will continue to include adventures filled with fascinating twists and turns that will sometimes be sad, but more often than not, will be informative and positively energizing.

Our 2025 education program objectives are much the same as they’ve always been — to hunt for data that sheds light on the lives of the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, to learn more about their immediate families and descendants, to find records, photographs and other memorabilia that will corroborate the data we uncover, to use those details, documents, photographs, and memorabilia to tell the stories of those men and their families as accurately and thoroughly as we possibly can, and to motivate learners of all ages across Pennsylvania, the United States and the world to study the history of this regiment and appreciate the impact that its members made, as individuals, on their communities, our nation and our beloved “pale blue dot.”

Welcome to 2025! Let the time travels begin!!

#47thPennsylvania #47thPennsylvaniaInfantry #47thPennsylvaniaRegiment #47thPennsylvaniaVolunteers #47thRegimentPennsylvania #America #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #CarlSagan #CivilWar #CommonwealthOfPennsylvania #History #PaleBlueDot #PennsylvaniaHistory #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #TheUnionArmy #ThomasNast #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy #UnitedStates

Poetry of the American Civil War: “An Evening in Camp” (December 28, 1861)

“Our Heaven Born Banner” (William Bauly, circa 1861, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

It is evening on the camp ground, and the fading sunlight gleams,
Over hill tops, into valleys and adown the winding streams;

Weary drill at last is ended, and the soldiers gather in
To the music of the fifers and the sweet-toned violin.

Noble sons of patriot fathers, loving freedom most of all,
Dreading more the tyrant’s sceptre than the rifle’s deadly ball;

Each within his homely quarters, on his hard unpillowed bed,
Takes the uninviting supper, by no loving mother spread.

Not for them the winter fire where the family group is found,
Pleasant converse, peals of laughter, merry jestings circling round;

Where the mother piles her knitting, and the sisters read or sew,
And the father paints in language, “miracles of long ago.”

Not for them! yet through their changes, Memory keeps her taper bright,
Lighting up the streams of day-time, and the visions of the night;

Hearts that know no selfish terror, through their tender pulses send,
Throbs of strong magnetic feeling, to the parent or the friend.

One is writing to his mother, and his thoughtful eye grows dim,
With the memory of her kindness, and her loving care for him;

Patient of his youthful follies, quick to lead and slow to blame,
Rising with his rising honor, sinking if he sink to shame.

Well she knows her pillowed slumbers are not as they were of old;
Well he knows the grief and terror that her pen hath never told;

And he sees the dark brown tresses, growing whiter day by day,
Since her country’s tocsin sounded, and she gave her all away.

And another reads the message that a Father’s hand hath sent,
Strong in courage, wise in council, glowing with a high intent;

“All his prayers go forth to bless him–he has been his pride and joy,
And the hopes of past and present crowd around his darling boy.”

With a quivering lip he folds it, but his keen and steady eye,
Speaks the strong, unshaken courage, that shall conquer or shall die;

Gentle words a wife has written, there the husband reads to-night,
And his manly tears are hidden in the fading winter light.

Then he folds his daughter’s billet in a warm and close embrace,
Her’s, who holds the prisoned sunbeams of eight summers in her face;

Ah! he cares not for the blunders, through each blurred and crooked line,
All the glances of her blue eyes and her bady graces shine.

Needs must tremble they who called him from such pleasures to the strife,
He will keep his vow of vengeance at the peril of his life;

Where the sunbeams linger longest, heeding not the frosty air,
With his pale young forehead shaded, sits another reading there.

One who loved him like the poets, shared this in the days gone by,
And each line looks kindly at him through that sister’s speaking eye.

“Sits she in the dear old Study, reading what I read to-night,
Tracing out the rhythmic numbers, in the flashing crimson light;

Or, perchance, the lamps are lighted, and she pens the gentle line
That gives olden warmth and comfort to this stranger life of mine.”

There a young man holds a locket, gazing on a face so dear,
That the past becomes the present, and the far away the near;

Over streams, and hills and vallies, he is standing by her side,
And her dark brown eyes are liquid with the gush of love and pride.

Sweeter than the sounds of summer is the language that she speaks;
Fairer than June’s fairest blossoms, are the roses on her cheeks,

And he feels to-day more worthy plighted heart and hand,
Than when peace and smiling plenty blessed his sorrowing Fatherland.

Breaking on the evening’s bustle calls the drum to muster roll,
And the soldier’s sterner duties shade the fancies of his soul.

Turning to their straw and blankets, quiet slumbers close them round;
Nothing but the sentry’s pacing breaks the silence of the ground,

And the stars look kindly on them from the blue etherial sea,
Leading on the Hosts of Freemen through the gates of victory.

MELROSE

Source:

“Select Poetry [from the West Chester (Pa) Times].” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, 28 December 1861.

#America #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #Army #Christmas #CivilWar #CivilWarArt #CivilWarPoetry #History #PennsylvaniaHistory #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #Poetry #Sunbury #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy #WestChester

Through a War Correspondent’s Eyes: The Art of Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer, 1880 (public domain).

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was a Boston native who became one of the most important artists in nineteenth-century America. Best known for his pastoral landscapes and seascapes, he was also a notable chronicler of the lives of average American Civil War-era soldiers.

Apprenticed to Boston lithographer J. H. Bufford during the mid-1850s, he subsequently turned down a job offer by Harper’s Weekly later that same decade to become a staff illustrator, choosing, instead, to make his living as a freelancer and founder of his own art studio in New York City.

American Civil War

“The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field,” Winslow Homer, 12 July 1862 (National Library of Medicine, public domain).

During the early 1860s, however, Winslow Homer was ultimately persuaded to serve as a war correspondent for Harper’s Weekly, leading him to create some of the most evocative illustrations of the American Civil War era.

In 1862, for example, he showed Americans what it was like to be “The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field” by sketching a group of Union Army surgeons and wounded soldiers and then turning that sketch into a powerful illustration for a July edition of Harper’s Weekly. In November of that same year, he documented “A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty,” perched high up in a tree in the Virginia countryside, protecting his fellow members of the Army of the Potomac.

“Thanksgiving in Camp” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 29 November 1862, public domain).

That same month, he also preserved, for all time, a Thanksgiving celebration of one pensive group of Union Army soldiers who were stationed far from the arms of loved ones.

Why Was His Work So Popular?

Homer’s work captured the hearts and minds of Harper’s Weekly readers for three simple reasons. He had a great eye and great instincts to match his great skills as an illustrator.

“Sleeping on Their Arms” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 21 May 1864, public domain).

According to a 2015 Yale News article about Homer by Amy Athey Mcdonald, “Artist-reporters” of the Civil War era “had to be more than merely good draftsmen. They had to be astute observers, have an instinct for story and drama, the ability to sketch quickly and accurately, and no small amount of daring, as they faced battles, injuries, starvation, and disease first hand.”

Post-War Life

After the Civil War ended, Winslow put a fair amount of distance between himself and the United States. In 1866, he traveled to France, where he spent ten months studying and honing his skills. According to the late H. Barbara Weinberg, a renowned American art scholar and former curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, “While there [was] little likelihood of influence from members of the French avante-garde” during this phase of Homer’s life, “Homer shared their subject interests, their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to incorporate into their works outdoor light, flat and simple forms (reinforced by their appreciation of Japanese design principles), and free brushwork.”

Recognized as a master of oil painting in the United States by the 1870s (while still just in his thirties), he also began to explore his talent as a watercolor artist.

“The Cotton Pickers” (Winslow Homer, 1876, public domain).

And, he began to document the post-war lives of men and women who had been freed from chattel enslavement. Painted in oil in 1876, “The Cotton Pickers” illustrated the harsh reality of the Reconstruction era–that many Freedmen and Freedwomen were still engaged in the same backbreaking work that they had endured while enslaved before the war. According to author Carol Strickland, “Although the artist left scant record of his convictions about race, his paintings of Black people are unlike those of his contemporaries.”

“The Gulf Stream” (Winslow Homer, 1899, public domain).

When speaking to Strickland for a 2022 profile of Homer, Associate Professor Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw observed that “before Emancipation, artists had elicited sympathy for enslaved people by portraying them on the auction block, for example. But the market for such work evaporated after the 1860s…. Caricatures derived from minstrel shows appeared in paintings, but ‘it was really unusual for Homer to stake so much on Black subjects connected to Reconstruction.'” His work in this regard, however, was not only limited to the Reconstruction era; in later years, he depicted the struggles of the Black men, women and children that he met while visiting the Bahamas.

“The Life Line” (Winslow Homer, 1884, public domain).

But it was, perhaps, through his paintings of the sea that he became best known to a wider audience across America. According to Weinberg:

He enjoyed isolation and was inspired by privacy and silence to paint the great themes of his career: the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature.

Sources:

1. McDonald, Amy Athey. “As Embedded Artist with the Union Army, Winslow Homer Captured Life at the Front of the Civil War.” New Haven, Connecticut: Yale News, 20 April 2015.
2. Strickland, Carol. “Not Just Seascapes: Winslow Homer’s Rendering of Black Humanity.” Boston, Massachusetts: The Christian Science Monitor, 7 June 2022.
3. “Thanksgiving in Camp (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
4. “The Army of the Potomac — A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
5. Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Winslow Homer (1836-1910).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004.

#America #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #Army #Art #CivilWar #CivilWarArt #Emancipation #History #Infantry #Slavery #Thanksgiving #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy #Virginia #WinslowHomer

Through the Eyes of a Captain: The Sights, Sounds and Side Effects of the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

Five days after the Battle of Pocotaligo was waged on October 22, 1862 between Union and Confederate troops in South Carolina, Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin set pen to paper to document the events that had led up to and taken place that terrible day. His powerful account revealed a scale of carnage that shocked the readers of the November 15, 1862 edition of The Sunbury Gazette.

The commanding officer of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s color-bearer unit, Company C, Captain Gobin was a lawyer from Sunbury, Northumberland County who would later go on to command the entire regiment and, post-war, would be elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate and then as lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His account of this often overlooked American Civil War battle is one that merits the attention of historians because of the statistics and insights he shared with close friends.

Headquarters, Co. C, 47th Reg’t.,
Beaufort, S.C.,
Oct. 27, 1862

Dear Friends:–For the first time since our terrible engagement on the main land, I find time to write you an account of the affair. As my last informed you, during the St. John’s Expedition, I contracted the intermittent fever, and on my arrival here, was placed in the officers’ hospital.–Good nursing and an abundance of quinine, however, soon placed me on my feet, and on Monday, the 20th, I went to camp well, but still weak. On Tuesday morning our regiment received orders for six hundred men to embark on a Transport, with two days’ rations, at 1 o’clock P.M. I selected sixty men, and embarked. Our destination was unknown, although it was the general opinion that it was the Charleston and Savannah Railroad bridges. We steamed down the river, and were all advised by Gen. Brennan [sic, Brannan], who was on the boat with our regiment, to get as much sleep as possible. I sought my berth, and when I awoke next morning, found we were in the Broad River, opposite Mackay’s Point. A detachment of the 4th New Hampshire, sent on shore to capture the enemy’s pickets, having failed, we were ordered to disembark immediately. Eight Companies of our regiment, (the other two being on another Transport) were gotten [ready], and at once took up the line of march. After about three miles, we came in sight of the pickets, when we halted until joined by the 55th Pennsylvania, 6th Connecticut, and one section of the 1st U.S. Artillery. We were again ordered forward–a few of the enemy’s cavalry slowly retiring before us, until we reached a place known as Caston, where two pieces of artillery, supported by cavalry, were discovered in position in the road.–They fired two shells at us, which went wide.

While our artillery ran to the front and unlimbered, our regiment was ordered forward at double quick. The enemy however left after receiving one round from our artillery, which killed one of their men. We followed them closely for about two miles, when we found their battery of six pieces, posted in a strong position at the edge of a wood, supported by infantry and cavalry. They opened upon us immdiately, which was replied to by our artillery, posted in the road. This road ran through a sweet potato field, covered with vines and brush. Our regiment was thrown in mass and deployed on my company [Company C], which brought my right in the road. We were ordered to charge, and with a yell the men went in. We had scarcely taken a dozen steps before we were greeted with a shower of round shot and shell from the enemy’s artillery. A round shot stuck the ground fairly in front of me, covering me with sand, bounding to the right and killing the third man in the company to my right. It was followed by a shell, that gave us another shower of sand, and flew between the legs of Corporal Keefer, the man on my left, tearing his pantaloons, striking his file coverer, Billington, on the knee, and glancing and striking a man named Gensemer on Billington’s left, and bringing them to the ground, but fortunately failing to explode. Almost at the same instant Jeremiah Haas and Jno. Barlow were struck, the former in the face and breast by a piece of shell, the latter through the leg by a cannister shot. The shower we received here was terrific. Nothing daunted, on they rushed for the battery, but it was almost impossible to get through the weeds and vines. When within a hundred yards the enemy limbered up, and retreated through the woods. We followed as rapidly as possible, but we had scarcely entered the woods, when we were again greeted with a terrific storm of shell, grape and cannister from a new position, on the other side of the woods.

Samuel Y. Haupt, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (circa 1863, public domain).

Ordering my men to keep to the right of the road, we pushed forward through a wood almost impenetrable. We were at times obliged to crawl on our hands and knees.–In the meantime the enemy’s infantry opened upon us, and assisted in raking the woods. Sergeant Haupt here received his wound. When at length we pushed through, we found ourselves separated from the enemy by an impassable swamp, about one hundred yards in width. The only means of getting over was by a narrow causeway of about twelve feet in width. Seeing this, our regiment fell back to the edge of the woods, lay down and engaged the enemy’s infantry opposite us. In the meantime two howitzers from the Wabash, [that] had been placed in position in the rear of the woods, commenced shelling the enemy, whose artillery, was on the right of the road on the opposite side of the swamp. The latter replied, the shells of both parties passing over us. Our situation was extremely critical. Exposed to the cross-fire of the contending artillery and the infantry in the front, with the limbs and tops of trees falling on and around us, it was indeed a position I never want to be placed in again.–Here Peter Wolf while endeavoring, in company with Sergeant Brosious, Corp. S. Y. Haupt and Isaac Kembel, to pick off some artillerymen, received two balls and fell dead. I had him carried five miles and buried by the side of the road. Corp. S. Y. Haupt, had the stock of his rifle shattered by a rifle ball, that embedded itself.

In about twenty minutes the fire became too hot for them, and they again “skedaddled“ just as Gen. Terry’s Brigade, 75th Pennsylvania, in advance, were ordered up to relieve us. They followed them up rapidly, until they arrived at Pocotaligo creek, over which the rebels crossed, and tore up the bridge, and ensconced themselves behind their breastworks and in their rifle pits.–We were again ordered forward, deployed to the right, and advanced to the bank of the creek, or marsh, which was fringed by woods. We lay a short time supporting the 7th Connecticut, when their ammunition became expended, and we took the front. Here occurred the most desperate fighting of the day. The enemy were reinforced by the 26th South Carolina, which came upon the breastworks with a rush. We gave them a volley that sent them staggering, but they formed in the rear of the first line, and the two poured into us one of the most scathing, withering fires ever endured. Added to it, their artillery commenced throwing grape and cannister amongst us, but we soon drove the artillerymen from their guns, and silenced them. The colors on the left of my company attracting a very heavy fire, I ordered the Sergeant to wrap them up.–This caused quite a yell among the Confederates, but we soon changed their tune.–We fired until our ammunition was nearly expended, when we ceased. This caused the enemy’s artillery to open upon us, while the musketry continued with redoubled energy. Eight men of my company fell at this last fight. We held our position, unsupported, until dark, when we were ordered to fall back. We did so and covered the retreat. We were the first regiment in the fight, and last out of it. Our men fought like veterans, and did fearful execution among the enemy. Our loss was very heavy, losing one hundred and twelve men out of six hundred. I detailed my entire company to carry their dead and wounded comrades to the boat, which I did not reach until 4 o’clock A.M., bringing with me the last man, Billington. In consequence of having no stretchers or ambulances, we were compelled to carry our wounded in blankets. They were, however, all taken good care of.

Although we did not succeed in burning the bridge, yet we were not defeated. We drove the enemy five miles, compelling him to leave a number of his dead and wounded on the field. We captured two caissons, and a number of prisoners, and were only prevented from capturing or scattering the whole force by the destruction of the bridge over Pocotaligo creek, and their immense reinforcements. I shall never forget the sound of those locomotive whistles in my life. Gen. Beauregard commanded the rebels.

My men fought as men accustomed to it all their life. Nothing could exceed their valor. In addition to the loss in my own company, of the color guard, composed of Corporals from other companies attached to it, all but two were struck. Every man seemed determined to win.

My loss is as follows:–Killed–PeterWolf, Sunbury, Pa.; George Harner [sic, Horner], Upper Mahanoy; Seth Deibert, Lehigh county.–Wounded, Sergeant Peter Haupt, Sunbury, Pa., cannister shot through foot; will save the foot; Corporal Samuel Y. Haupt, rifle shot on chin; will be ready for duty in a week. His rifle was struck with a piece of shell, and after shattered by rifle ball. Corporal William Finck, near Milton; rifle shot through leg–amputation not necessary; private S. H. Billington, Sunbury, struck on knee by shell; will save the leg; private John Bartlow, cannister shot through leg; will save the leg; private Jeremiah Haas, struck in face and breast by piece of shell; will soon be well; private Conrad Halman [sic, Holman], Juniata county, shot in face by rifle ball–teeth all gone; will recover; private Theodore Kiehl, struck in the mouth by a rifle ball; lower jaw shattered, but will recover; Charles Leffler, Lehigh county, rifle shot through leg–will recover without amputation; Michael Larkins, Lehigh county, wounded in side and hip in a hand to hand fight with a mounted officer; killed the officer and captured his horse; able to be about; Thomas Lothard, Pittston, Pa., grape shot through right side; will recover; Richard O’Rourke, Juniata county; rifle ball through right side, will recover; James R. Rine, Juniata county, struck on leg by round shot–not serious.

Killed ………… 3
Wounded …. 13
Total ……….. 16

This being over one-fourth of the number engaged, I think, is pretty heavy. However I think most of the wounded will be fit for duty again. They are all comfortable and well cared for. None of their wounds will, from present appearances, prove mortal. I will write again in a few days. With love to all, I remain

Yours, J. P. S. G. 

*Note: Captain Gobin’s assessment of his wounded men was, unfortunately, overly optimistic with respect to Sergeant Peter Haupt. While undergoing treatment at a Union Army hospital, Sergeant Haupt developed traumatic tetanus–a direct cause of the lead injected into his system by the cannister shot that had felled him. He subsequently died from tetanus a related lockjaw.

Sources: 

1. “Army Correspondence.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury Gazette, November 15, 1862.
2. Haupt, Peter, in U.S. Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers, October 1862. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

#003366 #47thPennsylvania #47thPennsylvaniaInfantry #47thPennsylvaniaRegiment #47thPennsylvaniaVolunteers #47thRegimentPennsylvania #America #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #Army #Beaufort #CivilWar #CommonwealthOfPennsylvania #FloridaAndSouthCarolina #History #Infantry #NorthumberlandCounty #PennsylvaniaHistory #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #Pocotaligo #SouthCarolina #Sunbury #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy

Enlistment form for Abraham Jassum, Undercook, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 5 October 1862, p. 1 (Compiled Military Service Records, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Fleeing the brutal practice of chattel slavery in South Carolina during the fall of 1862, a Black youth walked into a recruiting station for the Army of the United States in Beaufort, South Carolina and told an officer there that he wanted to become a soldier. His name, according to his enlistment paperwork, was Abraham Jassum, and he was just sixteen years old.

Sadly, much of that teenager’s life has remained a mystery that has stubbornly resisted unraveling–until now. Thanks to documents recently copied by the U.S. National Archives for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, researchers now know that Abraham Jassum was born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina sometime around 1846.

Although specific details about what happened to this teenager between the dates of his birth and army enlistment have not yet been found, researchers do already have several ideas. One theory is that Abraham’s surname was not actually “Jassum” because that surname does not appear to have been present on any federal census records for any plantation owners or other enslavers in South Carolina between 1840 and 1860, nor was it used for any Black Freedmen in South Carolina on federal census records that were completed after the American Civil War. Furthermore, there appear to be no U.S. Civil War Pension records that exist for any soldier with the surname of “Jassum.”

Another theory is that, by the time that Abraham reached the age of sixteen, he had been transported to Beaufort to be used as an enslaved laborer there (or was “sold as property” by his enslaver in Charleston to a plantation owner or other enslaver near Beaufort), and that he was freed by Union soldiers when Beaufort was occupied by the Union Army.

Fortunately, the Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) file for Abraham Jassum does contain important details about his life between October 1862 and October 1865.

Bay Street Looking West, Beaufort, South Carolina, circa 1862 (Sam A. Cooley, 10th Army Corps, photographer, public domain).

What is known for certain is that he enlisted for military service on October 5, 1862 as an “undercook“–a designation that was first authorized for use by regiments serving with the Army of the United States by the U.S. War Department. Examined and certified as fit for duty by William F. Reiber, M.D., an assistant regimental surgeon with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Abraham Jassum was then assigned to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ F Company.

Military records at the time of his enlistment noted that he was five feet, six inches tall and had black hair, black eyes and a black complexion. Muster sheets subsequently described him as a “Negro.”

During his three-year term of enlistment, he traveled with the 47th Pennsylvania to its battle, garrison, occupation, and other duty assignments in Florida, Louisiana, Virginia, Washington D.C., and South Carolina. While stationed with his regiment in Louisiana, he was documented as having been officially mustered into the regiment in June 1864, along with the other Black soldiers of the 47th Pennsylvania.

Additional military records of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry confirm Abraham Jassum’s service in 1864 and 1865, describing him as a “cook” or as a “private,” which appears to indicate that he may have been promoted at some point prior to his honorable discharge.

Issued his honorable discharge paperwork on October 4, 1865, while his regiment was assigned to Reconstruction-related duties in Charleston, South Carolina, he was given a small travel allowance to enable him to return to his place of enlistment (Beaufort, South Carolina), which seems to indicate that he chose to settle in Beaufort, at least initially, rather than remaining in the city where he had been born (Charleston), and instead of relocating north with his former regiment when it returned to Pennsylvania.

Researchers will continue to search for records that can shed more light on what happened to Abraham Jassum after the war, and will post updates if and when new data is uncovered.

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. Jassum, Abraham, in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
3. Jassum, Abraham, Civil War Muster Rolls (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
4. Jassum, Abraham, in Compiled Military Service Records (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
5. Jassum, Abraham, in Registers of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865 (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry), in Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs (RG-19). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
6. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

https://47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com/2024/10/27/research-update-new-details-learned-about-abraham-jassum-one-of-nine-formerly-enslaved-men-who-enlisted-with-the-47th-pennsylvania-volunteers/

#47thPennsylvania #47thPennsylvaniaInfantry #47thPennsylvaniaRegiment #47thPennsylvaniaVolunteers #47thRegimentPennsylvania #America #America250 #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanHistory #Army #Beaufort #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackSoldiers #Charleston #CommonwealthOfPennsylvania #FloridaAndSouthCarolina #PennsylvaniaHistory #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #Slavery #Slaves #SouthCarolina #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy #UnderCooks #Undercooks #UnionArmy

“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.

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Meeting and Broad Streets near Line Street in Charleston, South Carolina, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in the distance (U.S. Navy, circa 1863-1865, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

There is no disputing that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had a long and storied history. Formed on August 5, 1861, the regiment not only served for the entire duration of the American Civil War; it continued its service to the nation for more than eight months after the end of that terrible conflict, becoming the only regiment from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to fight in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana before it participated in Major-General Philip Sheridan’s tide-turning Shenandoah Valley Campaign across Virginia during the fall of 1864 and helped defend Washington, D.C. in the wake of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865.

As those war years unfolded, newspapers from Easton to Pittsburgh published updates on the regiment’s travels, along with excerpts from letters penned by its baby-faced recruits and wizened warriors. One of the more unusual news items was reported during the 47th Pennsylvania’s final months of service—while it was stationed in the Deep South of the United States of America during the early days of Reconstruction, following the end of the American Civil War. Assigned to keep the peace in the first state that had seceded from the Union, members of the regiment lived and primarily worked in Charleston, South Carolina, where they performed a wide range of provost (civil governance)-related tasks, including the prevention and prosecution of crimes against civilians and the re-establishment of newspaper publishing operations.

The Line Street area of Charleston, South Carolina, where a public pound was established in July 1865 to improve animal control and public safety (Thomas Fetters, The Charleston & Hamburg, public domain; click to enlarge).

During the summer of 1865, that “to do” list was expanded to include the “policing” of the city’s furrier denizens. According to The Charleston Daily Courier, Sergeant George Nichols (alternate surname spelling: “Nicholas”) of the 47th Pennsylvania’s E Company was ordered to supervise the operations of a new animal pound that had been established on Line Street in Charleston, “between Coming and Percy streets”:

Headquarters,
Charleston, S.C. July 20, 1865
[GENERAL ORDERS, No. 64.]

I. A POUND IS HEREBY ESTABLISHED ON LINE-STREET, between Coming and Percy-streets, and Sergeant GEO. NICHOLAS, Co. “E,” 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, temporarily detailed as pound-keeper.

II. Hereafter all cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and dogs found running at large in the City South of Line-street, shall be taken to the public pound and there detained until the penalty prescribed by this Order, together with the charges of the pound-keeper and the actual expense of maintaining said animals while in the pound, shall be paid.

The penalties for each violation of this Order to be as follows:

Cattle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5.00 per head
Sheep, goats, hogs and dogs . . . . . . . $1.00

The amount to be turned into the City Treasury.

III. All animals, except dogs, remaining in the public pound for the space of six (6) days without being claimed and the penalties and charges therefor [sic] paid, shall be sold at public sale by the pound-keeper. The proceeds to be turned over to the owner of such animals, after deducting the fines and pound fees.

All dogs remaining unclaimed for the space of one week shall be shot.

The Provost Marshal and Chief of Military Police are charged with the execution of this Order.

By order Bt. Brig. Gen. W. T. BENNETT, Com’dg Post.
CHARLES G. CHIPMAN,
Capt. 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, A. A. D. C.
OFFICIAL: THOS. F. LAMBERT, 2d Lieut. 47th Pa. Vols., A. A. D. C.
July 21

The Confederate Steamer, Governor Milton, that was captured by Companies E and K, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, October 1862 (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, public domain).

By the time that he had received this duty assignment in 1865, Sergeant Nichols had already amassed a distinguished service history. In early October 1862, while still just a corporal, he was placed in charge of the Governor Milton, a Confederate steamship that had been captured by a detachment of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers as part of Union Army and Navy operations related to the capture of Saint John’s Bluff, Florida. He later preserved his memories of that day’s events with this diary entry:

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

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

When the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers made their way back to their respective troop transports near Saint John’s Bluff, the captured steamer was left behind to enable a group of Union soldiers to repair its boiler. Overseeing those repairs was none other than Corporal Nichols, who had been temporarily detached from the 47th Pennsylvania’s E Company. Adding to his diary, he wrote:

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

After completing his detached duty, Corporal Nichols was reunited with his regiment at its duty station in Beaufort, South Carolina that same October of 1862. He then went on to serve with the regiment for the remainder of its service to the nation, finally mustering out with his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers in Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day of 1865. An engineer with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad following the war, he died from pneumonia at the age of seventy at his home in Phillipsburg, New Jersey on March 2, 1908, and was laid to rest at the Phillipsburg Cemetery.

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. “General Orders, No. 64” (establishment and staffing of a public pound in Charleston, South Carolina). Charleston, South Carolina: The Charleston Daily Courier, 21 July 1865, p. 2.
3. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

https://47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com/2024/08/16/catching-dogs-and-hogs-during-the-dog-days-of-summer-charleston-south-carolina-1865/

#47thPennsylvania #47thPennsylvaniaInfantry #47thPennsylvaniaRegiment #47thPennsylvaniaVolunteers #47thRegimentPennsylvania #America #AmericanHistory #Army #Charleston #FloridaAndSouthCarolina #History #Infantry #PennsylvaniaHistory #PennsylvaniaInTheCivilWar #SouthCarolina #TheUnionArmy #USMilitaryAndTheUnionArmy

USS Laurel Hill, May 26, 1862 (Baldwin Lithograph, Collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hyde Park, New York, 1936, U.S. Naval Heritage Command, public domain).

Barely out of sight of the city of Alexandria, in Rapides Parish Louisiana, when it ran into the enemy during its retreat south in mid-May 1864, the Union’s Army of the Gulf easily defeated the Confederate States Army troops it encountered and continued its trek toward the village of Marksville in Avoyelles Parish. Members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which was positioned farther back in the Union column, were aware of, but not involved in, that short engagement. According to C Company Musician Henry D. Wharton:

After marching a few miles skirmishing commenced in front between the cavalry and the enemy in riflepits [sic] on the bank of the river, but they were easily driven away. When we came up we discovered their pits and places where there had been batteries planted. At this point the John Warren, an unarmed transport, on which were sick soldiers and women, was fired into and sunk, killing many and those that were not drowned taken prisoners. A tin-clad gunboat was destroyed at the same place, by which we lost a large mail. Many letters and directed envelopes were found on the bank – thrown there after the contents had been read by the unprincipled scoundrels. The inhumanity of Guerrilla bands in this department is beyond belief, and if one did not know the truth of it or saw some of their barbarities, he would write it down as the story of a ‘reliable gentleman’ or as told by an ‘intelligent contraband.’ Not satisfied with his murderous intent on unarmed transports he fires into the Hospital steamer Laurel Hill, with four hundred sick on board. This boat had the usual hospital signal floating fore and aft, yet, notwithstanding all this, and the customs of war, they fired on them, proving by this act that they are more hardened than the Indians on the frontier.

* Note: The USS Laurel Hill survived the attack and, in a few short weeks, became the final home for ailing 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, including Corporal William Schweitzer and Privates Amandus Bellis and Nicholas Hoffman (Company A) and Private John Witz (Company E).

Map of key 1864 Red River Campaign locations, showing the battle sites of Sabine Cross Roads, Pleasant Hill and Mansura in relation to the Union’s occupation sites at Alexandria, Grand Ecore, Morganza, and New Orleans (excerpt from Dickinson College/U.S. Library of Congress map, public domain; click to enlarge).

Resuming their trek south with the retreating Army of the Gulf, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers engaged in yet another long march, trudging more than thirty miles as the month of May 1864 wore on. According to the expedition’s commanding officer, Union Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks:

The fleet passed below Alexandria on the 13th of May. The army on its march from Alexandria did not encounter the enemy in force until near the town of Mansura. He was driven through the town in the evening of the 14th of May, and at daybreak next morning our advance encountered his cavalry on the prairie east of the town.

According to Henry Wharton, “On Sunday, May 15, we left the river road and took a short route through the woods, saving considerable distance.”

The windings of Red river are so numerous that it resembles the tape-worm railroad wherewith the politicians frightened the dear people during the administration of Ritner and Stevens. – We stopped several hours in the woods to leave cavalry pass, when we moved forward and by four o’clock emerged into a large open plain where we formed in line of battle, expecting a regular engagement. The enemy, however, retired and we advanced ‘till dark, when the forces halted for the night, with orders to rest on their arms. – ‘Twas here that Banks rode through our regiment, amidst the cheers of the boys, and gave the pleasant news that Grant had defeated Lee.

“Sleeping on Their Arms” by Winslow Homer (Harper’s Weekly, May 21, 1864).

Positioned just outside of the town of Marksville, under orders to “rest on their arms” for the night, the 47th Pennsylvanians half-dozed with their rifles within a finger’s length—but without the benefit of tents for cover. It was the eve of the Battle of Mansura, which unfolded on May 16, 1864 as follows, according to Wharton:

Early next morning we marched through Marksville into a prairie nine miles long and six wide where every preparation was made for a fight. The whole of our force was formed in line, in support of artillery in front, who commenced operations on the enemy driving him gradually from the prairie into the woods. As the enemy retreated before the heavy fire of our artillery, the infantry advanced in line until they reached Mousoula [sic, Mansura], where they formed in column, taking the whole field in an attempt to flank the enemy, but their running qualities were so good that we were foiled. The maneuvring [sic, maneuvering] of the troops was handsomely done, and the movements was [sic, were] one of the finest things of the war. The fight of artillery was a steady one of five miles. The enemy merely stood that they might cover the retreat of their infantry and train under cover of their artillery.

Per Major-General Banks, the Confederate troops “fell back, with steady and sharp skirmishing across the prairie, to a belt of woods, which he occupied.”

The enemy’s position covered three roads diverging from Mansura to the Atchafalaya. He manifested a determination here to obstinately resist our passage. The engagement, which lasted several hours, was confined chiefly to the artillery until our troops got possession of the edge of the woods – first upon our left by General Emory; subsequently on our right by General Smith, when he was driven from the field, after a sharp and decisive fight, with considerable loss.

According to military historian Steven E. Clay, “As the Army of the Gulf marched from Alexandria to Simmesport, it followed the River Road. As it moved, Taylor’s cavalry harassed the column from all sides.”

Steele’s men resumed the pressure on A. J. Smith’s rearguard. Annoying Emory and the cavalry advanced guard was Major and Bagby’s commands. The troops also attempted to slow the Federal march by cutting trees and placing other obstacles in the way. Parson’s men skirmished with Gooding’s troopers on the right flank. None of the rebel cavalry’s efforts, however, appreciably slowed the Union column.

On 14 May, the army’s van arrived at Bayour Choctaw. Emory called the pontoon train forward, and within a short time, the pontonniers had the stream bridged and the army was crossing…. That evening the troops of the XIX Corps [including the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers] bivouacked beside the wrecks of the John Warner, Signal, and Covington. Strewn upon the ground were the letters many of the men had mailed to their loved ones earlier and had been placed on the Warner bound for New Orleans. The rebel soldiers had opened the letters, read them for entertainment, and simply tossed them aside. The idea did not sit well with the Federals, but neither did the wanton destruction and plunder of civilian homes with the Confederates.

On 15 May the column slowly crossed the Bayou Choctaw Swamp and entered the Avoyelles … Prairie. There, Major’s cavalry, later along with Bagby’s troops, attacked the lead elements several times. The fighting became so hot at moments that Emory deployed his artillery to help drive the bothersome rebel troopers away…. By nightfall … the XIX Corps had reached Marksville with the rest of the army strung out behind.

Late on 15 May, Banks learned that Taylor had massed his forces six miles ahead at the town of Mansura, evidently with the intention of blocking further Federal movement on the road to Simmesport…. On learning of the concentration of rebel forces, Banks sent orders to Emory directing him to move no later than 0300 [3 a.m.] on 16 May and to attack the enemy at daybreak. Further, Smith advanced on Emory’s right to attack into Taylor’s left flank. The XIII Corps [13th Corps], now under Lawler since 9 May … was to remain in front of Marksville as the reserve. The trains [Union wagon trains] were held behind that town….

As ordered, the Army of the Gulf moved south before sunrise. As morning dawned, the Federal army began its deployment on the wide open plain of the Avoyelles Prairie. The US troops advanced with Emory’s XIX [including the 47th Pennsylvania] in the lead with Grover’s 1st Division on the Federal left near the Grand River and McMillan’s 2nd Division [including the 47th Pennsylvania] on the right. The XIX Corps was followed by A. J. Smith’s XVI Corps [16th Corps] in column; Mower’s division was followed by that of Kilby Smith. As the Federal brigades deployed on the field they could see the Confederate battle line in the distance. Virtually in the center of the battlefield was the tiny village of Mansura.

According to Clay, Confederate Major-General Richard Taylor (a plantation owner and son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor) “had placed eight dismounted cavalry regiments from Major’s and Bagby’s commands to the east of the hamlet” of Mansura. “At least 19 cannon with the batteries interspersed among the brigades supported these troops.” Confederate Brigadier-General Camille Armand Jules Marie, the Prince de Polignac, a prince of France who fought with the Confederate Army during America’s Civil War and whom the 47th Pennsylvanian Volunteers had previously faced in combat during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads near Mansfield, Louisiana, “posted his two small infantry brigades and two dismounted regiments of cavalry on the left, west of town, and thirteen more guns supported Polignac’s force.”

New York Tribune headline announcing the U.S. Army of the Gulf’s May 1864 victory near Marksville, Louisiana (New York Tribune, June 3, 1864, public domain).

Standing “on a flat, green savanna,” according to Clay, the troops under Brigadier-General Emory’s command, including the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, were the first to march into the battle’s fray, followed by A. J. Smith’s “divisions to the right of the line.” It quickly became obvious to all who were watching the scene unfold that Taylor had woefully misjudged his opponents; his six thousand Confederates were greeted with the spectacle of the eighteen-thousand strong Army of the Gulf arrayed before them.

According to Clay, “The battle began sometime after 0600 [6 a.m.] with a mutual artillery bombardment.”

As the fusillade opened, commanders on both sides ordered their men to lie down in order to reduce casualties during the artillery duel. The tactic was effective. The barrage lasted about four hours, but few men were struck by the many rounds fired. As the Union battle line rose and moved forward on occasion, Taylor’s skirmish line responded by slowly giving ground…. Finally, at about 1000 (1 p.m.), as the XVI Corps pressed forward on the Confederate left to flank Taylor’s position as planned, the rebel line quickly sidestepped the move and fell back toward their trains which were located southwest in the village of Evergreen.

Unlike the sanguinary opening battles of the Red River Campaign, the Battle of Mansura was far less brutal. Per Wharton:

Our loss was slight. Of the rebels we could not ascertain correctly, but learned from citizens who had secreted themselves during the fight, that they had many killed and wounded, who threw them into wagons, promiscuously, and drove them off so that we could not learn their casualties.

Afterward, the victorious Army of the Gulf resumed its march south. According Major-General Banks:

The 16th of May we reached Simmsport [sic, Simmesport], on the Atchafalaya. Being entirely destitute of any ordinary bridge material for the passage of this river – about six hundred yards wide – a bridge was constructed of the steamers, under direction of Lieutenant Colonel Bailey. This work was not of the same magnitude, but was as important to the army as the dam at Alexandria was to the navy. It had the merit of being an entirely novel construction, no bridge of such magnitude having been constructed of similar materials. The bridge was completed at one o’clock on the 19th of May. The wagon train passed in the afternoon, and the troops the next morning, in better spirit and condition, as able and eager to meet the enemy as at any period of the campaign.

Union Major-General Nathaniel Banks subsequently reported that, during the Army of the Gulf’s final engagement with Confederates, the “command of General A. J. Smith, which covered the rear of the army during the construction of the bridge and the passage of the army, had a severe engagement with the enemy, under Polignac, on the afternoon of the 19th, at Yellow Bayou, which lasted several hours.”

Our loss was about one hundred and fifty in killed and wounded; that of the enemy much greater, besides many prisoners who were taken by our troops. Major General E. R. S. Canby arrived at Simmsport [sic, Simmesport] on the 19th of May, and the next day assumed command of the troops as a portion of the forces of the military division of the West Mississippi, to the command of which he had been assigned.

The 47th Pennsylvania, however, was not involved in that battle at Yellow Bayou; according to Wharton:

This fight was the last one of the expedition. The whole of the force is safe on the Mississippi, gunboats, transports and trains. The 16th and 17th have gone to their old commands.

It is amusing to read the statements of correspondents to papers North, concerning our movements and the losses of our army. I have it from the best source that the Federal loss from Franklin to Mansfield, and from their [sic] to this point does not exceed thirty-five hundred in killed, wounded and missing, while that of the rebels is over eight thousand.

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

After that final battle, the surviving members of the 47th made their way through Simmesport and into the Atchafalaya Basin, and then moved on to the village of Morganza, where they made camp again. According to Wharton, the members of Company C were sent on a special mission which took them on an intense journey of one hundred and twenty miles:

Company C, on last Saturday was detailed by the General in command of the Division to take one hundred and eighty-seven prisoners (rebs) to New Orleans. This they done [sic] satisfactorily and returned yesterday to their regiment, ready for duty. While in the City some of the boys made Captain Gobin quite a handsome present, to show their appreciation of him as an officer gentleman.

By May 28, 1864, the men from Company C had returned from New Orleans and were once again encamped at Morganza with the full 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, prompting Henry Wharton to write:

The boys are well. James Kennedy who was wounded at Pleasant Hill, died at New Orleans hospital a few days ago. His friends in the company were pleased to learn that Dr. Dodge of Sunbury, now of the U.S. Steamer Octorora, was with him in his last moments, and ministered to his wants. The Doctor was one of the Surgeons from the Navy who volunteered when our wounded was [sic, were] sent to New Orleans.

Their long trek through Louisiana was over, but their fight to preserve America’s Union was not.

Sources:

1. Banks, Nathaniel P. “Report of the Red River Campaign,” in “Annual Report of the Secretary of  War,” in Message of the President of the United States, and Accompanying Documents, to the Two Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866.
2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
3. “Battle of Pleasant Hill, April 9, 1864, Walker’s Texas Division Campaign Map, Detail,” in “House Divided.” Carlisle, Pennsylvania: History Department, Dickinson College, November 21, 2009 (cropped from the original public domain map available on the website of the U.S. Library of Congress).
4. Clay, Steven E. The Staff Ride Handbook for the Red River Campaign, 7 March-19 May 1864. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Centers, 2023.
5. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
6. “Report of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, U. S. Army, Commanding Expedition and Department of the Gulf” (to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War), in Annual Report of the Secretary of War, in Message of the President of the United States, and Accompanying Documents, to the Two Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866.
7. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
8. “The History of the Forty-Seventh Regt. P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, July 20, 1870.
9. Wharton, Henry D. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

https://47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com/2024/05/16/the-march-from-marksville-to-morganza-louisiana-and-the-battle-of-mansura-mid-to-late-may-1864/

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Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, shown here circa 1863, went on to become lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania after the war (public domain).

One of the terms that crops up when researching the history of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers is “court martial”—a phrase that often conjures images of soldiers deserting their posts or behaving in some other dishonorable manner, and who then ended up facing charges of “conduct unbecoming.”

With respect to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, the phrase “court martial” appears, more often than not, in relation to the service by multiple officers of the regiment who were assigned to serve as judges or members of the jury during trials of civilians in territories where the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were assigned to provost (military police and civilian court) duties, or as judges or members of the jury during the court martials of other members of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

This article presents details about two of the multiple military courts martial in which members of the 47th Pennsylvania were involved.

1862

In mid to late December 1862, Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan directed the three most senior officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—Colonel Tilghman H. Good, Lieutenant-Colonel George Warren Alexander and Major William H. Gausler—to serve on a judicial panel with other Union Army officers during the court martial trial of Colonel Richard White of the 55th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Brannan then also appointed Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin of the 47th Pennsylvania’s C Company as judge advocate for the proceedings.

Of the four, Gobin was, perhaps, the most experienced from a legal standpoint. Prior to the war, he was a practicing attorney in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Post-war, he went on to serve in the Pennsylvania State Senate and as lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

On December 18, 1862, The New York Herald provided the following report regarding Colonel White’s court martial:

A little feud [had] arisen in Beaufort between General [Rufus] Saxton and the forces of the Tenth Army corps. Last week, during the absence at Fernandina of General Brannan and Colonel Good, the latter of whom is in command of the forces on Port Royal Island, Colonel Richard White of the Fifty-fifth Pennsylvania, was temporarily placed in authority. By his command a stable, used by some of General Saxton’s employes [sic, employees], was torn down. General Saxton remonstrated, and … hard words ensued … the General presumed upon his rank to place Colonel White in arrest, and to assume the control of the military forces. Upon General Brannan’s return, last Monday, General Saxton preferred against Colonel White several charges, among which are ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline’ and ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’ General Brannan, while denying the right of General Saxton to exercise any authority over the troops, has, nevertheless, ordered a general court martial to be convened, and the following officers, comprising the detail of the court, are to-day [sic, today] trying the case:— Brigadier General Terry, United States Volunteers; Colonel T. H. Good, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania; Colonel H. R. Guss, Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania; Colonel J. D. Rust, Eighth Maine; Colonel J. R. Hawley, Seventh Connecticut; Colonel Edward Metcalf, Third Rhode Island artillery; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Alexander, 47th Pennsylvania; Lieutenant Colonel J. F. Twitchell, Eighth Maine; Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Bedell, Third New Hampshire; Major Gausler, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania; Major John Freese, Third Rhode Island artillery; Captain J. P. S. Gobin, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania, Judge Advocate. Among the officers of the corps the act of General Saxton is generally deemed a usurpation on his part; and, inasmuch as this opinion is either to be sustained or outweighed by the Court, a good deal of interest is manifested in the trial.

White, whose regiment had just recently fought side-by-side with the 47th Pennsylvania and other Brannan regiments in the Battle of Pocotaligo, was ultimately acquitted, according to subsequent reports by the United States War Department.

1863

Major William H. Gausler, third-in-command of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1864 (photo used with permission, courtesy of Julian Burley).

Three months after the aforementioned court martial proceedings, Major William Gausler was called upon again to oversee legal proceedings against his fellow Union Army soldiers—this time serving as president of the courts martial of two members of the 90th New York Volunteer Infantry. Those trials and their resulting findings were subsequently reported by the Adjutant General’s Office of the U.S. War Department roughly a year later as follows:

General Orders, No. 118
War Department, Adjutant General’s Office
Washington, March 24, 1864

I. Before a General Court Martial, which convened at Fort Taylor, Key West, Florida, March 23, 1863, pursuant to Special Orders, No. 130, dated Headquarters, Department of the South, Hilton Head, Port Royal, South Carolina, March 7, 1863, and of which Major W. H. Gausler, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, is President, were arraigned and tried—

1. Captain Edward D. Smythe, 90th New York State Volunteers.

CHARGE I.—“Violation of the 7th Article of War.”

Specification—“In this, that Captain Edward D. Smythe, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did join in a seditious combination of officers of the 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

CHARGE II.—“Violation of the 8th Article of War.”

Specification 1st—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, being present at an unlawful and seditious assemblage of officers of the 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, held at the Light-house Barracks, Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

Specification 2d—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, having knowledge of an intended unlawful and seditious assemblage of officers of the 90th New York State Volunteers being held at the Light-house Barracks, Key West, Florida, did not without delay give information of the same to his Commanding Officer. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

CHARGE III.—“Rebellious conduct, tending to excite mutiny.”

Specification 1st —“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did, with, thirteen other officers of the 90th New York State Volunteers, tender his resignation, and insist upon its being forwarded, at a time when there were apprehensions of a general resistance to the execution of an order from the Headquarters of the Department of the South. This at Key West, Florida, on or about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

Specification 2d—“In this; that Captain Edward D. Smyth, Company ‘G,’ 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, did, after so tendering his resignation, positively refuse to withdraw the same when requested to do so by his Commanding Officer, Colonel Joseph S. Morgan, 90th Regiment New York State Volunteers, then commanding the post, he having been notified by Commanding Officer that there were apprehensions of imminent danger at the post. All this at Key West, Florida, on our about the 20th day of February, 1863.”

To which charges and specifications the accused, Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th New York State Volunteers, pleaded “Not Guilty.”

FINDING.

The Court, having maturely considered the evidence adduced, finds the accused, Captain Edward D. Smyth, 90th New York State Volunteers, as follows:

CHARGE I.

Of the Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

CHARGE II.

Of the 1st Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the 2d Specification, “Not Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

CHARGE III.

Of the 1st Specification, “Guilty, except the words ‘insist upon its being forwarded at a time when there were apprehensions of a general resistance to the execution of an order from the Headquarters of the Department of the South.’”

Of the 2d Specification, “Guilty.”
Of the Charge, “Not Guilty.”

And the Court, being of opinion there was no criminality, does therefore acquit him.

2. 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers.

CHARGE I.—“Neglect of duty.

Specification—“In this; that the said Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, Company ‘G,’ 90th New York Volunteers, did, on the night of the 10th of March, when he was the Officer of the Day, permit and encourage an enlisted man who was drunk to occupy and sleep in his, the said Lieutenant C. N. Smith’s quarters, and to create an uproar, to the disturbance and annoyance of the officers in the same building, and did not send him, the said enlisted man, although after ‘taps,’ to his proper quarters, or cause him to be quiet.”

CHARGE II.—“Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and prejudicial to good order and military discipline.”

Specification—“In this; that the said Lieutenant Charles N. Smith did allow and keep in his quarters all night a drunken enlisted man, and encourage him to speak disrespectfully and abusively of his superior officers; and upon the said enlisted man saying ‘that every officer who had sent in his resignation was a cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch,’ did reply ‘that’s so;’ and did further permit, encourage, and agree to many other things said of a like nature. All this at Key West, Florida, on or about March 10, 1863.”

To which charges and specifications the accused, 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers, pleaded “Not Guilty.”

FINDING.

The Court, having maturely considered the evidence adduced, finds the accused, 1st Lieutenant Charles N. Smith, 90th New York Volunteers, as follows:

CHARGE I.

Of the Specification, “Guilty, excepting the words ‘encouraged’ or ‘cause him to be quiet.’”
Of the Charge, “Guilty.”

CHARGE II.

Of the Specification, “Guilty of allowing and keeping in his quarters all night a drunken enlisted man.”
Of the Charge, “Guilty, except the words ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’”

SENTENCE.

And the Court does therefore sentence him, the said Charles N. Smith, 1st Lieutenant, 90th New York Volunteers, “To be reprimanded by his Commanding Officer.”

Trusted to honorably and faithfully fulfill their responsibilities by senior Union Army leaders, those and other officers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry would be called upon repeatedly for the remainder of the war to serve in similar judicial roles throughout the remaining years of the war.

Sources:

1. General Orders No., 118, Washington, March 24, 1864, in Index of General Orders Adjutant General’s Office, 1864. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1865.
2. “Our Hilton Head Correspondence.” New York New York: The New York Herald, December 16, 1862.
3. “South Carolina.; Military Organization of the Department of South Carolina.” New York, New York: The New York Times, August 8, 1865.

https://47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com/2024/03/29/sitting-in-judgment-four-officers-of-the-47th-pennsylvania-volunteers-oversee-court-martial-proceedings-1862-1863/

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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.

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