Martial Deeds of Pennsylvania, Samuel P. Bates, 1876 - Part 2, Chapter 14, 896-
954

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                         MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                       by
                                SAMUEL P. BATES.

                     PHILADELPHIA: T. H. DAVIS & CO., 1876.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 896

                              Part II.  BIOGRAPHY.

                                   CHAPTER XIV. 

GALUSHA PENNYPACKER, Colonel of the Ninety-seventh regiment, Brigadier and 
Brevet Major-General, was born at Valley Forge, the scene of the unparalleled 
fortitude of Washington and the patriot army.  He was the son of Joseph J. and 
Tamzen A. (Workiger) Pennypacker, natives of Chester county.  The mother died 
when the son, her only child, was but three years old, and he was placed in 
charge of his paternal grandmother, who cared for him with all a mother's 
tenderness.  He received a good English and classical education, and at the 
instance of his father learned the art of printing.  He was about to commence 
the study of law when the war broke out, but dismissed the lights of 
jurisprudence for the camp and bivouac fires.
  He had previously attached himself to the infantry company of Henry R. Guss, 
with whom he served in the three months' campaign under Patterson in the Ninth 
regiment as Quartermaster's Sergeant, performing the duties of Quartermaster 
during the greater part of the campaign.  He displayed unusual executive 
ability, and when Colonel Guss received authority to raise a regiment for three 
years Sergeant Pennypacker recruited the first company and was commissioned 
Captain.  He was appointed commandant of Camp Wayne, where the regiment was 
placed, and authorized to muster the troops as fast as organized.  Soon after 
his entrance upon this duty he was promoted to Major, and in addition aided his 
associate officers in the routine of their labors, in which by his experience he 
was well versed, conducting regimental and battalion drills with the skill and 
confidence of a veteran drill-master.
  His regiment left camp on the 16th of November, 1861, for 

GALUSHA PENNYPACKER - 897

Fortress Monroe, and a month later sailed for South Carolina.  A storm kept the 
vessel tempest-tossed several days, and the men, fresh from the farm and the 
work-shop, had their first experience of the sea.  It was a dismal voyage; but 
the kind face and pleasant voice of Major Pennypacker, as he moved among the 
men, inspecting their quarters and caring for their wants, reassured many a 
drooping spirit, and brought sunshine amidst clouds and storms.  While in the 
Department of the South, his regiment was engaged in the operations against Fort 
Pulaski in January, 1862, and in the following month in the occupation of Fort 
Clinch, Fernandina, and Jacksonville, at the latter place having brisk conflicts 
with the enemy.  Active service continued with little cessation while his 
regiment remained in the department, its command much of the time devolving on 
Major Pennypacker.  In the discharge of that trust he showed signal ability, 
causing General A. H. Terry, who was serving in this department, to say to 
Colonel Guss: "You have a most excellent and deserving officer in Major 
Pennypacker; he will make his mark in the service," - a prediction which was 
signally verified.  In February, 1863, he was a member of a board appointed to 
examine officers.  His selection for this grave duty, when barely twenty years 
of age, over soldiers graced with the training of West Point, shows how 
completely he had won the confidence of his commander, and how devoted he had 
been in the brief period of his novitiate to the military profession.
  The second assault on Fort Wagner was made at dusk on the evening of July 
18th, 1863, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored) leading the way.  The 
slaughter was terrible, and though promptly and gallantly supported by Putnam's 
brigade, it proved disastrous.  Stevenson's brigade, in which was Pennypacker's 
regiment, was brought up to cover the retreat, and during the long hours of that 
dismal night, under a constant fire from the fort, the men were employed in 
bringing in the wounded, crawling stealthily up to the very moat and slopes of 
the fortress.  To this attempt to gain the stronghold, regular approaches 
succeeded.  In the face of desperate resistance, and a ceaseless fire from the 
most formidable enginery of war, these operations were pushed.  In the midst of 
them Major Penny-

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 898

packer was stricken with fever.  When the siege works were ready for a fresh 
assault, the commanders of regiments were called together to received their 
final instructions.  Major Pennypacker was too sick to be present, but he 
awaited until past midnight the return of his next in command, who attended in 
his stead, and refused to retire until he had fully mastered every detail of the 
plan of attack.  When morning came he mounted his horse, the very study and 
meditation of the scheme inspiring him with vigor.  At the point where horses 
must be left, he dismounted and marched at the head of his columns.  But on 
reaching the parallels it was ascertained that the enemy had forsaken their 
posts, leaving the stronghold to fall into the hands of the besiegers - a 
bloodless victory.
  So much reduced was he by the severe duty here imposed that, at the urgent 
representation of his physicians, he accepted a furlough and went north to 
regain his shattered strength.  He returned and rejoined his regiment near the 
close of October, 1863, which had in the meantime been transferred Fernandina, 
Florida.  He was immediately placed over five companies, and in April following 
succeeded to the command of the post.  He headed two expeditions to the mainland 
for the purpose of surprising rebel camps and obtaining lumber for the use of 
the department, both of which were successful.  In April, 1864, he was ordered 
to Virginia, there to join the Army of the James, and was soon after 
commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel.  Arrived at Gloucester Point, the place of 
rendezvous of the troops, his regiment was assigned to the Second brigade of 
General Terry's division of the Tenth corps.  In the operations from Bermuda 
Hundred and along the line of the Petersburg and Richmond Railroad, in the main 
fruitless, though involving desperate fighting, Colonel Pennypacker manoeuvred 
his men in the face of superior forces with consummate skill.  Especially was 
this the case in the action at Wier Bottom Church, on the 16th of May.  It was 
necessary that the enemy, who was concentrating there in considerable force, 
should be held in check until the main body of General Butler's army could be 
withdrawn.  By a forced march the regiment was brought into position in time to 
check the foe, and by so disposing his troops as to convey the impression 

GALUSHA PENNYPACKER - 899

that his was only the skirmish line to a powerful body, he stopped a vastly 
superior force, until Butler was safe in his works.

  Two days after this, Beauregard, who commanded the rebel troops, attacked and 
carried a portion of the Union line occupied by the Eighth Maine.  Pennypacker 
was ordered up with his regiment to retake it.  Selecting four companies with 
which to make the assault, by a sudden spring he routed the enemy, though in the 
face of a terrific fire, and reoccupied the ground.  It was a brilliant dash, 
and though attended with fearful slaughter was completely triumphant.  At 
Foster's Plantation, on the 20th, his command was less fortunate, but not less 
heroic; for, charging gallantly over open ground, his steadfast line was swept 
by a storm of musket shot and canister from well-served guns.  Twice had he 
fallen from grievous wounds, but recovering himself, had led on, exhorting and 
encouraging, when he was a third time stricken, and now rendered helpless.  A 
more gallant or persistent charge was not delivered during the war, nor one 
which more clearly demonstrated the devotion of a body of men to their 
commander.  He was carried helpless to his tent with a wound in his right arm, 
another in his left leg, and still a third in his right side, and three days 
thereafter was sent to the general hospital at Fortress Monroe.  Impatient to be 
with his men, though still suffering from his wounds, he resumed command on the 
12th of August, and soon after was made Colonel.  The actions at Deep Bottom and 
Strawberry Plains speedily followed in which, though with right arm still 
disabled, he headed his command, and at the moment of extreme peril in the 
latter engagement succeeded by great skill and heroism in bringing of his 
regiment, when by a sudden unfortunate turn in the fight it seemed given over to 
inevitable capture.  On returning to the lines before Petersburg, Colonel 
Pennypacker succeeded to the command of the brigade, and was shortly after 
permanently assigned to it by General Butler.
  Towards the close of September, aggressive operations were renewed on the 
north side of the James, and in the actions at New Market Heights, and before 
Fort Gilmer, Colonel Pennypacker led his brigade, winning new claims to 
confidence in his more responsible position.  In the latter engagement he 
received 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 900

a painful wound, and his horse was shot under him.  Though suffering greatly, he 
refused to leave the field.  Commanding positions were secured at New Market 
Heights and at Fort Harrison.  To regain them the enemy made desperate assaults, 
and the slaughter was frightful.  The reconnoissance towards Richmond by Terry 
and Kautz involved severe actions at the Darbytown and Charles City Roads.  
Major Price, who succeeded him in command of the regiment, and who furnished the 
material for this sketch, thus speaks of his chief: "During these important 
movements, Colonel Pennypacker was continuously in command of his brigade, 
always at the post of duty, always prepared for instant action, always 
thoroughly cognizant of every movement of the enemy in his front."
  Early in December, the Tenth and Eighteenth corps were merged in one and 
designated the Twenty-fourth.  A plan was devised about this time for the 
reduction of Fort Fisher, commanding the entrance to Wilmington, the chief 
remaining entrepot to the Confederacy.  With Ames' division of the Twenty-fourth 
and Paine's of the Twenty-fifth (colored), about six thousand five hundred men, 
General Butler set sail on the 13th of December, to act in conjunction with 
Admiral Porter.  Under cover of the fleet, Ames' division debarked, and pushed 
up close under the fort, Pennypacker leading his brigade.  A reconnoissance was 
made by General Weitzel, second in command, which resulted in the conclusion 
that the place was impregnable; whereupon Butler ordered the division to embark, 
and sailed away to the James.  On the 2d of January, scarcely two weeks later, 
the same troops, with the addition of Abbott's brigade of Terry's division and a 
small siege train, in all about eight thousand men, under General Terry, were 
ordered to renew the attempt.  Rendezvousing with the fleet off Beaufort, Terry 
was obliged by stress of weather to wait from the 8th to the 12th, when, moving 
up, he landed with his entire force.  A line of skirmishers was thrown out which 
met little resistance, and Colonel Pennypacker at dusk, with his own and two 
other brigades, was sent to establish a line of defensive works across the 
island from sea to river.  The ground was marshy and difficult, and it was not 
until two o'clock on the following morning that a line much nearer the 

GALUSHA PENNYPACKER - 901

fort than the one originally sought was found feasible, and the work of 
intrenching commenced.  Before morning, a good protection was completed, giving 
a sure foothold.  After a careful reconnoissance, Terry determined to assault.  
At eight o'clock on the morning of the 15th, the fleet moved down and opened 
fire at close quarters.  Ames' division had been selected to lead.  At two 
o'clock P.M. one hundred picked men, with Spencer repeating carbines and light 
spades, went forward at a run, and when arrived within two hundred yards of the 
fort, quickly threw up sufficient earth to afford some protection, and opened 
fire.  Curtis' brigade followed, and was succeeded by Pennypacker's and Bell's 
at regular intervals.  By successive steps these were advanced one after another 
by rapid movements, taking shelter behind the slight works prepared.  The 
missiles of the fleet and the work of the intrepid axe-men had made openings in 
the palisades, when Curtis' brigade sprang forward, and though meeting a 
terrific fire, passed all obstruction and made a lodgment upon the parapet.  
Pennypacker was not far behind, "overlapping Curtis' right," says Terry, "and 
drove the enemy from the heavy palisading, from the west end of the land face to 
the river, capturing a considerable number of prisoners; then pushing forward to 
their left, the two brigades together drove the enemy from about one quarter of 
the and face."  Bell carried the side next the river, where the works were of 
minor strength.  But the difficulties had now but just begun to be met.  "Hand-
to-hand fighting," continues Terry, "of the most desperate character ensued, the 
huge traverses of the land face being used successively by the enemy as 
breastworks, over the tops of which the contending forces fired into each 
other's faces.  Nine of these, one after the other, were carried by our men. . . 
.  The fighting for traverses continued until nearly nine o'clock, when a 
portion of Abbott's brigade, which had been brought to the support of the 
assault, drove the enemy from the last remaining stronghold, and the occupation 
of the work was completed."  Language is inadequate to the presentation of the 
terrors of the scene as assailants and assailed met each other over the 
traverses of this strongest of rebel works.  But the valor of this devoted 
division was superior to all, and everything went down before it.
 
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 902

When his brigade had scaled the battlements of the frowning fortress, Colonel 
Pennypacker, seizing the flag of his old regiment, heroically led the way.  
Three of the traverses, after fearful struggles, had been carried, when Colonel 
Pennypacker received a severe wound.  Recovering himself, by one desperate 
effort he planted his flag at the farthest reach on the front, and then fell 
back helpless and exhausted from the loss of blood.  "I have no words," says 
General Terry, "to do justice to the behavior of both officers and men on this 
occasion.  Better soldiers never fought.  Brigadier-General Curtis and Colonels 
Pennypacker, Bell, and Abbott, the brigade commanders, led them with the utmost 
gallantry.  Curtis was wounded after fighting in the front rank, rifle in hand!  
Pennypacker, while carrying the standard of his regiment, the first man in a 
charge over a traverse!  Bell was mortally wounded near the palisades!"
  Captain George F. Toule, Inspector-General to General Terry, in a letter from 
the fort, of January 23rd, 1865, says: "The assault was magnificent.  For six 
hours success seemed doubtful.  The men actually clubbed rifles over the 
parapet, and the fighting was of that hand-to-hand character we so often read 
about but seldom see.... Curtis was wounded.  Bell was wounded and died the next 
day.  Poor Pennypacker was wounded while leading his brigade over the parapet, 
with the colors of the Ninety-seventh in his hand.  I saw him as he was brought 
off on a stretcher.  He refused to leave the field until he had seen General 
Terry.  I told the general, who went to see him.  Pennypacker then pointed to 
the foremost flag on the traverses, and said, 'General, take notice; that is the 
flag of the Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania.'  Everybody feels badly that he should 
receive such a severe wound, and none more so than myself....  The carrying of 
such a strong work as Fisher by assault is an event unparalleled in Military 
history.  Including the Mound battery, and Battery Buchanan, there are eighty-
four guns.  Among them a splendid one-hundred-and-fifty pounder gun, with a 
rosewood carriage, presented to the rebels by English friends.  General Terry 
intends to present it to West Point.
  Colonel Pennypacker's wound was a ghastly one in the right side and hip, made 
by a Minie ball, the pelvis being shattered.  

GALUSHA PENNYPACKER - 903

As soon as it was deemed safe he was taken to the Chesapeake Hospital, at 
Fortress Monroe, where he received the best surgical and medical attention.  His 
recovery was for a long time considered doubtful, and his suffering intense.
  Immediately after this action, the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General was 
conferred upon him, and soon after that of a full Brigadier.  Upon the 
recommendation of General Terry he was also made Major-General by brevet for 
gallant and meritorious services during the war.
  As soon as he was recovered as to travel with safety, he returned to his home 
at West Chester.  He was received on his arrival with the most flattering 
demonstrations of respect and esteem, by an organization of citizens, 
accompanied by the cadets of the two military schools, the populace crowding to 
behold the maimed soldier.  He was formally welcomed by Senator Wilmer 
Worthington in a delicate and graceful eulogy of his faithful service.  Though 
gradually recovering his strength he was still unfit for field duty, and twice 
tendering his resignation it was finally accepted on the 30th of April, 1866, he 
being the last of his regiment to leave the service, as he was the first to 
enter it.   He was the youngest general officer who served in the army during 
the war, having been confirmed as Brigadier and Brevet Major-General at the age 
of twenty two. 
  Relieved from martial duties, though with wounds unhealed, General Pennypacker 
at once commenced the study of law.  But the Government could ill afford to 
spare the services of so true and good a soldier, and on the 1st December, 1866, 
he was appointed a Colonel in the regular army and assigned to the command of 
the Thirty-fourth infantry.  He was permitted to delay joining his regiment for 
several months that he might have proper surgical treatment.  In the meantime he 
was nominated and confirmed a Brevet Brigadier and Brevet Major-General in the 
regular army.
  On the 20th of May, 1876, he joined his regiment, then stationed at Grenada, 
Mississippi.  He was afterwards President of a military commission convened at 
Vicksburg, and for a short time commanding officer of the sub-district of 
Mississippi.  Subsequently the Twenty-fourth infantry was discontinued as an 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 904

organization, when General Pennypacker was assigned, on the 25th of March, 1869, 
to the command of the Sixteenth infantry, which position he still holds.
  Previous to the nomination for Governor in 1872, General Pennypacker was urged 
by many influential papers throughout the State for that high office.  In the 
effort to harmonize conflicting interests, the propriety of selecting a 
candidate so deservedly popular, in order to secure the united support of all 
parties, was regarded as of the first importance.  For the intended honor he 
expressed to his friends in the convention grateful appreciation, but 
respectfully yet positively declined to be considered a candidate, preferring to 
retain his position in the army.  His name was accordingly withdrawn from the 
convention before a ballot was taken.  His age was barely that fixed by the 
Constitution for Governor.
 
WILLIAM J. PALMER, son of John and Matilda (Jackson) Palmer, was born near 
Smyrna, Delaware, on the 18th of September, 1836.  He was educated at the 
Central High School of Philadelphia, and spent a year in inspecting practical 
mining and engineering in England, becoming soon after his return private 
secretary to J. Edgar Thomson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.  
He formed and was made Captain of the Anderson Troop for escort duty to General 
Anderson on taking command in Kentucky.  Captain Palmer subsequently set about 
recruiting a regiment of cavalry, and when partially completed it was sent into 
the Cumberland Valley to meet the enemy in his Maryland campaign.  Soon after 
Antietam Captain Palmer volunteered to go into the enemy's lines on delicate 
duty, was taken prisoner, and was not released until January, 1863.  He had in 
the meantime been promoted to Colonel, and on rejoining his regiment, now with 
Rosecarans in Tennessee, soon brought if to an effective state.  He was active 
in the 
Chickamauga campaign, in the battle of Missionary Ridge, and in the operations 
against Longstreet in the valley of the French Broad River, in the winter of 
1864. In the Atlanta campaign he had charge of a portion of the line of supply, 
and when Hood moved on Nashville, Palmer was set upon his rear, 

WILLIAM J. PALMER - SAMUEL K. SCHWENK - 905

burning a pontoon train near Russellville, destroying a supply train near 
Aberdeen, and subsequently routing a column under General Lyon.  In the spring 
of 1865, having been made a Brevet Brigadier-General, he was given a brigade and 
sent into North Carolina, and when Johnson surrendered was placed over a 
division and put upon the track of Jefferson Davis, then trying to escape the 
Gulf.  Palmer with others pushed the pursuit, and he was close upon his trail 
when then the rebel President was captured in his female paraphernalia.  On 
leaving the service he was chosen Treasurer of the Kansas Pacific Railroad 
Company, and builder and manager of construction of the last two hundred and 
thirty-two miles.  After the lapse of a little more than five years he organized 
the Denver and Rio Grande Railway Company, the main line to extend to El Paso in 
Mexico, The track having a gauge of only three feet.  In 1870 he married Miss 
Queen Mellen of Flushing, Long Island.  He has established his home in a wild 
gorge of the 
Rocky Mountains, which he has named Queen's Canon.  General Thomas said of him: 
"There is no officer in the regular or volunteer service who has performed the 
duties which have devolved upon him with more intelligence, zeal, or energy, 
than General Palmer, whose uniform distinguished success throughout the war 
places his reputation beyond controversy."

SAMUEL KLINGER SCHWENK, Colonel of the Fiftieth regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born on the 8th of May, 1842, in Dauphin county.  He is descended 
from the Von Schwencks of Germany, a noble family, several of whom served with 
distinction in the late Franco-German war, and both paternal and maternal 
ancestors served in our Revolutionary war and in the wars of Napoleon.  He was 
educated at Dickinson Seminary, which he left in his senior year to enlist in 
the service of his country.  He studied military tactics when but a boy, with an 
old French officer, and at the age of sixteen was appointed Lieutenant of the 
Germanville artillery.  While at college he instructed the Dickinson Cadets, 
composed of the teachers and students of the college.  On the 19th of August, 
1861, he was appointed a First Lieutenant in the Fiftieth, and proceeded with

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 906

it to South Carolina.  In affairs at Beaufort and twice at Port Royal Ferry he 
acted with skill, and received the thanks of General Stevens and Hunter.  He 
returned to Virginia in time to take part in the battles of Bull Run and 
Chantilly.  At South Mountain he was wounded in the ankle.  At Antietam he was 
still with his company, through scarcely able to walk, and was given command of 
the sharpshooters on the Ninth corps front, where he was pitted against the 
famous Palmetto sharpshooters, whom he drove, and opened connection with 
Hooker's corps on the right, receiving handsome mention from Generals Wilcox and 
Burnside.  At Fredericksburg he again led the skirmishers, and reached out on 
the left until he joined hands with those of Franklin's Grand division.  The 
Ninth corps was sent west in the spring of 1863, and at Blue Spring and Hough's 
Ferry, where the advance of Longstreet was met, Captain Schwenk performed one of 
those daring feats with which his name was often associated.  He not only fought 
the 
enemy's skirmishers and captured a number of them, but actually went within the 
hostile lines, gaining full information of the position and numbers, and in the 
end took a party sent out to demand his own surrender.  "At Campbell's Station," 
says his brigade commander, General Cutcheon, "he behaved most bravely," and 
during the entire siege of Knoxville was "especially distinguished for his 
coolness, prudent judgment, and determined gallantry, as well as professional 
skill in the construction of defenses."  The same officer further says: "During 
the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania his regiment fought side by side 
with the Twentieth Michigan, of which I was then the commanding officer.  In the 
first of these actions his gallantry was conspicuous and remarked by all who 
witnessed it.  At the passage of the Ny River, on the 9th of May, 1864, his 
services were more valuable and permanent, being in command of the right company 
of the Fiftieth Pennsylvania, holding the extreme right of our line.  The 
enemy charged and attempted to turn that flank.  Most of the regiment gave way 
and fell back from the crest.  Our flank seemed to be turned.  At this moment 
Captain Schwenk, by his great personal exertions and bravery, rallied a part of 
his regiment, charged the enemy with the bayonet, and repulsed then from the 
crest, thus saving

SAMUEL K. SCHWENK - 907

the brigade from serious disaster.  Again on the 12th of May, in the battle of 
Spottsylvania Court House, he greatly distinguished himself, so as to draw the 
attention and admiration of the whole brigade," At the North Anna and at Shady 
Grove he was alike conspicuous, always upon the advance line, where dangers 
thickened and peril was most imminent.  In the severe fighting at Cold Harbor he 
was severely and at the time thought mortally wounded.  A ball entered the side, 
split and traversed a rib bone, carrying away a portion of the vertebra.  It was 
treated by men eminent in the medical profession, the case being regarded as 
remarkable, many months elapsing before he could move about.  In the meantime an 
examining board had pronounced him permanently disabled, and the order for his 
discharge on account of "physical disability from wounds received in action" had 
been issued.  On the day following that on which this was promulgated, Governor 
Curtin had ordered his promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel.  On six 
several occasions he went before the examining board to have the revocation of 
the order of discharge recommended, before he succeeded, and then with his 
wounds still open.  He proceeded immediately to the field and assumed command of 
his regiment, with the rank of Major.  At the retaking of Fort Steadman and in 
the final capture of Petersburg he was engaged, leading his troops with marked 
skill and enterprise.  He was promoted to the rank of Colonel and Brigadier-
General by brevet for "skilful and meritorious services during the war."  Upon 
the occasion of laying the corner-stone of the national monument at Gettysburg, 
in July, 1865, Colonel Schwenk's regiment was selected, upon the recommendation 
of General Grant, to represent the infantry of the army.  At the muster oft of 
service, on the 30th of July, only 134 men and two officers, out of 940 who 
originally went forth, remained.  In his farewell order to his men he said: "The 
story of the old regiment, with the incidents of the past four years, will 
always be remembered and cherished with the memory and virtues of our noble 
comrades, whose remains are mouldering in ten different States.  Your deeds of 
valor and trials of endurance, with the achievements of thirty-two battles, will 
brighten many pages in the annals of your country's fame."

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 908

  Soon after his discharge General Schwenk entered Hancock's First Army corps, 
and served for a time in Michigan.  Near the close of the year 1866 he was 
appointed First Lieutenant in the Forty-first regular infantry, which he joined 
at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in March following, and was shortly after made 
Adjutant.  He was in succession brevetted Captain, Major, and Lieutenant-Colonel 
in the regular army for conspicuous gallantry and skilful and meritorious 
services at Ny River, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor.  He was stationed at 
Brownsville, Texas, in 1867, and was Adjutant-General to General Mackenzie in 
command upon the Rio Grande.  During the prevalence of yellow fever he in 
addition performed the duties of Regimental and Post-Adjutant, until he was 
himself stricken with the fever, of which, after having nearly recovered, he 
suffered a violent relapse which came near carrying him off.  He was promoted to 
Captain in December, 1867, and stationed at forts along the Texas frontier, 
where he had several encounters with the Indians.  In July, 1868, he was 
President of the first Military Commission for Texas under the reconstruction 
acts of Congress.  A year later he was sent to Nashville, Tennessee, in charge 
of recruiting service, with offices in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and 
Mississippi.  When the army was reduced in 1871, he was assigned to the Eighth 
cavalry, but in consequences of disability from wounds, of which he received 
eight during the war, he was compelled to give up active services and will 
probably have to go upon the retired list of the army.
  
MARTIN D. HARDIN was born on the 26th of June, 1837, in Jacksonville, Illinois.  
His father, a native of Kentucky, a member of Congress, was killed in leading a 
charge in the battle of Buena Vista.  His grandfather, Martin D., for whom he 
was named, was a member of the United States Senate, and his great-grandfather, 
born in western Pennsylvania, was a distinguished soldier in the Revolutionary 
War.  His mother, Sarah Ellen (Smith) Hardin, married, in 1851, Chancellor 
Walworth of New York.  He was educated at West Point, where he graduated in 
1859.  He entered the service as a Lieutenant of artillery, and, after a brief 
term at Fortress Monroe, was sent with a 

MARTIN D. HARDIN - 909

detachment of three hundred men to the Pacific coast, and postal at Fort Uniqua, 
Washington Territory.  He returned at the opening of the Rebellion, and was 
stationed with his company in the defenses of Washington, and served with it in 
McClellan's column until after the battle of Yorktown, when he was for some time 
prostrated by sickness.  He returned to duty in time to participate in the Seven 
Days' battle, during which he served on the staff of General Hunt, Chief of 
Artillery.  In July, 1862, he was made Colonel of the Twelfth Reserve regiment, 
and in the battle of Bull Run led Jackson's brigade, holding open ground with 
determined courage, and near the close of the engagement received a severe and 
dangerous wound.  He participated in the battle of Gettysburg, and at Mine Run 
by his gallantry broke through the enemy's mask, disclosing his purposes.  Near 
the close of 1863, while on duty near Catlett's Station, he was shot by 
guerillas and severely wounded, losing his left arm.  He served on a board to 
examine prisoners of state, and in charge of draft rendezvous at Pittsburg until 
the opening of the spring, when at his earnest solicitation he was restored to 
his regiment, and put in command of a brigade of the Reserves.  He was wounded 
at the North Anna, and distinguished himself at Bethesda Church.  On the muster 
out of the Reserve corps, on the following day, Colonel Hardin was put in 
command of the defenses of Washington north of the Potomac and promoted to 
Brigadier-General.  When attacked by Early, in July, 1864, he rendered important 
services in holding him in check until the arrival of the Sixth corps.  On the 
15th of August, 1865, he was assigned to the command of a district in North 
Carolina.  In July, 1866, he was commissioned Major of the Forty-third Veteran 
Reserve, and was stationed at Detroit.  In June, 1867, he was given leave of 
absence and spent a year in Europe.  On his return he served in Michigan and at 
Buffalo, New York, until December, 1870, when he was retired from active duty 
with 
the rank of Brigadier-General, having been advanced by brevet through all the 
grades to that of Brigadier in the regular service.  On retiring he studied law, 
and was admitted to practice in Chicago, in July, 1871.  He was married in 1864 
to Miss Estella Graham, second daughter of James Sutton Graham, of Harrodsburg, 
Kentucky.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 910

HENRY MARTIN HOYT, Colonel of the Fifty-second regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born in Luzerne county, on the 8th of June, 1830.  His parents were 
natives of Connecticut. He was educated at Lafayette and Williams' Colleges, 
graduating at the latter in 1849.  He studied law in the office of George W. 
Woodward, and early took a good rank at the bar.  The national cause found no 
more ready supporter, and he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-
second in August, 1861.  While on an examining board at Washington he studied 
diligently books upon tactics, engineering, fortifications, and the various 
requirements of a soldier.  On the Peninsula he was of Naglee's brigade, and 
participated in the reconnaissance from Bottom's Bridge to Seven Pines in 
advance of the whole army, and commanded the party which constructed the bridges 
across the Chickahominy,  When the battle of Fair Oaks opened he rendered signal 
service by communication to General Summer the exact position of the Union 
Troops, joining Summer's column as it moved to the support of Heintzelman in 
that battle, and fighting under him to the end.  This brigade had the honor of 
being selected to hold the enemy at check at the passages of the Chickahominy, 
and when recalled joined Franklin at White Oak Swamp, in both situations 
exhibiting the most undaunted courage.
  At the close of this campaign Colonel Hoyt was ordered first to North 
Carolina, and thence to South Carolina, where he was engaged in the siege of 
Fort Wagner, the first serious obstacle to the reduction of Charlestown.  The 
operations were laborious and conducted under the terrible fire of the enemy and 
the more wasting effort of the summer's heat.  For forty days the work was 
pushed.  A single paragraph from a letter written by Colonel Hoyt at the time 
illustrate its nature.  After describing the busy scenes of a detail, he says: 
"Over all this diversity of labor were constantly exploding, at night, the 
shells of the enemy. 'Cover Johnson!' would be called out from one lookout.  
There is a flash away across the harbor.  In ten or fifteen seconds comes a 
report.  Away up in the air is seen a small unsteady twinkle.  Presently it 
'whistles,' and 'wobbles,' and roars like a coming storm.  Down, down on the 
heads of the men crouching behind

HENRY M. HOYT - 911

their mounds of sand, lower and lower still, and in very imminent proximity, it 
winds up with a bang, and a villainous whirr-r-r of half a hundred pieces 
humming into the marshes, or mayhap into the living muscles of its poor victims.  
Then the Bull of the Woods would open it's pyrotechny, and Bee, Beauregard, and 
the Peanut, and Haskell, and so the thing was kept up until, tired, and weary, 
and mangled, the detail went out of the trenches at dawn."  When all was ready, 
a hundred heavy guns opened upon devoted Wagner and the troops were held in 
readiness to assault, Colonel Hoyt having been assigned the task of charging 
Fort Gregg; but before the time for the movement had come the enemy evacuated 
and the stronghold fell without a blow.
  In June, 1864, a plan was devised to capture Charleston by surprising the 
garrisons guarding its approaches.  The attempt was made on the night of the 3rd 
of July, in three divisions, Colonel Hoyt, closely supported by other troops, 
leading that which was to capture Fort Johnson.  The channel was difficult, and 
the pilot, either through ignorance or treachery, utterly failed in his duty.  
Colonel Hoyt, determined to carry out his instructions, undertook the guidance 
and triumphantly cleared the bar.  But precious time had been lost, and as he 
approached the fort he was discovered and a simultaneous, rapid fire was opened 
upon him.  His supports failed to follow, though of this he was ignorant, and 
pushing boldly forward, landed and with 135 men, his whole party, charged and 
captured a two-gun battery.  The heavy guns of Fort Johnson, two hundred yards 
beyond, were filled with the sharp rattle of musketry.  No sign of wavering was 
seen in the intrepid band as they moved steadily forward, led by Colonel Hoyt.  
They crossed the parapet, struggled at the crest face to face with the foe, and 
began to leap into the fort, when the astounding and mortifying fact was 
disclosed that they were unsupported.  The whole garrison was now alive and 
swarming upon all sides.  It was plain that a further struggle would be useless, 
and the detachment surrendered as prisoners of war.  The skill and daring 
displayed by Colonel Hoyt and his extorted the highest praise from friend and

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 912

foe.  The Charleston Mercury of July 6th said: "The second column, under Colonel 
Hoyt of the Fifty-second Pennsylvania, who also had command of the expedition, 
attacked the Brooke gun, and landing. Lieutenant Boworth of the Second South 
Carolina artillery was compelled to fall back, after himself and men fighting 
bravely.  The enemy, cheered by this success, with their commander at their head 
waving his sword, advanced in heavy force upon Fort Johnson; but these were 
received with a terrific fire by the light and heavy batteries on the line."  
General Foster, in command of the department, said in orders: " The boats 
commanded by Colonel Hoyt, Lieutenant-Colonel Conyingham, and Lieutenants 
Stevens and Evans, all of the Fifty-second Pennsylvania, rowed rapidly to the 
shore, and these officers with Adjutant Bunyan (afterwards killed) and 135 men, 
landed and drove the enemy, but, deserted by their comrades, were obliged to 
surrender to superior numbers.   Colonel Hoyt bestows unqualified praise on the 
officers and men who landed with him; of these seven were killed and sixteen 
wounded.  He himself 
deserves great credit for his energy in urging the boats forward, and bringing 
them through the narrow channel, and the feeling which led him to land at the 
head of his men was the prompting of a gallant spirit which deserves to find 
more imitators."  General Schemmelfinning said, after recounting the 
preliminaries;  "After this you placed yourself at the head of the column and 
led them most gallantly, faithfully carrying out as far as possible with the 
small number of men who landed with you the orders given you by me.  Had you 
been supported as your brave conduct deserved, it would have ensured the success 
of the important operations then being carried in on front of Charleston."
  Colonel Hoyt with other Union officers was sent to Macon, and subsequently to 
Charleston, where they were exposed to the sweep of the Union guns.  On his 
thither he, with some companions, leaped from the cars and undertook to make 
their way to the Union fleet, but were tracked by bloodhounds and all captured.  
After his exchange he returned to his regiment, and at the close of hostilities, 
which occurred not long after, resumed the practice of his profession.  In 1867 
he was appointed by Governor Geary an additional law judge of the eleventh dis-

J. P. S. GOBIN - J. BOWMAN SWEITZER - 913

trict.  He discharged its duties with honor and dignity until the ensuing 
election, when one of the dominant political party was chosen to succeed him.  
In person he is full six feet in height, well proportioned, and of a dignified 
presence.  He was married in 1855 to Miss Mary E. Loveland. 
  JOHN P. GOBIN, son of Samuel S. and Susan A. (Shindel) Gobin, was born on the 
26th of January, 1837, at Sunbury.  His great-grandfather, Charles Gobin, was a 
Revolutionary soldier.  He learned the printing business in the office of the 
Sunbury American, studying law in the meantime.  In the three months' campaign 
he served in the Eleventh regiment as Lieutenant, after which he entered the 
Forty-seventh as Captain, and advanced through the several grades of Major, 
Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, and Brevet Brigadier-General.  He was early sent to 
the Department of the South, where he participated in the actions of Pocotaligo, 
St. John's Bluff, Sabine Cross Roads, Pleasant Hill, and Cane River Crossing.  
During 1862 and part of 1863 he was Judge Advocate-General of the Department of 
the South.  He returned north in the summer of 1864, and made the campaign with 
Sheridan in the Valley, a portion of the time commanding a brigade in the 
Nineteenth corps, participating in the battles of Opequan and Fisher's Hill, and 
particularly distinguishing himself at Cedar Creek.  His regiment was here the 
right of Sheridan's line, and when a portion gave way from the severe pressure 
of the rebel front which overlapped the Union, he held fast and gave the enemy 
his first repulse, the turning point in the battle.  Returning to the South in 
June, 1865, General Gobin was placed in command of the First Sub-district of 
Charleston, and was Provost Judge from July to January, 1866, when the term of 
service of his regiment ceased.  He married, in October, 1865, Miss Annie M. 
Howe, of Key West, Florida.  Since he war he has practiced his profession in 
Lebanon.

J. BOWMAN SWEITZER, Colonel of the Sixty-second regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born in Fayette County in 1824.  At the breaking out of the 
Rebellion he was a lawyer of Pittsburg.  In conjunction with Samuel W. Black he 
recruited 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 914

the Sixty-second regiment, which they transformed into one of the most reliable 
corps in the whole army.  At Hanover Court House a handsome victory was gained 
and prisoners taken.  In the sanguinary battle of Gaines' Mill, Colonel Black, 
while directing a charge upon the left, was killed.  Nothing daunted, Colonel 
Sweitzer assumed command and resolutely beat back the for.  The line was now 
hard-pressed upon the extreme left and thither Colonel Sweitzer was directed to 
lead his regiment.  The struggle was desperate and was at this time raging with 
terrible heat along the whole front.  To the last Colonel Sweitzer breasted the 
storm.  But the current of disaster was now setting against the fragment of the 
Union army engaged, which was vastly outnumbered, and he fell, wounded, into the 
enemy's hands.  He was taken to Libby, and his fate was for a while in doubt.  
He was reported killed, and several papers published his obituaries.  His wife, 
on her way to the front, casually overhearing a soldier declare that he saw 
Colonel Sweitzer killed, swooned and was for some time insensible.  It was with 
a joyous heart that she learned on the following day, from the noble 
philanthropist Clement B. Barclay, that her husband was still alive and only 
slightly wounded.
  As soon as exchanged Colonel Sweitzer returned to his regiment, and led in the 
battle of Antietam.  The command of the brigade to which the Sixty-second was 
attached fell to his hands a short time afterwards - the brigade which the 
intrepid Griffin had led.  This he commanded in the battle to Fredericksburg, 
under a fire that has rarely been paralleled.  As they advanced in beautiful 
order, General Burnside, who was watching every movement through his field-
glass, exclaimed as he beheld the magnificent spectacle:
  "What troops are those?"
  "Second brigade, General Griffin's division"  replied General Sturgis, who 
stood near.
  "No troops ever behaved handsomer,"  said Burnside, as he moved nervously.
  But all was to no purpose.  Though they fought with a desperation worthy of 
success, they were hurled back from the stone walls and entrenched guns, where a 
foe lurked that no

JOHN FLYNN - 915

daring could reach.  Colonel Sweitzer was wounded and had a horse killed under 
him.  At Chancellorsville he handled his brigade with remarkable skill, 
extricating it, when cut off and in imminent danger of capture, with surprising 
success.  A writer if the Boston Advertiser thus alludes to him in the battle 
which next succeeded: "At Gettysburg he was as brave as a lion, regardless of 
his own personal safety, but urging his men on to victory.  When he was ordered 
to move on the enemy, he went up to the very front, some distance in advance of 
his troops, with his brigade flag flying by his side.  Through some oversight or 
bad management Colonel Sweitzer's brigade was left in the very front without any 
support, and it became flanked by the enemy.  It was then through that the whole 
brigade were prisoners.  But Colonel Sweitzer was equal to the emergency, and by 
a skillful movement withdrew his command, through his loss was very heavy."
  Colonel Sweitzer was one of the most trusted leaders in the campaign from the 
Wilderness to Petersburg, where the way was through human gore, and the track 
was marked by war's most blasting and blighting effect.  At the expiration of 
his term he was mustered out of service together with the fragment of a regiment 
which remained of that once strong body of men, and he retired to his home at 
Pittsburg.  In March, 1865. The brevet rank of Brigadier-General was conferred 
upon him - a rank which he had really held for more that two years.  Acts of 
heroism which in the early stages if the war would have been rewarded with a 
star were allowed to pass unregarded in the later, so gigantic had became the 
contest and so vast the theater on which it was conducted.

JOHN FLYNN was born on the 10th of March, 1819, at Waterford, Ireland.  He came 
to this country in early manhood, and in 1844, enlisted as a private in the 
regular army.  He served in Mexico, and was noticed by General Worth at 
Cherubusco and characterized by Captain F. T. Dent, at Molino del Rey, as 
"foremost and fearless."  Upon his discharge-paper, given to accept promotion, 
Captain Whitall noted the following: "First Sergeant John Flynn is an active, 
efficient, and intelligent soldier."

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 916

At the opening of the rebellion he was made Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 
Twenty-eighth regiment and afterwards Captain, participating in the affairs at 
Bolivar Heights, Cedar Mountain, Rappahannock, Sulphur Springs, Antietam, and 
Chancellorsville.  Shortly after the latter engagement he was promoted to 
lieutenant-Colonel.  At Gettysburg he was severely wounded.  In the famous 
Battle above the Clouds at Lookout Mountain he was conspicuous for gallantry, 
and in March, 1864, was promoted to Colonel.  Throughout the Atlantic campaign 
he led with skill and courage his well-tried regiment.  In the battle of North 
Edisto he received a wound in the foot which necessitated the amputation of a 
portion of it.  He was brevetted Brigadier-General in March and mustered out in 
November, 1865, after a faithful service of over twenty-one years - a hero in 
two wars.  He was married in 1850 to Miss Mary Pinchard.  In person he is over 
six feet in height.  He is characterized by an old companion-in-arms as 
"intelligent, zealous, a thorough soldier, at all times under all circumstances 
bearing in mind that a soldier should be a gentleman."

CHARLES H. T. COLLIS, Brevet Brigadier and Major-General, was born on the 4th of 
February, 1838, at Cork, Ireland.  He was the son of William and Mary Anne 
(Lloyd) Collis.  In the year of his birth his parents removed to England.  His 
father being a gentleman of means, his early education was of the most liberal 
character.  He was fond of athletic games, expert at cricket and ball, and 
skilled in horsemanship.  At the age of fifteen he came with his father to the 
United States, and settled in Philadelphia.  His mother, five sisters, and two 
brothers sailed shortly afterwards in the City of Glasgow, but were all lost at 
sea, the vessel, after leaving port, never having been heard of more.  His 
training was conducted with a view to a legal education.  He was married on the 
9th of December, 1861, to Miss Septima M. Levy, of Charleston, South Carolina, 
for several years a resident of Philadelphia.
  His only military experience previous to the war was gained while acting on 
the staff of William D. Lewis, Jr., commanding the First regiment, Pennsylvania 
militia.  He served in the

CHARLES H. T. COLLIS - 917

Eighteenth regiment through the three months' campaign and at its close 
recruited a company of Zouaves d'Afrique for the special service of body guard 
to General N. P. Banks, successor to General Patterson.  When Banks was attacked 
by Stonewall Jackson, with forces many times outnumbering his own, to Captain 
Collis with his fine company was assigned the hazardous and difficult duty of 
covering the retreat.  By skilful dispositions and bold assaults he succeeded in 
delaying the hostile advance until Banks had got his trains away and the main 
body into position to defend himself.  For this important service Captain Collis 
was warmly commended by the General, and was induced by him to raise a regiment 
of Zouaves.  In this he was successful and was commissioned Colonel, the entire 
regiment being uniformed after the manner of the French Zouaves d'Afrique.  But 
though gayly dressed they were no holiday troops, as was proved in many a bloody 
struggle.  At the battle of Fredericksburg Colonel Collis was with Birney 
on the left, and when the contest was hottest he was thrown in to the support of 
the Pennsylvania Reserves, coming to the rescue at an important juncture, 
hurling back the enemy and saving the guns of Randolph's and Livingstone's 
batteries.  His service in this battle was specially recognized in the reports 
of Generals Robinson and Stoneman.  At Chancellorsville he so impressed all with 
his intrepidity that a letter asking his permanent assignment to its command was 
signed by every regimental commander of the brigade, and the enlisted men of his 
own regiment, desirous of emphasizing their gratification with his growing 
honors, presented him with a sword inscribed "in commemoration of his 
distinguished gallantry in the battle of Chancellorsville, May 3d, 1863."
  In retreat of Meade from Culpeper in the fall of this year, General J. E. B. 
Stewart came unawares upon Colonel Collis' brigade, now composed of six 
Pennsylvania regiments (Fifty-seventh, Sixty-third, Sixty-eighth, One Hundred 
and Fifth, One Hundred and Fourteenth, and One Hundred and Forty-first); but the 
rebel chieftain found the young Colonel prepared, and was obliged to withdraw 
sadly repulsed.  General Birney immediately issued the following order: "The 
Major-General commanding the division thanks the officers and men for their 
admirable conduct

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 918

during the late movements. Especial credit is due to the First brigade, Colonel 
Collis, for its gallantry in repulsing the enemy's attack on the head of the 
column at Auburn, and to Colonel Collis for his skill and promptitude in making 
the dispositions ordered."  Soon after this engagement General Birney thus wrote 
to the President: "Colonel Collis has for a long time very ably commanded the 
First brigade of my division; the brigade has always behaved, under General 
Kearny and myself, with the utmost gallantry, and deserves a general officer to 
command it, promoted for services in it."  In this request Birney was joined by 
Generals Robinson, French, and Meade, and in the following October he was 
appointed Brigadier-General by brevet.
  At the opening of the campaign of 1864, an independent brigade consisting of 
six regiments of infantry and one of cavalry was organized for duty at the head-
quarters of General Grant, to the command of which General Collis was assigned.  
In this capacity he participated in the battles of the Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, Guinea Station, and Petersburg, under the immediate eye of the 
Lieutenant-General, and so well did he acquit himself in the charge delivered 
from Fort Sedgwick upon the enemy's salient, where he led the assaulting column, 
that he was brevetted Major-General upon the field.
  At the close of the war General Collis returned to the practice of his 
profession, and was soon after appointed Assistant City Solicitor.  In 1869 he 
was appointed Director of City Trusts of Philadelphia by the Board of Judges.  
He was tended the position of Assistant Attorney-General of the State, under Mr. 
Brewster, but declined.  In 1871 he was elected City Solicitor by a large 
majority, and reelected in 1874 for a second term of three years, by an 
increased majority.  His opinions as law officer of the city government possess 
enduring merit, notable among which was that adverse to the right of the 
Constitutional Convention of 1873 to enact an election law, in which he was 
sustained by the Supreme Court without a dissenting voice.  Few men so youthful 
have won so high a rank both civil and military, as has General Collis.

JAMES McL. THOMPSON - JOHN H. TAGGART - 919

JAMES McLEAN THOMPSON, son of Andrew and Jane Eliza (McLean) Thompson, was born 
in Adams county, on the 4th of February, 1833.  He entered the service of the 
United States as a Captain in the One Hundredth and Seventh regiment and led his 
company through Pope's campaign.  At South Mountain and Antietam the command of 
the regiment fell to him.  In the former he led in a charge with fixed bayonets 
which routed the enemy, Colonel Gale of the Twelfth Alabama being killed and the 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth South Carolina wounded and taken prisoner.  In 
the latter he led on his men up to the noted Corn-field, where he suffered 
severe losses, having been pitted against vastly superior numbers, but held his 
ground with unwavering courage.  He was shortly after promoted to Major, and 
took part in the battle of Fredericksburg.  In February, 1863, he was made 
Lieutenant-Colonel.  He was with his corps at Chancellorsville, and at 
Gettysburg the command of the regiment again devolved upon him.  Here his horse 
was 
killed under him and he was struck by a grapeshot.  He was brevetted Brigadier-
General for gallantry, and continued to serve until the close of the war, when 
he was transferred to the regular army.  In stature he is over six feet in 
height.  He married in 1864 Miss Mary Rebecca Slye, of Washington, D. C.

JOHN HENRY TAGGART was born on the 22d of January, 1821, at Georgetown, Kent 
county, Maryland, where his ancestors for several generation had lived.  The 
father died in 1825, when the mother with her two children, a boy and girl, 
removed to Philadelphia.  At the age of eleven the son was apprenticed to a 
printer, William Fry, of the National Gazette, with whom he remained nine years.  
To his mother, who had taught school in Maryland, he was much indebted for the 
rudiments of education.  But aside from this his university was the printing 
office, where a knowledge of the history and politics of the time, and the 
progress of civilization, was principally gained.  He was also indebted to the 
Apprentices' Library of Philadelphia, which as a lad he liberally patronized.  
He joined the militia in 1842, aided in suppressing the riots of 1844, and was 
commissioned Lieutenant by Governor Shunk.  Believing fully in the doctrine of

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 920

coercion, he was among the first to offer a company, and put in command of Camp 
Curtin in May, 1861, and a month later made Colonel of the Twelfth Reserve 
regiment.
  He was warmly engaged at Dranesville, where, he says in his report, "The 
conduct of the men under fire, nearly all of them for the first time, was most 
commendable.  There was no flinching, and the line was preserved unbroken."
  At Beaver Dam Creek one of his companies was placed in Ellerson's Mill where 
it did excellent service, of which Roger A. Pryor said: "Ellerson's Mill was 
defended with desperate obstinacy." The fatality in the battle of the following 
day at Gaines' Mill was very great, as also at Charles City Cross Roads.  
Finally at Malvern Hill the Union retreat and the rebel pursuit and attack was 
staid by one of the most sanguinary struggles of the campaign.  The Union army 
played the part of a lion at bay, and the death and destruction which it dealt 
from artillery supported b determined infantry was indeed frightful.  Upon the 
withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula, Colonel Taggart resigned and was 
appointed to the head of an institution founded to impart professional military 
instruction.  Patriotic citizens of Philadelphia, anxious to uphold the 
Government in this trying hour, recognizing the difficulty of obtaining suitable 
officers to command colored troops just then being called into the army, 
proposed to establish a school for the instruction of soldiers for these 
positions.  The chairman of the board was Thomas Webster, its secretary 
Cadwalader Biddle, its treasurer S. A. Mercer.  Through the liberality of this 
board, funds were raised to furnish the instruction free, open alike to citizens 
of all the States, and Colonel John H. Taggart was selected to conduct it.  It 
was known as the Free Military School of Philadelphia.  The institution had the 
warm approval of the national authorities, and permission to grant furloughs to 
deserving soldiers to attend it was given to officers in the field.  General 
Casey, chief of the examining board, wrote on March 7th: "It gives me great 
pleasure to learn that your school is prospering, and I am pleased to inform you 
that the board of which I am president have not as yet rejected one of your 
candidates."  Pupils entered it from eighteen States of the Union, and from ten 
of the

JOSEPH JACK - FRANKLIN A. STRATTON - 921

leading nations of Europe.  It was continued in operation from the 26th of 
December, 1863, when it was opened with only two students, to September 15th, 
1864.  During this period four hundred and eighty-four were graduated and passed 
successful examinations.  At the end of this time the funds were exhausted, when 
it was continued by Colonel Taggart on his own responsibility until the fall of 
Richmond, charging a small tuition.  This service of Colonel Taggart was 
doubtless greater than he could possibly have rendered by continuing in the 
field.  The Philadelphia Dispatch of October 2d, 1864, said of him: "The 
practical experience of Colonel Taggart is such that probably there is no person 
in the country, except the veteran professors at West Point, so well suited to 
direct the studies which are necessary to be prosecuted by those aspirants who 
are ambitious to become officers of volunteers."  On the 1st of November, 1865, 
he was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue, which office he held until the 
advent of President Johnson to power.  In 1869 he became editor and proprietor 
of the Philadelphia Sunday Times.  
  Colonel Taggart was married on the 17th of June, 1845, to Miss Eliza Graham, a 
native of Philadelphia.  Nine children were the issue of this marriage, the 
eldest son carrying a musket in the militia of 1863.
  
JOSEPH JACK, son of John and Nancy (McCoy) Jack, was a native of Westmoreland 
county.  He rendered long service in the militia, having been successively 
Captain, Major, and General of a brigade.  He was made Colonel of the One 
Hundred and Sixty-eighth regiment in December, 1862, which as a part of the 
Keystone brigade he led at Suffolk, Virginia, in North Carolina during the siege 
of Little Washington, and in the demonstration towards Richmond during the 
Gettysburg campaign.  He retired from the service at the close of his term in 
July, 1863.

FRANKLIN ASA STRATTON, Colonel of the Eleventh cavalry, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, on the 30th of November, 1829.  
He was educated for the occupation of civil engineering, and previous to the war 
was engaged in several western States in its practice.  In 1857

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 922

he commanded a company of riflemen in a severe winter campaign against the Sioux 
Indians.  In the summer of 1861 he moved to Washington with a company of Iowa 
men, which became a part of what was eventually the Eleventh.  He was promoted 
to Major in September, 1864, to Colonel in May, 1865, and Brevet Brigadier-
General in March.  The pitched battles in which he was engaged number nearly 
thirty, besides many skirmishes and minor affairs.  In a saber charge at 
Franklin, in which he displayed courage and skill, he was wounded, and in a 
hand-to-hand encounter in the battle of October 7th, 1864, received a saber cut 
in the hand.  He particularly distinguished himself in the raid led by Wilson 
and Kautz, 500 miles inside the enemy's lines, in which three battles were 
fought and thirty miles of the Danville Railroad were destroyed, he having the 
lead in withdrawing in face of vastly superior numbers sent out to intercept 
them.  General Stratton led his regiment in the final charge made in the Army of 
the Potomac 
just previous to the surrender of Lee on the 9th of April, and throughout his 
entire service proved himself an intelligent and able leader.  He was married on 
the 24th of February, 1866, to Mrs. George E. Griffith nee Keeling of Norfolk, 
Virginia.  He was soon afterwards appointed Civil Engineer in the Navy.

GEORGE SHIELDS GALLUPE was born at Troy, New York, on the 4th of August, 1832.  
In early life he followed the seas for a period of three years.  At the 
commencement of hostilities he was made Captain in the Eighth Reserve regiment, 
in which capacity he served through the Peninsula campaign, being severely 
wounded at Gaines Mill, and again slightly at Charles City Cross Roads.  The 
command of the regiment devolved upon Captain Gallupe in the midst of the 
hardest fighting at Fredericksburg, where he won the thanks of General Reynolds 
in command of the corps.  He was shortly after made Inspector-General of the 
Reserves, and promoted to Major.  At Spottsylvania, on the 11th of May, 1864, he 
was hit, and only preserved from death by the pocket-book in which the bullet 
lodged, and on the following day was severely wounded in the face, the flesh

GEORGE S. GALLUPE - JOHN A. DANKS - 923

of the chin being carried away.  At the close of his service in May he commanded 
recruiting for a new command and soon had over three thousand men. He was made 
Colonel of the Fifth artillery (heavy) and was assigned to the command of a 
brigade in the Department of Washington, having some severe skirmishing in 
keeping open the Manassas Gap Railroad, his gallantry securing him the brevet 
rank of Brigadier-General.  On leaving the volunteer service he was appointed a 
Captain in the regular army and brevetted Major and Colonel.  General Gallupe 
was married in 1854 to Miss Sadie Hare of Pittsburg.

JOHN ANDERSON DANKS was born in Venango county, on the 11th of March, 1826.  In 
early life he was farmer and iron-worker.  He was married in 1848 to Miss Annie 
Reese.  Earnest in his support of the Government he recruited a company for the 
Sixty-third regiment, of which he was commissioned Captain.  At Fair Oaks he was 
wounded in the right leg.  After recovering he returned to his regiment, having 
in the meantime been promoted to Major, and was in time to lead in the battle of 
Fredericksburg.  In that engagement he heroically headed a charge, in which his 
won regiment with the One Hundred and Fourteenth rescued twelve pieces of 
artillery, and saved them from capture, receiving the thanks of General 
Stoneman.  At Chancellorsville he was taken prisoner, and for two weeks endured 
the privations of Libby.  Soon after his release he was promoted to Lieutenant-
Colonel.
  At Gettysburg this regiment was thrust out upon the skirmish front at the 
Peach Orchard, where it was subjected to a cross fire of artillery and infantry.  
In the face of the fearful assaults that shook that ever memorable field it held 
its ground, and until the Third corps, shattered and broken, was forced back.  
Lieutenant-Colonel Danks was promoted to Colonel, to date from the second day of 
this battle.  He was warmly engaged at Auburn Mills on the 14th of October, 
where he led the regiment in a charge which resulted fortunately, and won the 
approval of the division commander, the gallant Birney.  At the very opening of 
the spring campaign of 1864 Colonel Danks was severely wounded, a Minnie' ball 
striking his left fore-arm and passing

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 924

into his hand.  Seven officers beside himself were wounded, and General Hays, 
the father of the Sixty-third regiment, who led the brigade, was killed.  
Colonel Danks was sufficiently recovered to participate in the battle before 
Petersburg.  He was mustered out at the conclusion of his term.  August 5th, 
1864.  In 1866 he was elected a member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

LOUIS WAGNER, son of Ludwig and Christiana (Berg) Wagner, was born on the 4th of 
August, 1838, in Giessen,  Germany.  At the age of eleven he came to 
Philadelphia, where, after receiving a fair education, he was apprenticed to 
learn the business of lithograph printing.  He entered the service as a First 
Lieutenant in the Eighty0eighth regiment, and was engaged at Cedar Mountain, 
Throughfare Gap, Second Bull Run, and Chancellorsville, rising rapidly through 
the ranks of Captain, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel, he attained in March, 
1863.  At the second battle of Bull Run he received a severe wound, which was 
eighteen months in healing, the tibia of the right leg being fractured, and 
necessitated the insertion and removal of a considerable portion of it.  He fell 
into the enemy's hands on this field, but was paroled shortly after.  In June, 
1863, in consequence of his disability from wounds, he was placed in command of 
Camp William Penn, established as a rendezvous for colored soldiers, which he 
kept open until May, 1865, organizing in the meantime troops to the number of 
12,354.  After closing the camp he returned to his regiment and was for a time 
in command of a brigade.  He was brevetted Brigadier-General in March, 1865, 
"for gallant and meritorious services during the war."  He has since been a 
member of the Councils of Philadelphia, executive officer of the Sons of 
Temperance, and Commander of the State organization of Grand Army of the 
Republic.  General Wagner was married to Miss Hattie Slocum, in 1869.

THOMAS JEFFERSON AHL was born on the 2d of April, 1839, in York county.  His 
grandfather was a surgeon in the Revolutionary army.  In February, 1859, with 
three others he went overland with a cattle-team to Pike's Peak, and in 1860

LEWIS WAGNER - THOS. J. AHL - JOSEPH M. KNAP - 925

was a migratory lumber dealer along the Mississippi River.  He was in Arkansas 
when the Rebellion opened, and was offered the position of Sergeant in a rebel 
company; but decided and returned to Pennsylvania, entered the Twenty-eighth 
regiment as Captain.  This he led until after the battle of Antietam, when he 
was placed upon the staff of General Williams and subsequently of General 
Slocum.  In August, 1863, he was made Provost Marshal of the corps, acting until 
November, when he took command of his regiment, having previously been promoted 
to Colonel, and led it in the stirring actions of Lookout Mountain, Mission 
Ridge, and Ringgold, succeeding to the command of the brigade in the latter.  he 
was honorably discharged on the 18th of March, 1865.

JOSEPH M. KNAPP, son of Thomas L. and Mary (Averell) Knap, was born at 
Ogdensburg, New York, on the 30th of December, 1837.  He was educated at the 
Rensselaer Institute, at Troy.  He entered the service as a Lieutenant in the 
Twenty-eighth regiment, and was promoted to Captain of a battery formed 
especially for Geary's brigade, which became justly celebrated as Knap's 
Battery.  At Cedar Mountain the artillery played a conspicuous part, Knapp 
receiving a converging fire; but, says the Chief of artillery, best, "Officers 
and men stood firm and unflinching to the end. . . .I can bear witness to the 
brave and determined manner in which Captain Knap and Lieutenant Crushing worked 
their guns."  He was engaged at Rappahannock, Sulphur Springs, South Mountain, 
and Antietam.  He was made Chief of artillery of the Second division, Twelfth 
corps, in December, 1862, and at Chancellorsville was put upon the front towards 
Fredericksburg where the first conflict occurred, and where, says Captain Best, 
in his report, "The enemy was effectually checked, Knap's battery being most 
engaged and doing its work as usual well."  On the morning of Saturday, the 2d 
of May, a fierce artillery duel occurred in which Knap's guns did effective 
service, blowing up two of the enemy's caissons and demolishing one of his guns, 
and in the afternoon when Hill pushed a heavy reconnaissance in front of the 
Chancellor House, Knap,' says an eye-witness, "had doubled-slotted twelve of his 
pieces with canister, and on
 
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 926

the enemy reaching the point mentioned, blazed away, literally mowing down the 
gray coats, and riddling the woods."  He here had a horse shot under him.  In 
the early part of the following day the action was terrible, and Knap's guns 
never failed to do fearful execution.  Best was charged with covering the 
withdrawal of the army with his artillery, and in his report he says, " I gave 
the most important point to Captain Knap's which he protected well."  The enemy 
had earthworks and attacked.  "For about an hour," says the authority above 
quoted, "the roar of artillery was deafening.  Three of the enemy's caissons 
were blown to atoms and their batteries both silenced. "Captain Knap was active 
in recruiting other batteries which also became renowned.  But the Government 
had duty for him of more vital importance than that which he was rendering in 
the field, and in May, 1863, he resigned to take charge of the Government Cannon 
Foundry at Pittsburg, in which he was assiduously employed while the was lasted, 
and where his skill and judgment in producing effective weapons were of 
inestimable value.  The Councils of Pittsburg in 1864 voted him a service sword 
suitably inscribed, and he was promoted to Major.  He married in 1864 Miss 
Sophia H. Day.

WILLIAM COOPER TALLEY, son of Rev. Lewis T. Talley, was born in Newcastle 
county, Delaware, on the 11th of December, 1831.  He edited the Upland Union in 
Delaware county, and the National Democrat at Norristown, previous to the war.  
Entering the volunteer service in May, 1861, as Captain in the First Reserve 
regiment, in November, 1862, he was advanced to Colonel.  He was engaged in 
nearly every battle in which the Army of the Potomac had a part, down to the 
close of his term, leading his regiment, and at times a brigade, with great 
steadiness.  At Charles City Cross Roads he was wounded, as he was also at 
Fredericksburg and Gettysburg.  While leading a brigade upon the enemy's works 
at Spottsylvania Court House he was taken prisoner.  He was rescued by Sheridan 
when approaching the rebel capital, and mounting, fought in the column of 
cavalry until its return to the main body.  He was with the Reserves in their 
last battle at Bethesda Church, and earned 

W. C. TALLEY - J. NAGLE - M. T. HEINTZELMAN - 927

the promotion to Brevet Brigadier-General.  After the war he was appointed 
Collector of Internal Revenue for the Seventh Pennsylvania District.  He was 
married in 1860 to Miss Mary Jane Webb.  He resides in Media.

	JAMES NAGLE, Brigadier-General, was born at Redding, on the 5th of April, 
1822.  He served with distinction throughout the Mexican war, commanding a 
company which he previously organized as militia, the Washington artillery, one 
of the first five to reach the Capital in April, 1861.  He led the Sixth 
regiment in the three months' campaign, and afterwards the Forty-eighth, and was 
with Burnside in North Carolina; with Pope at Bull Run, where he commanded a 
brigade and won the commission of a Brigadier-General; performed distinguished 
service at South Mountain and Antietam, and in the battle of Fredericksburg.  he 
subsequently went to Kentucky with the Ninth corps.  After a wearying service of 
some months, on account of a painful and alarming disease of the heart, 
aggravated by exposure and care, he resigned.  Relieved somewhat by rest, he 
commanded the Thirty-ninth militia in 1863, and in the hundred days' service of 
1864 the One Hundred and Ninety-fourth, and was given a brigade.  General Nagle 
died of the disease of which he had long suffered, on the 22d of August, 1866.

MISH T. HEINTZELMAN was born on the 28th of June, 1830, in Schuylkill county.  
For the short term he served as a private in the Tenth regiment.  In September, 
1861, he became Second Lieutenant in the Seventy-sixth, from which he was 
honorably discharged, in August, 1862, on account of disability.  He reentered 
the army on the 11th of November, 1862, as a Captain in the One Hundred and 
Seventy-second, in which he was promoted to Major.  At the end of the nine 
months for which it was called he was mustered out, but returned again as 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Two Hundred and Eighth, on the 7th of September, 1864, 
and was subsequently brevetted Colonel.  The two most important actions in which 
he was engaged were at Fort Steadman and Fort Sedgwick; in both of these he led 
the regiment.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 928

AUDLEY W. GAZZAM was born at Allegheny City, on the 7th of May, 1836.  His 
maternal great-grandfather was the Baron de Beelen, the first Austrian Minister 
to the United States, whose favorable reports secured the interest of the 
Emperor Joseph.  He received a liberal and military education at New Haven, 
Connecticut, and read law.  At the breaking out of the war he was commissioned 
Captain of a company, which, failing of acceptance for three months, he took to 
Wheeling, West Virginia - then just organizing a provisional government - at the 
solicitation of its authorities.  Not wishing to attract attention, he landed 
his men at various points, but soon had them collected in the city under the 
semblance of a military school.  At the instance of General Oaks he took 
possession of guns and ammunition, stored below the city, likely to be used 
against the Union.  Preferring to serve in a Pennsylvania command he returned to 
Pittsburg, and was elected Major of the One Hundred and Third regiment.  Though 
prostrated by sickness he led at Williamsburg, and at Fair Oaks was on the 
forefront, sustaining fearful losses.  By reason of disability contracted in the 
line of duty, he was transferred, in 1863, to the Veteran Reserve corps, and was 
stationed at Nashville, and subsequently at Indianapolis.  At the close of the 
war he resumed the practice of law at Utica, New York, and in 1870 established 
in New York city a collection agency.
  
ROBERT E. WINSLOW, son of Robert and Jane (Cumming) Winslow, was born on the 1st 
of January, 1829, in Philadelphia.  He learned the trade of a type-founder.  
Volunteering fir the Mexican War, he served with fidelity.  In 1852 he went to 
California, remaining until near the close of 1856.  He served in the Twentieth 
regiment with Patterson in 1861, and entered the Sixty-eighth, at its formation, 
and Captain, in which capacity he took part in the battle of Fredericksburg.  He 
was shortly after promoted to Major, and was engaged at Chancellorsville and 
Gettysburg.  In the latter he received a gunshot wound in the head.  After two 
months in hospital he returned with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and not long 
after received the command of the regiment, which he led at Kelly's Ford, Locust 
Grove, and Mine Run.  Before the opening of the spring cam -

A. W. GAZZAM - R. E. WINSLOW - J. P. TAYLOR - 929

paign of 1864 he was ordered for duty with his command to the head-quarters of 
General Meade, and while thus detailed was engaged in the actions at Guinea 
Station, Petersburg, and Hatcher's Run.  In the final charge on the Petersburg 
works, on the 2d of April, he led an assaulting party. "For faithful and 
meritorious services" he was brevetted Colonel and Brigadier-General.

JOHN P. TAYLOR, Colonel of First cavalry, and Brevet Brigadier-General, was born 
on the 6th of June, 1827, in Keshacoquillas Valley, Mifflin county, where his 
ancestors for three generations had dwelt.  He was the son of john and Elizabeth 
(McMonigal) Taylor.  His home was near the spring of Logan, the Indian 
chieftain, who was on friendly terms with the family.  Planning to go 
clandestinely with the troops to Mexico, he was prevented by his parents.  In a 
cavalry company, formed in 1859, he was a Lieutenant, which at a meeting held on 
the 29th of January, 1861, pledged its services to the Governor.  He entered the 
First cavalry, upon its formation, as a captain, and was promoted in September, 
1862, to Lieutenant-Colonel, and to Colonel, January 30th, 1863.  He was 
prominent at Dranesville, charging through the town, and followed Bayard at 
Harrisonburg, Cross Keys, Locust Grove, and Cedar Mountain, his horse in the 
latter battle falling on him, inflicting injury and leaving him in the enemy's 
lines; but he adroitly managed to make his escape.  "The coolness of Captain 
Taylor," says General Bayard, "in covering the retreat deserves the thanks of 
the commanding General."  In the action at Brandy Station, where Colonel Taylor 
led in a daring saber charge, and in the midst of the battle succeeded to the 
command of the brigade; at Culpeper, where dismounted he led his regiment to 
complete victory; at Mine Run, where he captured the entire skirmish line of the 
enemy; at Auburn, where he prudently aroused his brigade before dawn and was in 
readiness to receive a powerful attack intended as a surprise; and in the 
movement of Sheridan upon the rear of the rebel army in the spring of 1864, 
where the fighting was almost continuous for many days, he illustrated the 
highest qualities of the accomplishment leader.  During the three years of 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 930

his service he was engaged in over thirty battles and skirmishes either as 
regimental, brigade, or division commander, and received frequent complimentary 
notices from his superior officers.  He was honorably discharged at the 
conclusion of his term, General D. McM. Greg saying in his farewell order: "To 
you, Colonel Taylor, my thanks are due for the efficient manner in which you 
have always performed your duty."  He was promoted to the brevet rank of 
Brigadier-General in August, 1864.  He is in person full six feet in height and 
robust.  He was married in 1863 to Miss Sallie H. Nourse.

WILLIAM MOORE McCLURE, son of Silas and Margaret (Moore) McClure, was born on 
the 5th of March, 1831, in Chester county.  In 1854 he emigrated to Kansas and 
was elected a member of its first legal Legislature.  Returning in 1859 he had 
leased a furnace near Danville, when the war came and he served during the short 
term as Captain in the Eleventh regiment, and subsequently in the Second 
artillery, posted in the defenses of Washington.  To supply the waste in the 
wilderness campaign this regiment, now numbering nearly 4000 men, was organized 
in two and sent as infantry to the front.  Captain McClure joined the Potomac 
army at Cold Harbor, where the losses in his regiment were very severe.  It was 
kept on most exposed and exhausting duty with the musket and spade.  In this 
Captain McClure so acquitted himself as to rise to the rank of Colonel and to 
the command of the reunited regiments.  At the conclusion of his term, which was 
near the close of the war, he was honorably discharged.

WILLIAM RICKARDS was born in Philadelphia on the 18th of November, 1824.  He 
entered the service as a Captain in the Twenty-ninth regiment, and was rapidly 
advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel.  At the battle of Winchester, under 
Banks, he was wounded and fell into the enemy's hands.  He had been a jeweler, 
and at Libby he transmuted many a rough object into beautiful ornaments, thus 
earning comforts for himself and companions in misery.  In the battles of 
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where he was in command of his regiment

W. M. McCLURE - W. RICKARDS - W. SIRWELL - 931

and was of the brigade of Kane, he proved himself among the most reliable.  At 
Wauhatchie, whither he was sent with the Twelfth corps, he was officer of the 
day, and by his penetration and foresight discovered the approach of the foe and 
prevented a midnight surprise of the camp.  In the Battle above the Clouds he 
was foremost in scaling the rugged heights of Lookout Mountain; and in the 
battles of Missionary Ridge, Pea Vine Creek, Ringgold, Rocky Face, Resaca, and 
at Dallas during nine consecutive days, he acted with the greatest gallantry.  
In the battle of Pine Knob, while leading the first line of the brigade in a 
charge upon the enemy's works, he received a wound through the body, just below 
the lungs, which was judged to be mortal.  General Geary, his division 
commander, riding up to him as he lay bleeding upon the field, and kneeling by 
his side, said: "Colonel, this is unfortunate.  We can ill spare such men as 
you, for we have rough work ahead."  "Has my conduct as a soldier been 
satisfactory?" he 
faintly asked.  "Yes," said the General, "none have been more faithful.  If all 
were as trustworthy as you I should have little trouble." "That," said the 
Colonel, "is a comfort to a dying man."  The General then believed that he would 
survive but a few moments.  But on being taken to the hospital he revived, and 
by fortunate care recovered, and is still a strong man, illustrating the power 
of the human system to withstand terrible mutilation.  Colonel Rickards was 
married in 1848 to Miss Eliza Tucker, of Baltimore.

WILLIAM SIRWELL, son of Richard and Elizabeth (Graham) Sirwell, both natives of 
England, was born in Pittsburg on the 10th of August, 1820.  Of a military turn, 
he entered the militia service in 1839, and commanded in succession the City 
Blues, of Pittsburg, and the Washington Blues, Brady Alpines, and Kittaning 
Yeagers, of Kittaning.  He was also for ten years Brigadier-Inspector of 
Armstrong County.  In person he is six feet in height, broad-shouldered, and 
robust.  He was married on the 6th of November, 1840, to Miss Elizabeth 
McCandless.  Upon the organization of the Seventy-eighth regiment he was 
commissioned Colonel, and was sent to the army then stationed in Kentucky.  In 
the affair at Lavergne - one of the actions for the 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 932

defence of Nashville - his regiment particularly distinguished itself, and its 
commander was complimented by General Negley, and by Andrew Johnson, then 
military governor of Tennessee.  At Stone River the regiment captured the White 
Horse Artillery of New Orleans, consisting of four twelve-pounder brass Napoleon 
guns, the regimental colors of the Twenty-sixth rebel Tennessee, and the guidon 
of the Fourth Florida.  As a reward of his service here, Colonel Sirwell was 
made Provost Marshal of Murfreesboro and was afterwards placed in command of the 
Second brigade, First division of the Fourteenth corps.  In the terrible 
conflicts at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, and in the subsequent campaign of 
Atlanta, he rendered valuable services.  At New Hope Church, so marked was his 
gallantry that he was commended by General Thomas.  When Atlanta finally was 
taken after a campaign of a hundred days, in which the smoke of battle scarcely 
cleared away, it became difficult to keep open the base of supplies, stretching 
away to Chattanooga.  Colonel Sirwell was assigned to this duty, and preserved 
unbroken the line of transportation, supplies being rapidly brought up.  After 
his term of service has expired, at the solicitation of the commander of the 
department, Colonel Sirwell remained in the field, his regiment, as mounted 
infantry, being employed in attacking and pursuing Forrest's cavalry, through 
middle and southern Tennessee.  He was mustered out on the 4th of November, 
1864.  Colonel Sirwell has held the offices of postmaster and justice of the 
peace, besides several municipal positions.

SENECA G. WILLAUER, son of Samuel and Hannah (Grubb) Willauer, was born in West 
Chester, on the 25th of November, 1835.  He entered the service as a Lieutenant 
in the One Hundred and Sixteenth regiment.  In the battle of Fredericksburg he 
was wounded by a shell which shattered the right leg, carrying away a large 
portion of the limb.  He was promoted to Captain on the recommendation of 
General Hancock on the field for gallantry in battle, and in March, 1863, to 
Lieutenant-Colonel, but could not be mustered for lack of men.  He was in the 
battle of Chancellorsville, and in the Gettysburg campaign commanded the 
regiment a part of the time, and for nearly a 

SENECA G. WILLAUER - ALBERT L. MAJILTON - 933

year thereafter.  His conduct was particularly commended at Auburn and Bristoe 
Station.  General Mulholland speaks of him as "brave and faithful," and General 
Hancock says, "I know Captain Willauer to be a brave and meritorious officer."   
He suffered severely from his wound at Fredericksburg, and was, in January, 
1864, transferred to the Veteran Reserve corps, in which he was for thirty-six 
hours on duty before Washington in July of that year, holding General Early at 
bay until the arrival of the Sixth corps.  At the Old Capital prison, 
Washington; at Johnson's Island, Lake Erie; and at Point Lookout, Maryland, he 
was on constant duty with his regiment, in the latter having an independent 
command.  He was active in the search for, and arrest of Booth and Harrold, the 
assassins of the President, served at Plattsburg, in command of a camp of 
rendezvous, and at Albany on a court-martial.  In April, 1866, he was assigned 
to the Freedmen's Bureau and ordered to Alexandria, Louisiana, in the Red River 
region, where he was in command for nearly two years, and was successful in 
organizing a large number of colored schools.  He was elected Prothonotary of 
Chester county in 1869.  In 1872 he was married to Ellen, daughter of Wellington 
Hickman.

ALBERT L. MAJILTON was born in New Castle county, Delaware, on the 8th of July, 
1826.  His father was Adam Majilton, a native of Ireland.  His mother, Dorcas 
(Morton) Majilton, was descended from the first Swedish settlers on the Delaware 
River, subjects of that renowned hero-king, Gustavus Adophus.  He was educated 
at the Philadelphia Central High School, and at the Military Academy at West 
Point, where he graduated number eighteen in a class of fifty-nine, in 1846.  As 
Brevet Second Lieutenant he entered the Fourth artillery, and served in Mexico 
at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Molino del Rey, and in the assault and 
capture of Mexico; and was made Second Lieutenant and Brevet First Lieutenant 
for gallant conduct.  In 1848-'49 he was in garrison at New Orleans barracks, 
and in 1849-'50 was engaged against the Seminole Indians of Florida.  In 1849 he 
was promoted to First Lieutenant, and served until 1857 in Kansas, New Mexico, 
Michigan,

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 934

and Florida.  In June of the latter year he was commissioned Captain in his 
regiment, and in December resigned.  He was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of 
the Second Reserve in 1861, and in October, Colonel of the Fourth.  At Beaver 
Dam Creek his regiment was held in reserve, but in the more general battle of 
the following day at Gaines' Mill was hotly engaged and shared the fate of 
Porter's entire wing, being driven back with heavy loss.  He was wounded at 
Charles City Cross Roads.  Shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg Colonel 
Majilton resigned.  For several months he was engaged as professor of infantry 
tactics in the Philadelphia Free Military Academy for applicants for commands in 
colored troops.  In November, 1867, he was appointed Deputy Collector of 
Internal Revenue.

CHARLES COMLEY McCORMICK was born in Northumberland county.  He was educated at 
Lewisburg, and at the Iron City Commercial College.  He entered the Seventh 
cavalry as a private, and rose through the successive steps of a non-
commissioned and commissioned officer to that of Brigadier-General by brevet.  
In Kentucky and Tennessee he served with Buell and Rosecrans, particularly 
distinguishing himself at Lebanon, in May, 1862; at Nashville, in November; at 
Stone River, at the opening of 1863; at Chickamauga, in September, where he was 
taken prisoner; and at Selma.  In Sherman's Atlanta campaign he was Inspector-
General of cavalry on the staff of General Thomas, and was with General Wilson 
on his exciting ride from Eastport, Mississippi, to Macon, Georgia.  He was 
twice wounded, by a pistol shot in the breast at Lebanon, on the 5th of May, 
1862, and on the 2d of April, 1865, while storming the works at Selma, Alabama, 
by a gun shot which broke the right leg, the missile still remaining in the 
limb.  In person General McCormick is full six feet in height, erect and of 
well-rounded frame.

BENJAMIN CHEW TILGHMAN, son of Benjamin and Ann Maria (McMurtrie) Tilghman, was 
born in Philadelphia on the 26th of October, 1821.  He was educated at the 
University of Pennsylvania, was admitted to the bar, applied himself to chemical 
and scientific studies, and spent several years in Europe.

C. C. McCORMICK - B. C. TILIGHMAN - P. C. ELLMAKER - 935

He was of the first column which left Philadelphia in April, 1861, for the 
defence of the National capital, and afterwards became Captain in the Twenty-
sixth regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel.  He 
participated in the battles of Williamsburg, Savage Station, Glendale, Malvern 
Hill, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.  In the latter engagement he was 
severely wounded in the right thigh by a rifle ball, by which he was for some 
time disabled.  In August, 1863, on recovering from his wound he was appointed 
Colonel of the Third colored regiment, with which he served in South Carolina 
and Florida to the close of the war.  He was brevetted Brigadier-General in 
1865.  The distinction of commanding the first three year regiment and the first 
colored regiment raised in Pennsylvania is due to General Tilghman.

PETER C. ELLMAKER, son of Jacob C. and Juliana (Seeger) Ellmaker, was born on 
the 11th of August, 1813, in Lancaster county.  At the age of fourteen he 
removed to Philadelphia, and was employed in a wholesale dry goods house.  In 
1834 he enlisted in the Washington Greys, a volunteer artillery corps, with 
which he served for over twenty years, rising to the rank of Captain.  When the 
Rebellion came he commanded the first regiment raised in the State.  In August, 
1862, he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Nineteenth, then just 
organized.  At the battle of Fredericksburg by his remarkable coolness he 
inspired his men with the courage of veterans.  At Salem Church his regiment was 
subjected to a terrible ordeal, the numbers of the enemy being concealed and 
their lines protected.  Colonel Ellmaker proceeded from Westminster on the night 
of the 1st and day of the 2d of July, 1863, by a forced march to Gettysburg, a 
distance of nearly forty miles, arriving in time to support and strengthen the 
wasted columns battling on that glorious field.  In the action at Rappahannock 
Station he commanded the brigade of the Sixth corps which made the memorable 
charge, fit to rank with the most daring exploits.  The assault was delivered 
under a terrific fire of artillery and musketry.  But, filled with a spirit that 
no danger could appall, that devoted brigade went forward where at every step 
the dead and the dying fell from the

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 936

ranks, and compelled the foe to lay down his arms and surrender prisoners of 
war.  The victory was complete, and resulted in the capture of the strong 
position, with four guns, two thousand small arms, eight battle-flags, one 
bridge train, and one thousand six hundred prisoners.  His gallantry in this 
action won for him the formal thanks of Generals Meade, Sedgwick, and Russell, 
and the applause of the whole army.  After leaving the service he returned to 
the practice of his profession, and was for some time, as he had been before the 
war, a notary public.  He was appointed Naval Officer of the port of 
Philadelphia in 1848, by President Taylor.  He was married in 1844 to Miss Sarah 
Ann Wade.  In person he is six feet two and one-half inches in height, and well-
proportioned. 

FRANKLIN BAILY SPEAKMAN, son of Joshua and Hannah (Baily) Speakman, was born in 
Chester county on the 9th of January, 1833.  Though nurtured in the tenets of 
the Quaker faith he could not regard with indifference the attempts to disrupt 
the government, and recruited a company of which he was made Captain, and was 
subsequently commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-third regiment.  
He was in the division of General Humphreys in the battles of Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville. In the former he led his command up to within forty paces of 
that fatal stone wall on Marye's Heights where the flower of the Union army was 
cut down, which position for more than an hour he held under a terrific fire.  
With like heroism he acted in the latter, where Humphreys faced a defiant foe 
with a courage and a resolution which will ever challenge admiration.  Colonel 
Speakman's regiment was called but for nine months, and at the expiration of 
that time he was mustered out.  He was married on the 30th of December, 1856, to 
Miss Annie M. Spangler.

LOREN BURRITT was born in Susquehanna county, of New England ancestry, on the 
26th of June, 1837.  He was educated in the Wyoming Seminary and had commenced 
the study of law with the Rebellion came, but enlisted in the Fifty-sixth 
regiment as a private, in which he served in the battles of 

F. B. SPEAKMAN - LOREN BURRITT - DANIE LLEASURE - 937	

South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.  In February, 1863, he was 
promoted to Lieutenant and acting Adjutant, participating in the battles of 
Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, during a part of which, and subsequently, he 
was an aid on the staff of General Cutler.  In November, 1863, he was appointed 
Major of the Eighth colored regiment, which he accompanied to South Carolina.  
At Olustee it was subjected to a wasting fire, such as is rarely recorded, in 
which half of the officers and three-fifths of the men were lost.  Major Burritt 
received two severe wounds, disabling him for the rest of the war, and from 
which he still suffers.  He rejoined his regiment in September, 1864, having 
been promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel; but his wounds reopening, he was obliged to 
retire.  In November he was placed in command of recruiting rendezvous at 
Newport News, and subsequently on court-martial, and President of a military 
commission at Norfolk.  In May, 1865, he went with his regiment to Texas, and 
was finally mustered out in December.  Since the war he has served two terms in 
the Pennsylvania Legislature.

DANIEL LEASURE, Colonel of the One Hundredth (Roundhead) regiment and Brevet 
Brigadier-General, was born in Westmoreland county, on the 18th of March, 1819.  
His great-grandfather, Abraham Leasure, emigrated to Pennsylvania from the 
borders of Switzerland, near France, whither the ancestors of the family had 
fled after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, they being Huguenots of Navarre.  He 
studied medicine and graduated at Jefferson Medical College.  He was married in 
September, 1842, to Isabel W., eldest daughter of Samuel Hamilton, for several 
years a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature.
  He had served in the militia, and at the opening of the Rebellion raised a 
company and was made Adjutant, and also acting Assistant Adjutant-General of the 
brigade upon the staff of General Negley.  At the close of the three months' 
term he was authorized to raise a veteran regiment.  Lawrence county, where he 
had taken up his residence, had been largely settled by the descendants of those 
who had followed Cromwell in the struggles of the English people for liberty, 
and from among these he drew

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 938

recruits, appropriately designating it the Roundhead regiment.  Colonel Leasure 
was first sent to the Department of the South, where his command formed part of 
the brigade of General Isaac I. Stevens.  In the attack upon the Tower Fort near 
Secessionville, on the morning of the 16th of June, 1862, Colonel Leasure led 
the brigade, and won the commendation of General Stevens.  In the battle of 
Second Bull Run, Colonel Leasure, while leading his brigade, had his horse shot 
under him, and himself received a severe wound.  He recovered in time to take 
part in the battle of Fredericksburg, and soon after went with two divisions of 
the Ninth corps, to which he was then attached, to Kentucky, and thence to 
Vicksburg, where, and at Jackson, he participated in those triumphant 
achievements which opened the Mississippi and really broke the backbone of 
Rebellion.
  From Vicksburg he proceeded with his troops to East Tennessee, and was active 
in the operations of the Union arms in that region and in the siege of 
Knoxville.  At the battle of the wilderness on the 6th of May, where he 
commanded a brigade, he led in a charge which hurled the rebels from works which 
they had captured from Union troops, and reestablished the broken and 
disorganized line, receiving the thanks of General Hancock on the field.  At 
Spottsylvania Court House, Colonel Leasure was wounded.  At the conclusion of 
his term on the 30th of August, 1864, he was mustered out of service.  He was 
brevetted Brigadier-General in April, 1865.  Upon his return to civil life he 
resumed the practice of his profession, first at New Castle and subsequently in 
Allegheny.

CHARLES T. CAMPBELL, son of James and Margaret (Poe) Campbell, was born in 
Pennsylvania, on the 10th of August, 1823.  He was educated at Marshall College, 
and served in the Mexican war as Lieutenant in the Eighth infantry, and Colonel 
of the First Pennsylvania artillery, but finding his command scattered in the 
exigencies of the service he resigned in December, and was made Colonel of the 
Fifty-seventh regiment of infantry.  At Fair Oaks he had his horse shot under 
him, and received a severe wound in the right arm, another in the

C. T. CAMPBELL - G. P. McLEAN - C. W. DIVEN - 939

left groin, and a third in the right leg.  That in the arm was serious, 
necessitating a removal of a part of the ulna.  At Fredericksburg he again had 
his horse shot under him, and received two balls in the right arm, and another 
in the bowels which made its exit near the spinal column.  For a time he was a 
prisoner with his regiment; but taking advantage of a favorable turn, they 
released themselves and carried back over two hundred of the enemy captives.  
Again was a portion of the bone of the right arm removed, and a tedious and 
painful confinement in hospital ensued.  This ended his active service.  For his 
gallantry he was promoted to Brigadier-General.  He was a member of the 
Pennsylvania Legislature in 1852.  He was married in 1850 to Miss Fannie Bruce, 
daughter of Dr. Bruce of Pittsburg.  Since the war he has resided in Dakota.

GEORGE POTTS McLEAN, son of William and Sarah (Douglass) McLean, was born in 
Philadelphia on the 13th of July, 1817.  He served as Major of the Twenty-second 
regiment in the three months' service in the city of Baltimore, after which he 
became Colonel of the Eighty-eighth, with which he participated in the battle of 
Cedar Mountain and in the preliminary operations to the battle of Bull Run.  
Having been prevented by protracted sickness from keeping the field he resigned.  
He recruited and commanded the Fifty-ninth militia in 1863, and subsequently 
raised a three year regiment, the One Hundred and Eighty-third, which he led 
with gallantry at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania.  In capable of the exposures 
and privations of the camp, he resigned soon after.  Colonel McLean was member 
of the City Councils before the war, and in 1879 was appointed storekeeper of 
the United States bonded warehouse in Philadelphia.

CHARLES WORTH DIVEN, son of Thomas N. and Evelina (Barton) Diven, was born in 
Huntingdon county on the 27th of July, 1831.  At sixteen, he went with the army 
to Mexico and served through the entire contest in Geary's regiment.  In May, 
1861, he was commissioned a Lieutenant and soon after Captain in the Twelfth 
Reserve, with which he served with distinction in the battles of the Peninsula, 
at Bull Run, South

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 940

Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Mine Run.  In the spring of 
1864 he was promoted to Major, and was engaged in the hard-fought battles of the 
Wilderness, Laurel Hill, Spottsylvania, North Anna, and Bethesda Church, when 
the term of the Reserves expired and he returned home; but immediately raised a 
new regiment, the Two Hundredth, of which he was made Colonel.  On his arrival 
at the front he was put in command on a brigade, which, in the battle of Fort 
Steadman, performed the most distinguished service.  At the moment of moving, he 
was struck by an exploding shell and disabled.  The brevet rank of Brigadier-
General was promptly conferred on him.  He was characterized as "cool and calm 
in battle."

CHARLES KLECKNER, son of Michael and Susana (Reber) Kleckner, was born in Union 
county, on the 10th of December, 1831.  In August, 1861, he was commissioned a 
Lieutenant in the Forty-eighth, in which he was engaged under Burnside in North 
Carolina, at Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, and Antietam.  In December, 
1862, he was made Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-second, drafted 
militia, which he commanded near Yorktown during the period of its service.  He

J. HARPER - C. KLECKNER - J. B. KIDDOO - 941

subsequently became Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-fourth for 
veteran service, which he led in two desperate assaults at Cold Harbor, where 
the enemy's shots fell like rain, and the dead and dying covered all the field.  
Its loss was sixty-seven killed, and one hundred and thirteen wounded.  Colonel 
Kleckner was warmly commended for the dauntless courage displayed on this field, 
and the unflinching bravery of his men.  He continued to lead the regiment in 
the assaults before Petersburg, at Strawberry Plains, Reams' Station, and Deep 
Bottom, where he was severely wounded.  He was with his regiment in the final 
attack on Petersburg, and to the end of the war stood with face to the foe.  He 
was married in 1851 to Miss Harriet A. Orwig.  In person he is over six feet in 
height.

JOSEPH B. KIDDOO, son of John and Mary (Barr) Kiddoo, was born on the 31st of 
March, 1837, near Pittsburg.  He received a liberal education and studied law, 
which he had barely finished when the Rebellion opened. He served as a private 
in the Twelfth regiment for the short term, and went to the Peninsula in that 
capacity in the Sixty-third regiment, serving till the close of the campaign as 
a non-commissioned officer.  In August, 1862, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel of 
the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh, and with it participated in the engagements 
at South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.  In the spring of 1863 he was 
advanced to Colonel, and led in the battle of Chancellorsville.  In June he was 
mustered out at the expiration of his term, but took an active part in the 
exciting chase after John Morgan in Ohio.  Soon afterward he was appointed Major 
of the sixth colored, but was not long thereafter made Colonel o the Twenty-
second colored, which he led in the active operations of the Army of the James.  
For his assault and capture of a strong redoubt and six pieces of artillery, on 
the 15th of June, he was brevetted Brigadier-General.  In an action of the South 
Side Railroad, on the 27th of October, he was severely wounded through the hips, 
involving the spine, which confined him to the hospital till after the close of 
the war.  For his valor here he was brevetted Major-General.  He was given 
command of the post at Harrisburg.  In the spring of 1866 he had charge of the

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 942

Freedmen's Bureau for Texas, and while there was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in 
the Forty-third infantry, and was brevetted Colonel and Brigadier-General in the 
regular army.  After two years of service in the Department of the Lakes, and a 
term of duty in New York city as superintendent of recruiting, he was placed on 
the retired list of the army with the rank of Brigadier-General.

GEORGE FAIRLAMB SMITH, son of Persifer F. and Thomasine (Fairlamb) Smith, was 
born on the 28th of February, 1840, at West Chester.  He was educated at Yale 
College, and was reading law when the war broke out.  He served as a private in 
the Second regiment; at the end of its term became Captain in the Forty-ninth; 
and in the spring of 1862, Major of the Sixty-first.  At Fair Oaks he was 
wounded and fell into the enemy's hands.  On his return after a brief captivity 
he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.  He was conspicuous in storming Marye's 
Heights in the Chancellorsville campaign, and was soon after promoted to 
Colonel.  In the action at Spottsylvania Court House he was severely and nigh 
fatally wounded.  Of him that intrepid soldier, General A. P. Howe, said: "He 
showed himself at all times an efficient, gallant, and competent officer;" and 
the lamented Sedgwick: "He has performed his duty with zeal and ability."  
Colonel Smith married in 1867 Miss Anna Elizabeth Hickman.  At the conclusion of 
the war he commenced that practice of the law at West Chester.

DAVID B. MORRIS was born at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the 17th of December, 
1825.  In 1838 the family removed to Wheeling, and in 1841 to Pittsburg.  In 
December, 1845, he was married to Miss Margaret Grissell, daughter of John 
Grissell.  In 1855 he enlisted in the Washington Infantry, in which he rose to 
be Lieutenant.  This company, with the Pennsylvania infantry, turned out armed 
and equipped to resist the order of Secretary Floyd to remove heavy guns form 
Allegheny Arsenal.  Of his company Lieutenant Morris was commissioned Captain in 
April, 1861, and at the formation of the One Hundred and First regiment was made 
Lieutenant-Colonel, 

G. F. SMITH - D. B. MORRIS - H. M. BOSSERT - 943

and after the death of Colonel Roberts, Colonel.  In the battle of Fair Oaks he 
was in Casey's division, the first to be struck. Recognizing from the opening 
his precarious situation, and that it behooved him to make every missile tell, 
Colonel Morris hastened along the line as he marshalled his men in arms, and 
spoke words of encouragement.  "Fire low, my boys," he said, "and aim at the 
waist-belts of the graybacks!"
  That they might be deliberate, he ordered them to hold their fire until the 
enemy were near enough to count their fingers.  Right manfully were his orders 
heeded, and when the crash of his musketry opened, the ranks of the foe were 
swept clean away.  Overborne by superior numbers the regiment was finally 
compelled to retire to the supporting line of General Couch, where it fought 
until the close of the battle.  Early in the fray Colonel Morris was wounded and 
borne from the field.
  A the conclusion of the campaign this regiment was ordered to the Department 
of North Carolina, where upon his recovery Colonel Morris rejoined it.  He was 
intrusted with the direction of expeditions undertaken into the interior, and 
was prominent in several considerable engagements.  At the conclusion of his 
term on the 24th of January, 1865, he was mustered out of service and returned 
to his home in Pittsburg, where he maintains the character of one of the most 
active business men of that eminently business city.

HENRY M. BOSSERT, son of Henry Y. and Hannah (Miller) Bossert, was born on the 
25th of January, 1825, in Montgomery county.  He served in the Eleventh regiment 
under Patterson, and participated in the affair at Falling Waters.  In the 
summer of 1862 he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh 
regiment.  "We drilled," he says, "by company during the day, and by battalion 
by moonlight."  When the army retired from the Second Bull Run field, Colonel 
Bossert was ordered to join Hancock's brigade.  He acted in support at 
Crampton's Gap, and, when the enemy gave way, was directed to take sixteen 
companies, one from each regiment in the division, and establish a line across 
Pleasant Valley, facing Harper's Ferry, which had fallen into the enemy's hands.  
When the battle of 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 944

Antietam opened he resumed his place at the head of his own regiment.  He was 
posted in support of a battery of Hancock's command, which he gallantly defended 
under the immediate eye of that heroic General, and received his thanks upon the 
field.  When Stuart made his famous raid to the rear of the Union army, Colonel 
Bossert was aroused at midnight to move to intercept him, but failed to catch 
the wily rebel leader.
  When the campaign in Maryland was ended the regiment was ordered to 
Washington, and thence the Acquia Creek, where Colonel Bossert was placed in 
command of a brigade of six regiments, and charged with guarding the landing, 
and the railroad leading to Falmouth.  Having been injured by the fall of his 
horse in March, he retired from the service, the time of his regiment being then 
about to expire.  Previous to the war, Colonel Bossert was justice of the peace 
for a period of fifteen years.  He was afterwards elected register and recorder, 
and clerk of the courts of Clinton county.

EDWARD CAMPBELL, son of Hugh and Rachel(Lyon)Campbell, was born on the 24th of 
July, 1838.  He received a liberal education and entered the service of the 
Union as Lieutenant in the Eighty-fifth, and in May, 1862, was promoted to 
Captain.  His regiment was in Casey's division at Fair Oaks and sustained heavy 
losses.  At the end of the Peninsula campaign he went to North Carolina, and 
subsequently to the army before Charleston, where he was engaged in the 
operations to reduce that stronghold, and in the siege of Fort Wagner.  In 
September, 1862, he had been promoted to Major, and after the fall of Wagner was 
advanced to Colonel and commanded the regiment.  After its transfer to the Army 
of the James it was engaged in the desperate fighting which was in progress here 
until the 22d of November, when at the conclusion of his term he was mustered 
out, and returned to the practice of his profession at Somerset.

THEOPHILUS KEPHART, son of Abraham R. and Mary (Garner) Kephart, was born in 
Bucks count, on the 19th of April, 1835.  He served for the three months' term 
in the Twenty-fifth regiment, and entered the One Hundred and Fourth as a Lieu-

E. CAMPBELL - T. KEPHART - F. G. ALLEMAN - 945

tenant, in which capacity he went through the Peninsula campaign. Soon after its 
conclusion he was promoted to Captain, and with his regiment was transferred to 
the Department of the South.  It was finally returned to the Army of the James 
in the spring of 1864, where it served till the close of the war.  In December, 
1864, Captain Kephart was promoted to Major, in the March following to 
Lieutenant-Colonel, and in June to Colonel.  In the battle of Fair Oaks he 
received a wound in the foot, and again in the breast at Fort Gregg, South 
Carolina.  He was also wounded in the finger at the battle on John's Island.  
Colonel Kephart was married to Miss Lottie B. Connor in 1867.

FREDERICK O. ALLEMAN was born August 1st, 1829, in Dauphin county.  He received 
a liberal education and graduated at the Pennsylvania Medical College in the 
spring of 1853.  At the opening of the Rebellion he served as a private in the 
Fifteenth regiment, and at the close of its term was appointed Assistant Surgeon 
of the Eighth Reserve.  He was active through the entire Peninsula campaign.  
"On one occasion," says a correspondent, "while caring for the suffering, two 
shells burst by his side, instantly killing three of his wounded, and tearing to 
pieces the body of one whose leg he was amputating.  He had three horses shot 
under him, and for four consecutive days and nights got neither food nor sleep, 
being constantly engaged with the knife and in dressing wounds."  At the close 
of the campaign he resigned, but was immediately reappointed Assistant Surgeon 
in the Ninth Reserve.  He remained with this until after the battle of 
Fredericksburg, when he was detailed to duty in the Western Army.  He had charge 
of hospitals at Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and 
Atlanta.  From this point he marched with Sherman to the Sea.  He was stationed 
there as Surgeon-in-chief of Roper Hospital, and was afterwards placed in charge 
of all the hospitals in the city.  Here he remained until after the close of the 
war, leaving in August, 1865, and was soon after mustered out of service, having 
been in almost constant duty from the beginning to the end of the Rebellion.  He 
married in 1853 Miss Mary B. Ogelsby, of Harrisburg.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 946

DANIEL NAGLE was born at Pottsville, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, in 1828.  
He was the son of General James Nagle, a native of Reading.  He served as a 
private in Mexico, participating in the siege of Vera Cruz, and the battles of 
Cerro Gordo, La Hoya, Huamantla, and the City of Mexico.  In the late war he 
served as Captain in the Sixth regiment, in the three months' campaign, at the 
close of which he entered the Forty-eight as Captain, and was soon after 
promoted to Major.  He was with Burnside in North Carolina, and after the return 
of the regiment to Fortress Monroe, resigned and retired from the service.  In 
1862 he was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth emergency regiment.  In 
November, 1862, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-third - 
a regiment of drafted militia - and was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia.  In July 
he was transferred to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, where he remained 
until his muster out, in August, 1863.

ARCHIBALD BLAKELEY, son of Lewis and Jane (McAllister) Blakeley, was born on the 
16th of July, 1827, in Butler county.  His great-grandfather, a brother of 
Commodore Johnston Blakeley, of the American Navy was killed in the battle of 
Brandywine.  The father dying suddenly when he was but a mere youth, Archibald 
was forced to rely on his own exertions for an education.  He studied law, was 
admitted to practice in 1852, and in the fall of that year was elected District 
Attorney.  At the breaking out of the war he was active in recruiting, and was 
commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-eight regiment, which was sent to 
the army of Buell in Kentucky.  He was engaged in arduous service in defending 
communications while Buell was on the march to Shiloh, and after the fall of 
Corinth, Blakeley was detailed to preside over a court-martial, and a military 
commission for the trial of civil offences, performing for a time much of the 
business of the civil courts.  In the fall of 1863 he was prostrated by sickness 
and was unable to return to duty until after the battle of Stone River.  At Dug 
Gap, just previous to the battle of Chickamauga, while in command of his 
regiment, he found himself in the presence unexpectedly of the rebel army, and 
only by cool and judicious

D. NAGLE - A. BLAKELEY - J. W. FISHER - 947

manoeuvres was he able to extricate himself.  During the night of Friday 
preceding the battle he was sent to the fords of the Chickamauga, with orders to 
hold them to the last extremity for the protection of the flank of McCook's 
corps, moving into position, which was gallantly executed.  In the great battle 
of Saturday and Sunday he led his regiment with marked courage.  After the 
series of engagements which drove the enemy from before Chattanooga, Colonel 
Blakeley with his own, the Twenty-first Wisconsin, and a battery, was placed in 
command on Lookout Mountain, which he fortified and held securely during the 
winter.  Near the close of his term of service, in the spring of 1864, on 
account of severe illness in his family, he resigned.  He was nominated by 
President Johnson for Brigadier-General by brevet, but the nomination was never 
acted on by the Senate.  He was married in 1854 to Miss Susan D. Mechling.  
Since the war he has devoted himself to his profession in Pittsburg.

JOSEPH W. FISHER was born in Northumberland county on the 16th of October, 1814.  
Two years after, his father died, leaving a widow and several small children, of 
whom he was youngest.  His education was consequently the result mainly of his 
own efforts.  He married in 1836 Miss Elizabeth R. Shearer, and in 1840 removed 
to Lancaster county, where he studied law and was admitted to practice.  In 1848 
he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature.  He entered the service 
as a private in April, 1861, and was subsequently made Lieutenant-Colonel of the 
Fifth Reserve regiment.  He made a campaign in West Virginia in the fall of 
1861, and in 1862 was in the Seven Days' battle on the Peninsula, commanding the 
brigade skirmishers at Beaver Dam Creek, was in the hottest of the fight at 
Gaines' Mill, and at Charles City Cross Roads led in the famous charge which 
shattered the enemy and threw him back upon his supports.  He was soon after 
promoted to the rank of Colonel.  On his way to the Bull Run field his horse 
fell upon him, inflecting serious injuries, which prevented him from 
participating in that battle.  At South Mountain he led his regiment in the 
assault and capture of that stronghold, and with equal gallantry fought at 
Antietam.  At Gettysburg he was in command of a 

MARTIAL DEEDS OFENNSYLVANIA - 948

Brigade, which he led upon Little Round Top at an opportune moment, and 
subsequently, at dark, sealed Round Top itself, driving out the enemy, and 
fortified it.  He continued to command his brigade in the battles of the 
Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Bethesda Church, and was mustered 
out with the corps at the end of its service.  In less than a month he was in 
the field again with a regiment for one hundred days, at the end of which he 
raised one for veteran service, and was ordered into the Shenandoah Valley, 
where he was pitted against the redoubtable Moseby.  Colonel Fisher was 
brevetted Brigadier-General in this his final campaign, and soon after the close 
of the war was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Senate.  In February, 1871, 
he was appointed an associate justice of the court in Wyoming Territory, and in 
December was made Chief Justice, which office he still holds.

NOAH G RUHL, son of John and Catherine (Gerberick) Ruhl, was born on the 20th of 
February, 1823, in York county.  In 1840 he entered the regular army as a 
private, and was engaged against the Indians in Florida.  He served in Mexico 
from Palo Alto to the capture of the City of Mexico, and at the conclusion of 
the war left the army.  Reentering the service as a Captain in the Eighty-
seventh regiment in 1861, he served in the Shenandoah Valley until after the 
close of the Gettysburg campaign, having in the meantime been promoted to Major, 
when his regiment was incorporated with the Sixth corps and in the campaign of 
the Wilderness fought with the Army of the Potomac.  The duty here was unusually 
severe, and his health becoming impaired, he was, on the 30th of August, 
discharged on surgeon's certificate.  He had previously been promoted to 
Lieutenant-Colonel, and during a considerable time had commanded the regiment.

JAMES CARLE, son of John and Maria (Suttle) Carle, was born on the 8th of 
September, 1835, in Broome county, New York.  He served an apprenticeship to the 
business of printing, and five years in the regular army, and entered the 
volunteer service in April, 1861, as a Captain in the Sixth Reserve regi-

NOAH G. BUHL - JAMES CARLE - JAMES S. NEGLEY - 949

ment, participating in all the battles in which that noted body was engaged.  At 
Antietam he had a part of his left hand shot away, but remained with his company 
until ordered back.  When the Reserve corps, at the expiration of its term of 
service, was mustered out, the remnants - a few scarred veterans - were 
organized into two new regiments, the One Hundred and Ninetieth and Ninety-
first, and Captain Carle was given command of the latter.  Soon after crossing 
the James he was directed to charge the enemy before Petersburg.  This order was 
gallantly executed, and the Thirty-ninth North Carolina regiment was captured in 
a body.  On the 18th of August, 1864, in an action upon the Weldon Railroad, 
near the Yellow House, he was captured with a large part of his brigade, and was 
held at Belle Isle, Salisbury, and Danville, until near the close of the war.  
"For conspicuous gallantry and meritorious services" he was brevetted Brigadier-
General by the President.

JAMES S. NEGLEY, Major-General of volunteers, was born in Allegheny county, on 
the 26th of December, 1826.  In the war with Mexico he enlisted as a private in 
the First Pennsylvania regiment, in which he fought in the siege of Puebla, the 
battle of Cerro Gordo, and other engagements of the campaign which carried the 
flag in triumph to the City of Mexico.  On being mustered out he returned home 
and engaged extensively in horticulture.  He was for many years connected with 
the militia, and at the opening of the civil war was in command of a brigade.  
He rendered important service in raising and organizing troops for the first 
campaign, and was selected by Governor Curtin to command the camp at Lancaster.  
General Patterson chose him to lead one of his brigades in the Shenandoah 
Valley, he having in the meantime been made a Brigadier-General of volunteers.
  After the muster out of his first command he was given a brigade in McCook's 
division of the Army of the Cumberland.  General Negley was for a time with 
General Mitchell in northern Alabama, but was subsequently given the Eighth 
division of Buell's army, and put in command at Nashville.  While Buell was upon 
the campaign northward which culminated in the battle of Perryville, Negley was 
obliged to tax his best resources to

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 950

prevent the city from falling into the hands of the enemy.  An officer of his 
command says: "While besieged, affairs wore a gloomy aspect.  Shut out from the 
world, with no news for months from the army or from home, surrounded by a 
vindictive enemy resolutely determined to capture the capital with the executive 
members of the government, compelled to fight for every mouthful of food we ate, 
the condition of the garrison became every day more critical.  Yet no one was 
discouraged, and all were determined to stand by the city, with full faith that 
under the gallant Negley and Palmer it would be successfully held.  Our 
expectations were not disappointed, and on the morning of the 20th of October we 
saw from our fortifications the victorious legions of Rosecrans approaching the 
city."
  On the very last day of the year 1862 General Rosecrans, who had superseded 
Buell, met the rebel army under Bragg in front of Murfreesboro, at Stone River.  
McCook with the divisions of Johnson, Davis, and Sheridan, held the right of the 
Union line; Thomas with the divisions of Negley and Rosecrans the centre; and 
Crittenden with the divisions of Palmer, Wood and Van Cleve, the left.  Early on 
the morning of the 31st of December, with massed columns, Bragg attacked the 
Union right, just at the moment that Rosecrans was about to attack from the 
Union left. Rosecrans' right wing was crushed and driven before help could reach 
it.  Negley stood next with his noble division.  He made a stubborn fight.  
"Pushing out," says a writer in the Rebellion Record, "to the Cedar Forest, 
where Negley's gallant division was struggling against great odds, trusty 
Sheridan was met, bringing out his division in superb order.  During all this 
period Negley's two brigades, under valiant old Stanley and brave John F. 
Miller, were holding their line though fearfully outnumbered.  When the right 
broke, Negley had pushed in ahead of the right wing, and was driving the enemy.  
His troops sustained one of the fiercest assaults of the day, and the enemy was 
dreadfully punished."  At nightfall the right and centre had been driven back, 
and many gallant men had perished.  But a line more contracted had been taken 
up, and the courage of the troops was unbroken.  On the afternoon of the 
following day the fighting was renewed on the Union left, upon the opposite side 
of Stone river, 

JAMES MILLER - 951

and the foe was again driving Rosecrans' troops.  "The enemy," says the writer 
above quoted, "as usual had massed his army, and advanced in great strength.  
Negley's division, supported by that of Davis and St. Clair Morton's pioneer 
battalion, was immediately sent forward to retrieve the disaster.  A sanguinary 
conflict ensued, perhaps the most bitter of the whole battle.  Both sides massed 
their batteries, and plied them with desperate energy.  The infantry of either 
side displayed great valor; but Negley's unconquerable Eighth division resolved 
to win.  The fury of the conflict now threatened mutual annihilation, but 
Stanley and Miller charged simultaneously and drove the enemy rapidly before 
them, capturing a battery, and taking the flag of the Twenty-sixth Tennessee, 
the color sergeant being killed with the bayonet."  By the valor of Rosecrans' 
army a complete triumph was won, Bragg retreating and leaving the field in the 
hands of the victors.  For valor displayed in this fight, Negley was made Major-
General of volunteers.  His division was warmly engaged at Chickamauga, and with 
the army retired to Chattanooga, where it was intrenched.  Soon afterwards 
General Negley took leave of his command, and was called to other fields of 
duty.  In 1869 he was elected to Congress, and was twice reelected.

JAMES MILLER, son of Henry and Ann (Shaw) Miller, was born on the 15th of April, 
1835, in Jefferson county.  He entered the service as a Sergeant in the One 
Hundred and Fifth regiment in September, 1861.  In a skirmish near Auburn, 
Virginia, in October, 1863, he was severely wounded, having in the meantime been 
promoted to Lieutenant.  In the battle of the Wilderness he was again severely 
wounded in the left elbow.  In the battle near Farmville, on the 6th of April, 
1865,he had his horse shot under him; but nothing daunted led a daring charge, 
in which sixteen officers and a hundred men were captured.  He was promoted to 
First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, and Colonel in succession. "His reputation," 
says an officer of his regiment, "was that of a sober, upright and fearless man.  
He had the good-will and confidence of the officers and men under him, who were 
always ready to follow where he led, even to a charge on works apparently 
impregnable, and in the face of certain death." 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 952

THOMAS FOSTER GALLAGHER, Colonel of the Eleventh Reserve regiment and Brevet 
Brigadier-General, was born in the 17th of January, 1822, in Westmoreland 
county.  He served in the militia from 1846 to the opening of the Rebellion - 
having been Captain and Colonel - when he was commissioned Colonel of the 
Eleventh.  He was with McClellan upon the Peninsula, and at the battle of 
Gaines' Mill was taken prisoner, with the greater part of his regiment.  Having 
been exchanged, he returned in time to lead at Bull Run; and at South Mountain, 
while in command of a brigade and charging up the steep acclivity, was severely 
wounded, in consequence of which, in December, 1862, he resigned.  In 1863 he 
was made Colonel of the Fifty-fourth militia, which he led in the exciting chase 
after John Morgan in Ohio.  He has served two terms in the Pennsylvania 
Legislature.  He was married in 1849 to Miss Lizzie Kin McBride.

JOHN ROSKELL EVERHART, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, was born in West Chester in 
1828.  Both his grandfathers served in the Revolutionary army with Washington, 
and his father commanded a company in 1812, was afterwards extensively engaged 
in mercantile pursuits, and was finally lost in the ship Albion, wrecked off the 
coast of Ireland.  He was educated at Princeton College and in the medical 
department of the University of Pennsylvania.  Soon after graduating he went to 
Paris to further prosecute his studies.  Returning, he commenced practice in his 
native town.  At the time of the prevalence of Asiatic cholera in the Chester 
county almshouse, he volunteered his services, and was very successful in the 
treatment of the disease.  At the opening of the war he was assigned as surgeon 
of the Ninety-seventh regiment.  For three and a half years he remained on duty, 
proving himself in every position a skilful and faithful officer.  During the 
prevalence of the yellow fever at Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 1862, his 
treatment and sanitary regulations were efficacious in staying the disease and 
confining it to the limits of his command.  He served as a medical examiner of 
the Department of the South, under General Hunter, Brigade and Post Surgeon.  
Returning north with his regiment, he was on duty with the Army of the James 
until active operations of 1864

T. F. GALLAGHER - J. B. EVERHART - B. PATTERSON - 953

had closed, when he retired from the service.  In the summer of 1872 he went 
with General Pennypacker to Europe, travelling extensively in Great Britain and 
upon the continent.

BENJAMIN MEYERS ORWIG, Lieutenant of Battery E, First artillery, son of Samuel 
and Mary (Meyers) Orwig, was born on the 31st of August, 1840, in Union county.  
He studied his profession in the law department of the University of 
Pennsylvania, which he left reluctantly to join the battery that an elder 
brother, Thomas G., was organizing, soon rising to the place of second in 
command.  He preserved his health during his entire army life, having never but 
once been in hospital as a patient.  This battery won distinction on many hard-
fought fields, and had the honor of being the first Union artillery to enter the 
rebel capital at its downfall.  He died of a congestive chill on the 28th of 
October, 1867, at Des Moines, Iowa, where he had taken up his abode.

ROBERT PATTERSON, Major-General of volunteers, a native of Ireland, came to 
Pennsylvania with his family at the age of six and settled in Delaware county.  
He served as Lieutenant and Captain in the War of 1812, and after its close 
became attached to the militia, rising to the rank of Major-General in 1824, 
which office he held for a period of over forty years.  He commanded the troops 
in the State troubles of 1838, and in suppressing the riots of 1844, in 
Philadelphia.  He volunteered for the Mexican War and became Major-General, and 
second only to General Scott in command of the army of occupation.  At Cerro 
Gordo he was lifted to his saddle from a sick-bed, but bore himself gallantly in 
the fight.  When General Scott was relieved, the chief command fell to him, and 
he withdrew the army.  None seemed so fit, when the Rebellion came, to lead and 
discipline the new levies, and he was appointed by Governor Curtin over 
Pennsylvania troops.  Not many days after he was given by the General Government 
the command of the Department of Washington, embracing the disputed territory 
over which troops must pass to the Capital.  When the main avenues were cut off 
by the mob in Baltimore he seized that by

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 954

Annapolis, and for some days being unable to communicate with the national 
authorities, assumed the responsibility of authoring twenty-five additional 
regiments from Pennsylvania.  His action was ignored, but subsequent events 
showed that his judgment was correct.  He took possession of Baltimore and 
reopened all the lines of travel.  Having organized a column, he moved against 
the enemy, who were holding Harper's Ferry and the right band of the Potomac.  
When partially across the stream, and in prospect of speedily meeting the foe, 
his artillery and some of his best troops were taken from him, obliging him to 
withdraw.  He now proposed to fortify Maryland Heights, and move his force to 
Leesburg, where he could be in striking distance of the mouth of the Valley, and 
in case the need could be reinforce McDowell at Manassas.  This sensible plan 
was rejected and he was directed to keep in front of the enemy in the Valley, 
and fight if a reasonable prospect of success offered.  He fought Stonewall 
Jackson at Falling Waters and defeated him, advanced as far as Bunker Hill and 
made vigorous demonstrations in front of Winchester, where a rebel army under 
Johnston was intrenched, on the day that General Scott had advised him that the 
battle of Manassas would be fought, and then withdrew to Harper's Ferry.  The 
battle of Manassas was not fought until several days later, and Johnston was 
left free to unite with Beauregard.  Patterson was blamed for not having 
detained Johnston, and charged with the disaster at Manassas.  But the plan of 
dividing the Union army, and allowing the entire rebel force to come between 
Patterson and McDowell, was defective, and the conduct of Patterson is now seen 
to be above reproach.  At the conclusion of the campaign he resigned.  He has 
held numerous civil offices of great responsibility, and during a long life, now 
protracted beyond fourscore years, has been a successful merchant and 
manufacturer.