Martial Deeds of Pennsylvania, Samuel P. Bates, 1876 - Part 2, Chapter 9, 698-
735

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                         MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                       by
                                SAMUEL P. BATES.

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

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 698

                              Part II.  BIOGRAPHY.

                                   CHAPTER IX.

WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, Major-General in the United States Army, was born in 
Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of February, 1824.  He was educated 
at West Point, where he graduated in 1844.  He entered the service as Brevet 
Second Lieutenant in the Sixth infantry, and distinguished himself in the war 
with Mexico, receiving the brevet rank of First Lieutenant for gallantry at 
Cherubusco, and subsequently becoming the Quartermaster, and afterwards Adjutant 
of his regiment.  He was made First Lieutenant in 1853, and on the 7th of 
November, 1855, was promoted to Captain in the Quartermaster's Department, and 
ordered to duty in California, where he exerted his influence in retaining that 
State in the Union.
  Possessed of a thorough military training, enriched by experience in active 
warfare in Mexico and against the crafty savage, he entered the volunteer 
service on the 23d of September, 1861, as a Brigadier-General.  Youthful in 
appearance, modest in demeanor, with a countenance frank and open, he held the 
hearts of his associates and won the confidence of the stranger.  He was 
fortunate in his first battle.  Hooker had arrived in front of the rebel forces 
in their intrenchments at Williamsburg and had promptly attacked; but soon found 
his single division, though fighting gallantly, overmatched.  Messenger after 
messenger was sent for reinforcements, first to Heintzelman and then to Sumner, 
who had that day superseded Heintzelman.  Sumner, a true soldier and a skilful, 
sent Hancock with his brigade to the extreme right of the line.  At the outset 
Hancock found himself outnumbered and was unsupported.  It was a perilous 
situation; but that resource which never failed him - cool courage - proved

WINFIELD S. HANCOCK - 699

equal to the emergency.  He at first retired as if in trepidation, but with his 
force well in hand, and when the enemy came on pell-mell with overweening 
confidence, he gave them several heavy volleys, and then turned upon them with 
the bayonet, routing their entire force, killing and capturing 600 of their 
number, with a loss on his own part of only thirty men.  It was the turning 
point in the battle, and assured the victory.  It was a gallant exploit, and it 
glorified the name of the actor.  Hancock was henceforward a household word.
  The reputation thus early won was maintained, and when, at Antietam, General 
Richardson fell, Hancock succeeded to the command of his division and led it to 
the end of the battle.  It consisted of the brigades of Zook, Meagher, and 
Caldwell, which he continued to lead in the battle of Fredericksburg, having in 
the meantime been promoted to Major-General of volunteers, and brevetted Major, 
Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel in the regular army.  He followed French's 
division in the assault of the famous Marye's Heights, which bristled with 
artillery, and along the foot of which, screened by a stone wall, crouched the 
rebel infantry.  French's men could effect nothing.  Hancock moved rapidly to 
his assistance, and though his men displayed heroic bravery - returning again 
and again to the assault, Meagher's Irish brigade manifesting a reckless daring 
- he could effect no more than French.  Two other divisions, those of Howard and 
Humphreys, followed; but no earthly power could stand against the storm of shot 
and shell, and the deadly missives which poured like ceaseless hail upon their 
defenceless and unsheltered heads.  The day was lost, but through no want of 
valor.  In the battle of Chancellorsville Hancock held the left centre, and with 
Geary's division of the Twelfth corps - at a moment when the enemy, having 
seized some key positions, was bearing down all before him, and the Union lines 
to right and left were crumbling - checked the rebel onset until the new line 
could be taken and the integrity of the army could be secured.  After this 
battle he succeeded to the leadership of the Second corps.
  When General Meade relieved General Hooker in command of the Army of the 
Potomac, and commenced the movement into Pennsylvania in pursuit of Lee, he kept 
the Second corps on the 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 700

centre of the line of march; and when on the morning of the 1st of July he found 
that the left wing of his army had struck the enemy, and Reynolds had fallen, 
reposing great confidence in Hancock, he sent him upon the field to assume 
supreme command.  Upon his arrival he found affairs in great extremity.  The 
First and Eleventh corps had alone been pitted against a full half of the rebel 
army, and broken and bleeding were retreating through the town to Cemetery Hill, 
where the well-planted artillery of Steinwehr formed the nucleus for rallying, 
and where he was at a glance was a favorable point for making a stand.  It was 
with a thrill of gladness that the weary and begrimed soldiers hailed the face 
of the good chief.  Howard, the leader of the Eleventh corps, who had been in 
command, was already there.  Hancock made known his instructions from Meade.  
"You cannot take command over me," says Howard, "for I rank you."  This was 
true, and by the organic law of the army General Meade had not the power to put 
a junior officer over a senior.  "Well," says Hancock, "then I must return to 
General Meade."  "No, no," says Howard, the nobility of his nature being 
aroused, "in this moment of dire necessity Agamemnon and Achilles must not 
quarrel.  Stay and let us prepare to meet the common foe.  I will not stand in 
the way.  Our country at this hour needs us both."  Soon General Sickles came 
upon the field, riding in from Emmittsburg; and he likewise ranked Hancock.  But 
in the spirit of Howard he also waived his right and they all went resolutely to 
work.
  Hancock had an excellent military eye.  He could take in at a glance the 
advantages and defects of a great battle-field.  The character and composition 
of the army, too, were perfectly familiar to him.  His first care was to secure 
immediate safety, and to preserve it until darkness should come, when he could 
retire to a new position, if necessary; for as yet General Meade had not decided 
where he would fight.  Hancock was instructed before leaving head-quarters to 
watch for good positions as he rode up.  He was pleased with the Gettysburg 
ground and so notified Meade, though he detected its inherent weakness in its 
liability to be turned upon the left.  His dispositions were wisely made.  The 
resolute Wadsworth was sent to Culp's Hill

WINFIELD S. HANCOCK  - 701

to cover the little ravine that makes up in rear of Cemetery Hill, and there 
also he posted the artillery of Stevens.  To the indomitable Geary was given the 
vulnerable ground stretching towards Round Top.  The Eleventh corps was disposed 
upon the crest of Cemetery Ridge.  Along the open ground on the left flank he 
placed the watchful Buford, and in rear of all, as a reserve, the dauntless 
Doubleday, with the remnants of the First corps, grim veterans who had all day 
long received unmoved a baptism of fire.
  When the troops had been posted and all seemed secure, he turned over the 
command to Slocum, who had now arrived, and who also ranked him, and returned to 
head-quarters.  His action was approved, and his dispositions were carried out 
in every particular by Meade when he came upon the field.  On the afternoon of 
the following day, when the tornado of battle burst upon the army, and Sickles 
was wounded and his corps crushed, Meade called for Hancock, and put him in 
command of the whole left wing, which by vigorous efforts he succeeded in 
bringing into form and comeliness.  On the evening of this day, when the 
Louisiana Tigers made their furious charge upon Cemetery Hill, without waiting 
for orders - knowing that peril was imminent - he sent Carroll's brigade to the 
rescue, which, advancing upon the run, came in time to repel the assault.  In 
speaking of this event afterwards, Hancock said that he felt in his bones that 
there was urgent need of help.  On the third day of the battle the grand charge 
of Longstreet fell full upon Hancock's corps; and gallantly was it met and its 
massed columns swept away as flax by fire.  In the midst of this terrific onset, 
and when the whole heavens were wrapt in flame, while dashing over the ground 
unheeding danger, he was struck and severely wounded.  He was laid in an 
ambulance but refused to leave the field until he saw the enemy beaten, and 
victory perching upon his standards.  Nor was the bleeding hero yet content.  
"When I was wounded," he says, "and lying down in my ambulance and about leaving 
the field, I dictated a note to General Meade, and told him if he would put in 
the Fifth and Sixth corps, I believed he would win a great victory."  By a joint 
resolution of Congress he received the thanks of that body for "his gallant, 
meritorious, and conspicuous services in that great and decisive victory."

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 702

  In the battle of the Wilderness, in May, 1864, his corps, now recruited and 
enlarged beyond its pristine strength, was early in the fight and drove the 
enemy, inflicting great slaughter, until Hill, who was in his front, was 
reinforced by Longstreet, when he was in turn obliged to fall back.  But it was 
at Spottsylvania Court House, on the morning of the 12th of June, that he 
achieved his greatest success and won his proudest trophies.  The two armies for 
several days had been hurled against each other with terrific violence.  The 
slaughter had been terrible.  The keenest strategy had been employed on either 
side to gain an advantage, and the commanders had grown wary and vigilant.  Not 
a soldier threw himself upon the ground for a half hour that he did not cover 
himself with a rifle-pit.  Failing in his frequent endeavors to break the 
enemy's line, General Grant determined to strike a heavy blow upon the rebel 
right centre, nearly at right-angles to the opposing main line.  Hancock was 
chosen to deliver it.  On the evening of the 11th, marching quietly to the rear, 
he made a circuit to the designated point and at midnight was in readiness to 
move, having come in close upon the rebel position.  At a little before daybreak 
the signal was given; and, moving forward under cover of a dense fog, he came 
upon the enemy unawares, capturing nearly 5000 prisoners with their battle-
flags, and twenty pieces of artillery.  But the resistance became more 
determined as rebel supports were hurried to the scene of the disaster; and 
finally, on reaching a new and main line of works - well manned and supplied 
with artillery - it became impossible to push farther, and preparations were 
made to hold what had been gained.  This was now no easy task, for the enemy, 
nettled by his loss, was intent on regaining his works; and charge after charge, 
at each time by fresh troops, until five had been delivered, was made upon 
Hancock's exhausted men.  But in each assault the foe was thrown back with great 
slaughter.  Encouraged by the first successes, Hancock indulged the hope of 
winning a still greater triumph, and sent this message to Grant:  "I have 
captured from thirty to forty guns.  I have finished up Johnson and am going 
into Early."  But he was soon after checked.  It was subsequently discovered 
that he had come close in upon Lee's head-quarters, and had the rebel

WINFIELD S. HANCOCK  - 703

army nearly cut in two.  The troops captured were General Edward Johnson's, of 
Ewell's corps.  Johnson and General George H. Stewart were among the captives.  
The latter had been an old army friend and companion of Hancock, and when he was 
brought in, Hancock in a friendly way held out his hand in recognition, saying, 
"Stewart, I am glad to see you."  But Stewart persisted in showing his teeth, 
and drawing back replied, "Under the circumstances, sir, I cannot take your 
hand;" to which Hancock quickly replied:  "And under any other circumstances, 
sir, I would not have offered you my hand."  He was made a Brigadier-General in 
the regular army, to date from this action.
  In the battles at North Anna, Tolopotomy, Cold Harbor, and in the operations 
around Petersburg, he led his corps with his usual skill.  On the evening of the 
17th of June, 1864, on account of the wound received at Gettysburg, which was 
still open, and from which during the entire campaign he had suffered great 
pain, he was obliged to turn over the command of his corps to another and seek 
repose.  He was sufficiently recovered to resume his place on the 27th, and at 
Deep Bottom on the 12th of August, where he led, in addition to his own, the 
Second and Tenth corps and Gregg's cavalry, he had a number of sharp 
engagements, gaining a decided advantage.  On the 25th he fought the battle of 
Reams' Station against a superior force, and at the Boydton Road, on the 27th of 
October, drove the enemy with severe loss, capturing nearly a thousand prisoners 
and two stands of colors.  In November, he was ordered to Washington to command 
an army corps of veterans which was to consist of 50,000 men.  He remained in 
this duty until February 26th, 1865, when he was assigned to the Middle Military 
Division, comprising the Department of Washington, West Virginia, and 
Pennsylvania, with 35,000 men.  But the rebel power was now rapidly waning.  The 
war soon after ended, and the roar of battle which for four long years had 
sounded in his ears was hushed.  He was brevetted Major-General in March, 1865, 
for gallant conduct at Spottsylvania, and in July, 1866, made a full Major-
General in the regular army.  In 1866 he was at the head of the Department of 
the Missouri, and made a campaign against the hostile Indians

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 704

in Kansas and Colorado.  In September of the following year he was assigned to 
the Department of the Gulf, with head-quarters at New Orleans, where he showed 
good administrative ability in civil affairs.  In March, 1868, he was relieved 
at his own request, and was assigned to the Division of the Atlantic, but in the 
following March was placed over the Department of Dakota, where he remained 
until November, 1872, when he was again given the Division of the Atlantic, with 
head-quarters at New York.

THOMAS JEFFERSON JORDAN, Colonel of the Ninth cavalry and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born on the 3d of December, 1821, at Walnut Hill, in Lower Swatara 
township, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania.  The family was of Scotch origin and 
came to this country in 1720, first settling in King and Queen county, Virginia.  
In 1742, his great-grandfather, James, left Virginia, and with his slaves came 
to Pennsylvania, where he bought a large tract of land on the Susquehanna river, 
near Wrightsville, York county.  This he sold in a few years, and in 1754 bought 
and removed to Walnut Hill, at which place the grandfather, Thomas, and the 
father, Benjamin Jordan, were born.  During the war of the Revolution the 
grandfather was a paymaster with the rank of Major, and served as such during 
the entire war.  The father married Molly, the only daughter of Edward Crouch, a 
Captain in the Revolutionary army, she being a granddaughter of General James 
Potter, of Pennsvalley, also a soldier of the Revolution.  The father during a 
long life sustained the reputation of an honest Christian gentleman, a true 
friend, a good citizen, and died universally regretted.  He served six years in 
the House of Representatives, and two terms in the Senate of Pennsylvania.
  During the first fourteen years of the son's life, he was educated, as were 
other farmers' boys, in the country school.  At where he remained till the 
summer of 1839.  In December of that year he entered the law school connected 
with Dickinson College, under the charge of Hon. John Reed.  In 1842 he was 
admitted to practice, and followed his profession till the opening of the 
Rebellion.  He early evinced a liking for military

THOMAS J. JORDAN  - 705

life, before he was of age having been an aid to Genera.  Alexander, of 
Carlisle, and afterwards held commissions from Captain to Lieutenant-Colonel.  
  On the 18th of April, 1861, he was mustered into the service of the United 
States, as Aide-de-camp to General Keim, who commanded one of the divisions of 
Patterson's army, and with him assisted in organizing the three months' levies.  
He first met the enemy at Falling Waters, on the 2d of July, when Keims' 
division struck Stonewall Jackson's brigade, and after a sharp skirmish drove 
him back on Martinsburg, which place was occupied on the following day.  At the 
end of the campaign he was appointed Major and ordered to recruit a regiment of 
horse, which was known as the Lochiel Cavalry, afterwards the Ninth 
Pennsylvania, Ninety-second of the line.  The regiment was ordered west to the 
column commanded by General Buel, then at Louisville, Kentucky, where it arrived 
in November, 1861.  Major Jordan was soon after detached and ordered with one 
battalion to the front at Murfreesboro, and participated in all the movements of 
the army against Nashville in the spring of 1862.  In the action at Lebanon, 
Tennessee, on the 6th of May, while in command of a detachment of his own and 
the First Kentucky cavalry, he assisted in defeating General John Morgan.  On 
the 7th of July, at Tompkinsville, Kentucky, he again encountered General 
Morgan, but being largely outnumbered, was compelled to retreat, after a 
spirited action, and with his rear guard was captured.  For five months he was a 
prisoner, first at Madison, Georgia, and afterwards at Richmond, Virginia.
  He was exchanged, and returned to his command early in January, 1863.  In the 
meantime the Colonel had resigned, and the Lieutenant-Colonel was sick even unto 
death.  Jordan was, accordingly, appointed Colonel.  At Shelbyville he led the 
charge on the left, a most gallant action, which scattered the enemy and put him 
to inglorious flight.  At Thompson's Station, when Colonel Coburn of an Indiana 
regiment had tamely surrendered, he brought off the surviving forces, saving the 
artillery and baggage, and fighting heroically against a force of 5000 cavalry, 
led by the redoubtable General Forest.  At the moment when General Bragg's army 
was retiring across the Cumberland mountains

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 706

at Cowan, Tennessee, Colonel Jordan charged with his command and captured over 
five hundred of his men.  In the battle of Chickamauga, when ruin was impending 
on other parts of the field, he heroically defended the right of General Thomas, 
enabling that gallant soldier to stem the tide of disaster.  For his good 
conduct here General Thomas mentioned him in terms of appreciation in his 
report.  He fought and defeated General Dibbrel at Reedyville, though the latter 
was at the head of a force of 2500 men.  He was active in the campaign against 
Longstreet in East Tennessee in the winter and spring of 1863-64, and fought in 
the battles of Mossy Creek, Dandridge and Fairgarden.  In the battles of 
Lafayette, Dalton, Kenesaw, Big Shanty, Resaca, New Hope Church, Peach Tree 
Creek, and in front of Atlanta, Colonel Jordan was incessantly employed.  When 
the enemy finally retreated, he followed close upon the trail and was sharply 
engaged at Jonesborough and Lovejoy's Station.  He was placed in command of the 
First brigade of the Third division of the cavalry in the campaign to the sea, 
with which he met Wheeler at Lovejoy's Station, and after a sharp engagement 
routed him and captured all his artillery, retaining the pieces which were of 
superior quality in his command until the end of the war.  He again defeated 
General Wheeler at Waynesburg, Georgia, where he led his brigade in a charge 
upon the enemy's position, and ended the fight before the reserves, sent to his 
relief, could arrive.  He first invested Fort McAllister near Savannah, driving 
the rebels within their works, and was only prevented from carrying them by 
assault by the arrival of General Hazen, with his division of infantry, who 
superseded him in command.
  On the march through the Carolinas Colonel Jordan crossed the Savannah river 
in advance of the infantry at Sister's Ferry, and covered the left wing of the 
army under General Slocum.  His position in the column on the march north was 
such that he was brought often to severe conflict.  He led the charge at 
Blackville, dislodging the enemy from the town.  He held the position at 
Lexington, protecting the flank of the infantry, while Columbia was being 
occupied.  With Wheeler and Hampton he had a stubborn action at Lancaster, and 
crossing

WILLIAM McCANDLESS  - 707

into North Carolina led the advance to Fayetteville, daily and hourly 
skirmishing heavily.  The battle of Averysborough, which opened early in the 
day, was sustained by his command unaided until two in the afternoon, when the 
infantry of the Twentieth corps came to his assistance.  In this action every 
twelfth man in his entire force was either killed or wounded.  At Bentonville he 
held the left flank, and participated in all the movements of the day.  In the 
advance against Raleigh he again had the lead, and entered the city on the 
morning of April 12th, 1865.  On passing through, he found that the rebel 
cavalry were ready for action on the Hillsborough road, and at once moved 
forward to the attack, driving them before him the entire day.  At Morristown he 
was met by a flag of truce, with a letter for General Sherman from General 
Joseph E. Johnston, proposing to surrender, when fighting ceased.  On the 23d of 
February, 1865, his appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General was confirmed by the 
Senate of the United States, and he was commissioned accordingly.  This 
promotion was asked for by General Thomas, in a letter to the President, written 
soon after the battle of Chickamauga, for gallant and meritorious services in 
that action.  With his regiment and brigade he was mustered out on the 18th of 
July, 1865.

WILLIAM McCANDLESS, Colonel of the Second Reserve regiment, was born on the 29th 
of September, 1834, in the city of Philadelphia.  After passing through the 
public schools, he was apprenticed to Richard Norris and Son, to learn the 
business of a machinist, where he remained for a period of five years.  Impelled 
by the sense of its exalted nature and an aptness within for its mastery, he 
turned from his trade to the study of the law, and was admitted to practice in 
1858.  When the call for troops was made in 1861, he enlisted as a private.  At 
the organization of the Second regiment he was chosen and commissioned Major, 
and subsequently was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and to Colonel.  At the head 
of the upper road, in the battle of Beaver Dam Creek, stood McCandless.  It was 
his first fight; but a veteran could not have behaved with greater valor.  
Repeatedly did the enemy assail him, yet with steady nerve he met and 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 708

hurled them back, and at last begged permission to deliver a counter-charge; but 
this would have hazarded too much.  No less fearless was his bearing at Gaines' 
Mill, where he was thrown into the breach when the line of battle had given way, 
and in the dread encounter at Charles City Cross Roads.
  At the Second Bull Run Colonel McCandless was severely wounded in the groin, 
after having manoeuvred his regiment with rare skill throughout almost the 
entire battle, and fought with desperation in face of great odds.  He attempted 
still to lead, and grasped the flag to advance; but had to be carried from the 
field.  He was borne to a hospital in Washington, where, under skilful 
treatment, he rapidly recovered, and rejoined his regiment at Sharpsburg.  At 
Fredericksburg he led in the assault on the enemy's works, where the only 
advantage - a gleam of sunshine in a most black and awful day - was gained, and 
where by his dash he captured an entire regiment of the enemy - the Nineteenth 
Georgia.  The command of the brigade devolved upon him while on the field, and 
he led it in the battle of Gettysburg.  In that memorable struggle on 
Pennsylvania soil, a victorious foe was pressing on, having overcome brigade 
after brigade, division after division, and portions of three corps, when 
McCandless formed for a charge to check and hurl him back in his triumphant 
course, the enemy having already come within easy rifle-range of the famous 
Little Round Top.  The bullets were flying thick on every hand when the order to 
advance was given.  Never was a charge more resolutely made or more successful 
in its results.  The foe was checked and driven, and a firm line of battle 
established.  On the following day the ground in front, which had run red with 
the blood of innumerable victims, was swept over, a battery captured, and 
prisoners, battle-flags, and small arms in abundance.
  During the winter of 1863 Colonel McCandless commanded the division.  He 
entered the Wilderness at the head of the First brigade.  In obedience to orders 
he led it forward in that tangled field, where friend could scarcely be 
distinguished from foe, until he found himself surrounded and the way of retreat 
cut off.  Fortunately he managed to elude his captors and returned to camp.  At 
Spottsylvania Court House he was severely wounded in the

ST. CLAIR A. MULHOLLAND  - 709

hand and disabled from immediate duty, the Reserves then having but a few days 
longer to serve.  The commission of a Brigadier-General was tendered him but he 
declined it, and returned to Philadelphia, where he resumed the practice of his 
profession.  In 1865 he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Senate, where 
he served with great acceptance for a period of six years.  Possessed of a 
pleasing elocution, and ready in debate, he held a commanding influence in that 
body.  He was nominated, in 1872, for Auditor-General of the State, but was 
defeated.  He is at present engaged in his profession at the Philadelphia bar, 
where he has a large and lucrative practice.

ST. CLAIR A. MULHOLLAND, Colonel of the One Hundred and Sixteenth regiment, and 
Brevet Brigadier and Major-General, was born in Ireland in 1839.  He came to 
this country in childhood.  His tastes early inclined him to military duty, and 
he became a member of a militia company in the city of Philadelphia, where his 
family had settled.  On the 1st of September, 1862, he was commissioned 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Sixteenth, which he had been active in 
recruiting.  Upon joining the Army of the Potomac he was assigned to General 
Meagher's Irish Brigade.  While advancing to battle on the field of 
Fredericksburg, the commander of the regiment, Colonel Heenan, was severely 
wounded by the bursting of a shell, when Lieutenant-Colonel Mulholland assumed 
command, and in one of the bloodiest and most desperate struggles in which it 
was engaged during the war, he led it with dauntless bravery, until he was 
himself wounded and rendered incapable of duty.  When his wounds were 
sufficiently healed he returned to the field, though not with promotion as the 
reward of gallantry and honorable scars, but with even a reduction of rank; for 
his command, having been fearfully cut to pieces, was so much reduced as to be 
unable to retain a regimental organization, and it was consolidated in a 
battalion of five companies, which he led with only the rank of Major.
  In the battle of Chancellorsville, this battalion was charged with supporting 
the Fifth Main battery.  These pieces were in conflict with a number of powerful 
batteries of the foe, and gallantly

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 710

maintained the unequal contest; but when, after repeated losses, the ammunition 
began to fail, and the guns were in danger of falling into the enemy's hands, 
Major Mulholland rushed forward and drew them off to a place of safety.  During 
the 4th and 5th of May, he was field officer of the day for Hancock's division, 
and with fidelity preserved his lines, extinguishing the fires raging in the 
forest on his front, where many of the Union wounded were suffering excruciating 
torments.
  At Gettysburg he led his command over the celebrated Wheat Field, which, in 
consequence of the large number of troops from several corps brought into 
conflict there, has been called the Whirlpool.  The struggle was fearful in the 
wooded, rugged ground where it fought, and it held its position with determined 
valor; but the division, being unable to maintain its ground, was withdrawn, 
after having sustained severe losses.  
  In the winter of 1863--'64, the battalion was recruited to the full strength 
of a regiment, and Major Mulholland was promoted to Colonel.  The Wilderness 
campaign proved one of unparalleled severity, and its commander suffered by 
repeated wounds.  In the first day on the Wilderness field, at Po River, and 
Tolopotomy Creek, he was struck by the enemy's missiles, in the latter receiving 
what was supposed to be a mortal hurt.  He however recovered, and being of that 
spirit which is not intimidated by hostile weapons, returned to duty, having 
been rewarded with the brevet rank of Brigadier-General.  He was placed in 
command of the Fourth brigade, First division of the Second corps, in October, 
1864, and on the 27th of that month, while heavy detachments from the whole army 
were moving to Hatcher's Run, he assaulted and carried one of the enemy's 
earthworks, which was permanently held, taking many prisoners.  For his 
intrepidity in this affair he was brevetted Major-General.  To the close of the 
war he was at the post of duty, and won for himself the enviable reputation of 
being among the most reliable of officers.  After leaving the army, he was 
appointed Chief of Police of the city of Philadelphia, a position of great 
responsibility and power, and has acquitted himself with that ceaseless 
vigilance which characterized him in the field.

SAMUEL McCARTNEY JACKSON  - 711

SAMUEL McCARTNEY JACKSON, Colonel of the Eleventh Reserve regiment, and Brevet 
Brigadier-General, was born in Armstrong county, on the 24th of September, 1833.  
He was the son of John and Elizabeth (McCartney) Jackson, both of Scotch-Irish 
lineage.  He early shared in the toils of farm life, and in his sixteenth year 
was sent to the Jacksonville Academy, in Indiana county; but the death of his 
father at the end of a year necessitated his abandonment of a more liberal 
course of study which he had contemplated.  He early developed a special liking 
for history and biography in which he became well versed.  In his thirteenth 
year he joined the militia as a drummer, and after several years was promoted to 
Lieutenant, and finally to Captain.  He recruited a company for the Eleventh 
Reserve, of which he was Captain.  In July, 1861, he was promoted to Major, in 
October following to Lieutenant-Colonel, and in April, 1863, to Colonel.  On two 
occasions he received slight wounds.
  The principal battles in which he was engaged were Gaines' Mill, Second Bull 
Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, and Bethesda Church.  He particularly distinguished himself in 
the actions at South Mountain, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and 
Spottsylvania, where the conflicts were of such a nature as to thoroughly test 
his manhood.  In the latter he commanded a brigade and was brevetted a Brigadier 
for his gallant conduct.  At Gettysburg he was thrown forward upon the bloody 
ground where the Third corps had been driven back, and supports from several 
corps which had been sent to the relief of the Third had been terribly broken.  
The position there taken was held and the entire field was subsequently 
regained.  At the Wilderness, while in command of his own and the Second 
regiment, he was cut off from the balance of the division by a strong force of 
the enemy; but rallying his men around him he charged the hostile lines, and by 
a circuitous route reached the Union front, where he had for several hours been 
given up for lost.  At the close of his term of service he was mustered out and 
returned to private life.  In the fall of 1869, he was elected to the 
Pennsylvania Legislature, and was re-elected in the following year, where he 
maintained the character of a valuable and faithful legislator.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 712

WILLIAM JORDAN BOLTON, Colonel of the Fifty-first regiment and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born on the 22d of October, 1833, at Norristown, Pennsylvania.  He 
was the son of James and Mary Ann (Kirk) Bolton.  He was bred a machinist and 
engineer.  He completed his education at Freemount Seminary, under the Rev. 
Samuel Aaron.  He early manifested a taste for military life, when a mere boy 
forming a company of his companions which he headed as Captain.  For seven years 
he was a member of the volunteer militia, holding the position of Second 
Lieutenant.  At the commencement of the war he recruited Company A of the Fourth 
regiment, of which he was Captain.  At the conclusion of its service he 
recruited and reorganized his company for the Fifty-first, a veteran regiment.  
It went with General Burnside to the coast of North Carolina, returning in time 
to take a leading part at the Second Full Run and Chantilly, South Mountain, 
Antietam, and Fredericksburg.  Early in 1863 the corps was transferred to the 
West, and at Vicksburg, Jackson, and in the siege of Knoxville, performed much 
wearisome and perilous duty.  In 1864, it returned to the Army of the Potomac 
and was with Grant throughout the remaining campaigns.  In storming the bridge 
at Antietam Captain Bolton received a gun-shot wound in the face, the ball 
passing through the angle of the jaw on the right side, crashing on through the 
mouth, and emerging just below the ear on the left side.  For his conduct here 
he was promoted to Major.
  In the progress of the siege of Knoxville, in a night attack, the enemy had 
obtained possession of the Union picket line.  Towards daybreak an order was 
received to retake it, and it was desirable that the attempt should be made 
before light.  The progress of the preparations seemed dilatory to the 
chivalrous Bolton, and fearing that the darkness would entirely be dissipated, 
he went to the commander and with some impatience inquired if it was the 
intention to move.  On being assured that it was, he asked and received 
permission to lead in the attack.  Rapidly disposing his regiment, he led it on 
with unflinching bravery, and in three minutes had routed the foe and was in 
possession of the lost works.  Soon after the arrival of the army before 
Petersburg, he was ordered to take his regiment out upon

WILLIAM J. BONTON - JOHN I. CURTIN  - 713

the picket line where afterwards was the crater of the mine.  For several days 
and nights other regiments had been there exerting themselves to make an 
unbroken line, but still there was a space of a hundred yards reaching across 
the Petersburg road that they had utterly failed to cover.  On that piece of 
"sacred soil" an enfilading fire of infantry and artillery was unceasingly kept 
up, apparently with the fixed determination to prevent its occupation.  Waiting 
until the shadows of night had fallen, and aided by his brother Joseph K., he 
went resolutely to the work.  On the first three nights every attempt to get 
possession failed; but on the fourth, profiting by previous experience, hugging 
the ground closely and crawling stealthily forward, they reached the coveted 
position, though a perfect storm of deadly missiles was poured without cessation 
upon them.  His coolness and daring inspired his men, and daylight revealed to 
the astonished rebels a continuous line of Union pickets so well protected by 
rifle-pits as to defy their fire.  In his charge upon the enemy immediately 
after the explosion of the mine, on the morning of the 30th of July, 1864, he 
received another severe wound in the face.  In June of this year he was promoted 
to Colonel, and in March, 1865, to Brevet Brigadier-General.  One who had served 
under him says, "As a disciplinarian he had few superiors.  His government was 
not harsh, but was tempered with kindness and reason.  He subjected himself to 
strict discipline, and he exacted unquestioning obedience from those beneath 
him."

JOHN IRWIN CURTIN, Colonel of the Forty-fifth regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born on the 17th of June, 1837, at Eagle Forge, Centre county, 
Pennsylvania.  His paternal grandfather, Roland Curtin, emigrated from Ireland 
in 1797, and was one of the earliest and most enterprising settlers of that 
county.  His maternal grandfather, John Irwin, was also from Ireland, who with 
his brothers pushed out towards the central part of the State, ascending upon a 
flat-boat from Columbia to Lewistown, and thence across the mountains on foot to 
Penn's Valley, then a wilderness, but which he lived to see bud and blossom as 
the rose.  He is the second son of Roland Curtin, Jr., and a nephew of ex-
Governor Curtin.  He was educated at

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 714

Academia, Juniata county, and Dickinson Seminary, at Williamsport.  He was of 
the corps of engineers which located the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad, and when 
the war opened, volunteered in the Bellefonte Fencibles, which became part of 
the Tenth regiment, sent first to defend the bridges on the line of railway 
leading to Washington, and subsequently to Patterson in the Shenandoah Valley.  
At the close of the three months' term, he recruited a company, of which he was 
made Captain, for the Forty-fifth, a veteran regiment.  Soon after taking the 
field, in the fall of 1861, this regiment was sent to the Department of the 
South, landing at Hilton Head, and engaging, until July, 1862, in the operation 
undertaken for the reduction of the foremost of rebel cities.  It was then 
ordered north and became part of the Ninth corps under General Burnside.  On the 
30th of this month, Captain Curtin was promoted to Major, and to Lieutenant-
Colonel on the 4th of September following.  At Turner's Gap, in the South 
Mountain, Lee, glorying in his recent triumph at Bull Run, was met, and after a 
severe struggle was routed.  Colonel Curtin here had command of the regiment and 
was struck in the right elbow, disabling the arm for a time, but not preventing 
his continuance in duty.
  Soon after the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, in which the regiment took 
part, the Ninth corps was ordered west, and for a while performed duty in 
Kentucky; but subsequently was sent to Vicksburg, where it participated in the 
siege, and shared in the glories of the capture.  It then moved out under 
Sherman to Jackson, where, after a brief conflict, that able rebel chieftain was 
put to flight.  In the meantime Lieutenant-Colonel Curtin had been made Colonel.  
The corps now returned to Kentucky, but was greatly reduced by sickness, a fever 
prevailing of which General Welsh, the original commander of the regiment, died, 
and Colonel Curtin was prostrated and returned on furlough to his home.  In his 
absence the Ninth corps was sent to Knoxville, where, after having triumphantly 
entered and advanced towards Chattanooga to cooperate with the forces under 
General Grant, found itself confronted by a larger force, that had been detached 
from the main rebel column.  For twenty-two days Burnside was shut up, making a 
stout and very gallant resistance, until

JOHN I. CURTIN  - 715

Longstreet, who was in chief command, withdrew.  In the meantime Colonel Curtin, 
who had recovered from his sickness, while on the way to the front was placed in 
command of a brigade at Cumberland Gap, with which he rendered good service upon 
Clinch River in harassing the enemy, and when Longstreet was compelled to raise 
the siege, striking the rear of his column as he retreated towards Virginia.  
  The Ninth corps returned to the Army of the Potomac before the opening of the 
spring campaign of 1864.  Colonel Curtin was here intrusted with the command of 
a brigade in General Potter's division, and wielded it with skill in the fierce 
fighting which ensued.  On the 21st of May, he was sent in advance with his 
brigade to secure the crossing of the Po River near Stannard's Mill.  Before 
reaching the designated point he met the enemy in considerable force, but drove 
him handsomely, and held the hither bank.  Though the fighting of the campaign 
had been severe, it was nowhere so terrible and destructive as at Cold Harbor.  
The Ninth corps held the right here, and on the 3d of May Colonel Curtin led his 
brigade in a daring and impetuous charge - driving the opposing force, which 
consisted of parts of Ewell's and Longstreet's corps, from their skirmish line 
and rifle-pits, back to their fortifications - and planted his column immovably 
in the very face of the foe.
  One of the most brilliant of the exploits of Colonel Curtin in the course of 
the war was executed at a little before dawn on the morning of the 17th of June.  
The Union army having just crossed the James had come up before Petersburg; but 
the enemy were already there and intrenched.  Potter's division was ordered to 
make a night attack.  Curtin and Griffin were to lead with their brigades, 
supported by Ledlie.  Woodbury, in his Ninth Army Corps, gives a vivid 
description of this daring charge:  "At the first blush of the morning," he 
says, "the word 'Forward!' was passed quietly along the column.  The men sprang 
to their feet, and noiselessly, rapidly, vigorously moved upon the enemy - 
Griffin to the right, Curtin to the left.  They burst upon him with the fury of 
a tornado.  They took him completely by surprise.  They swept his lines for a 
mile, gathering up arms, flags, cannon, and prisoners all along their victorious 
pathway.

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 716

A stand of colors, four pieces of artillery with their caissons and horses, 
fifteen hundred stands of small arms, a quantity of ammunition and six hundred 
prisoners were the fruits of this splendid charge.  A wide breach had been made 
in the enemy's lines, and it seemed as though the defences of Petersburg were 
within our grasp.  But the energetic movement of General Griffin was not 
followed up.  Colonel Curtin had most gallantly done his part, and General 
Potter was promptly on the ground to direct the assault.  But where were the 
supports?"  These were not at hand and Curtin and Griffin could only hold fast 
what was gained.  In this charge Colonel Curtin was severely wounded in the 
shoulder, and was carried from the field.  He was removed to the hospital at 
Annapolis.  His wound fortunately healed without permanent disability, and in 
August he again joined his brigade.  His gallantry was not without its reward.  
In October, the brevet rank of Brigadier-General was conferred by President 
Lincoln.  In the fierce encounter at Peebles' Farm the enemy succeeded in 
gaining the rear of the Fifth corps, seriously compromising the position of the 
left wing of the Union army.  General Curtin that day rode a beautiful horse 
presented him by his old regiment.  In the heat of the action it was killed 
under him, and although surrounded, and called on to surrender, he cut his way 
out and escaped while many were killed and captured.  From this time forward 
until the close of the war he had command of a division.  With his regiment he 
was mustered out of service in June, 1865, having served with honor and 
distinction during the entire period of the conflict.  Upon his return to 
private life he went to Kentucky, where he was engaged in developing oil and 
coal lands, building a railroad for the use of the company.  He returned to 
Pennsylvania in 1867, and entered largely upon the manufacture and sale of 
lumber in Clinton county, where he now resides.

JOSEPH P. BRINTON, Colonel of the Second cavalry, was born on the 22d of July, 
1837, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania.  His father, Judge Ferree Brinton, was 
of Huguenot descent, his ancestors having been among the earliest settlers in 
that county, where the family for six generations has resided.

JOSEPH P. BRINTON  - 717

His mother, Elizabeth (Sharpless) Brinton, was descended from the earliest 
Quaker settlers in Chester county.  The boy received careful rudimentary 
instruction from private Quaker teachers at the Watson boarding-school, and 
afterwards in the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in the Law 
Department.  He further prosecuted his professional studies in the office of Eli 
K. Price, from whence he was admitted to practice at the Philadelphia bar.
  As a youth he manifested a fondness for equestrian exercises, which naturally 
led him to choose the cavalry when he came to enter the service.  When the call 
of the President was proclaimed he was a private in that historic body, the 
First City Troop, and with it he volunteered, serving during the three months' 
campaign with the column of Patterson in the Shenandoah Valley.  Returning at 
the close of this period, he was, upon the organization of the Second 
Pennsylvania cavalry, commissioned senior Major, and in August following was 
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.  By the frequent call of the Colonel to command 
the brigade, the charge of the regiment principally devolved upon Brinton.  From 
October, 1862, to March, 1863, with the exception of a short interval, he had 
the active leadership, as he did also from July, 1863, to February, 1864, and 
from May to November of the latter year.  During these periods the regiment 
performed almost constant severe service.  In the actions at Rappahannock 
Station and Mine Run, in Meade's campaign of 1863, and at St. Mary's Church, 
Deep Bottom, Boydton Road, and Jerusalem Plank Road under Grant, the youthful 
commander particularly distinguished himself.  At Trevillian Station, where the 
division was suddenly attacked by a superior force of the Confederate army, 
Brinton led a charge of dismounted cavalry with such steadiness and daring as to 
win the plaudits of his entire command, and the warm approval of his sturdy 
chief, General Gregg.
  In August, 1864, he was brevetted Colonel, in the language of the commission, 
"for conspicuous conduct and distinguished gallantry in the battles of 
Trevillian Station and St. Mary's Church."  In November, 1864, he was assigned 
to duty on the staff of General Meade, as Judge Advocate of the Army of

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 718

the Potomac, in which position he remained to the close of his service, at the 
end of the war.  During his long and active duty in the field he fortunately 
escaped without wounds, though he had six horses shot under him at various 
times, and was trice injured by their fall upon him.  He was particularly 
commended by General Birney for a scout in the rear of the enemy's lines after 
the second battle of Bull run - a daring exploit - and by General Gregg for his 
conduct in the Mine Run campaign, in addition to those mentioned in his brevet 
commission.
  Duty in the cavalry arm of the service is more constant and harassing than in 
either infantry or artillery, and for it there is far less credit given in the 
general award.  When a great battle is fought the cavalry is pushed out upon the 
flanks, and its exploits are scarcely mentioned in the glowing descriptions of 
the field plowed by grape, and the charges of the infantry hosts.  But often the 
most critical and daring part of a battle is performed by this arm.  When the 
battle is over and the infantry and artillery are relieved, the duty of the 
cavalry does not intermit, and often its most trying and wasting service is when 
no fighting is reported.  Few men served with a more constant and unremitting 
valor than Colonel Brinton.

VINCENT MEIGS WILCOX, Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-second regiment, was 
born on the 17th of October, 1828, at Madison, Connecticut.  He was the son of 
Zenos and Louisa (Meigs) Wilcox.  His boyhood was spent upon the farm, and he 
was educated at Lee's Academy in his native place.  For some years after leaving 
school he was engaged in teaching.  He was married in 1856 to Catharine M. Webb.  
He became an officer in the State Militia of Connecticut in 1856, in which he 
displayed considerable enthusiasm.  Having become a citizen of Scranton, 
Pennsylvania, upon the formation of the One Hundred and Thirty-second regiment 
he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel.  In the battle of Antietam Colonel Oakford, 
who led this regiment, fell, and the command devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel 
Wilcox.  It held a position of great importance, inasmuch as it was the key to 
the Union position.  The line had been broken in other parts, but if this could 
be held there was a chance of regaining

VINCENT M. WILCOX - DE WITT C. STRAWBRIDGE  - 719

the portions lost.  In the crisis of the battle Colonel Wilcox received an order 
from General French, who commanded the division, directing him to hold the 
ground to the last extremity.  But the ammunition had all been expended.  By 
searching the bodies of the dead a little was obtained, which was economically 
used.  When that was gone the Colonel reported the fact to General Kimball for 
orders; but instead of being relieved he was ordered to fix bayonets and charge, 
which was executed with the utmost gallantry, driving the enemy before him and 
capturing a Colonel and several men.  The battle raged long and fearfully, and 
the loss among his men was very great; but he exercised his responsible duties 
with skill and fidelity, holding his position against powerful assaults made by 
a veteran foe.  At the close of the battle he was promoted to Colonel, to date 
from the day of the engagement, as an acknowledgement of his merit; but his 
health soon afterwards failed, and he was obliged to leave the army.  His 
service, though brief, embracing only the battles of South Mountain and 
Antietam, was marked by a full measure of devotion, and contributed not a little 
to the fortunate result of the campaign.

DE WITT CLINTON STRAWBRIDGE, Colonel of the Seventy-sixth regiment, was born at 
Millerstown, Perry county, Pennsylvania, on the 5th of August, 1837.  His 
father, David Strawbridge, was a native of Pennsylvania, of Irish descent.  His 
mother was Eve Long, of German origin.  He received a good English education, 
embracing the higher mathematics and natural sciences, at Sharon, Pennsylvania, 
and at the Hiram Eclectic Institute, Ohio.  His first experience in military 
duty commenced on the 20th of April, 1861, with the Nineteenth Ohio volunteers.  
On the 2d of July he was promoted to First Sergeant, and participated in the 
decisive campaign in West Virginia, under McClellan and Rosecrans, which 
terminated triumphantly on the 13th at Rich Mountain.  For his capacity and 
faithfulness to duty here he was promoted, on the 24th of September, to Captain 
of Company B, of the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, and with it proceeded 
immediately to the Department of the South.  Early in August he was promoted to 
the rank of Colonel, and in this capacity led

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 720

his regiment in the affair at Pocotaligo, with such good judgment, and in the 
face of such hard fighting, that he was especially complimented by General O. M. 
Mitchell, in chief command.  He was also conspicuous in the reduction of Fort 
Pulaski, and in the battle on James Island.  He was of the force which stormed 
and took the batteries of the southern part of Morris Island, and here again his 
conduct attracted the attention and warm approval of General Strong, in command 
of the brigade.  He also took part in the first assault upon Fort Wagner, and in 
the varied operations of the campaign conducted by General Hunter.  His regiment 
having suffered severely in the engagements on Morris Island, and being reduced 
to scarcely two full companies, he was sent with the surviving veterans by 
General Gilmore in August to take charge of the post at Hilton Head, and was 
there placed in command of a brigade.
  On account of injuries received in the service, which were incurable, he was 
forced to resign on the 20th of November, 1863.  His health was, however, so 
much improved that in the summer and fall of 1864 he served as adjutant of the 
Seventeenth Kansas regiment for a period of five months, and until that body was 
mustered out.  In person, Colonel Strawbridge is above the medium height.  He 
was married on the 6th of April, 1868, to Miss Alice L. Turner, of Brookfield, 
Missouri, where he now resides.

ROBERT LEVAN ORR, Colonel of the Sixty-first regiment, was born on the 28th of 
March, 1836, in Philadelphia.  He was the son of William Hennessy and Justinia 
(Scull) Orr.  He was educated at the public high school, and until the breaking 
out of the war was employed in the dry goods house of the Sharpless Brothers.  
He entered the service on the 25th of April, 1861, and at the conclusion of the 
three months' campaign was made Captain in the Sixty-first regiment.  In the 
terrible battle of Fair Oaks, the field officers of this body were all cut down 
and the command devolved upon Captain Orr.  In a skirmish before Richmond in the 
month of June, he was wounded.  He was engaged in all the battles in which the 
Sixth corps had a part, and in the storming of Marye's Heights, in the 
Chancellors-

ROBERT L. ORR - SAMUEL D. STRAWBRIDGE - 721

ville campaign, displayed marked courage.  In October, 1863, he was promoted to 
Major.  In the battle of Winchester under Sheridan, and in all subsequent 
battles in the Valley, he rendered distinguished service, and at its close was 
brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel.  With his gallant regiment he led the assault on 
the works before Petersburg on the morning of April 2d, 1865.  He received a 
slight wound in that assault, and was promoted to Colonel for gallantry therein 
displayed.  He was mustered out with his regiment on the 28th of June, 1865.

SAMUEL DALE STRAWBRIDGE, Colonel of the Second artillery, was born on the 31st 
of August, 1825, in Liberty township, Montour county, Pennsylvania.  His father 
was James Strawbridge, of Scotch-Irish extraction, though his father and 
grandfather were natives of Chester county.  His mother was Mary (Dale) 
Strawbridge.  The son received his education at private schools in the 
neighborhood and in the Danville and New London Academies.  He had no military 
training previous to the Rebellion.
  He entered the United States service as First Lieutenant of Battery F, Second 
artillery, in January, 1862, and in December following was promoted to Captain 
of Battery I.  The regiment was placed on duty in the defences of Washington, 
where it remained until the campaign of the Wilderness opened, when, to supply 
the great waste to which the army had been subjected, this regiment, which had 
been recruited to over thirty-three hundred men, was organized in two, and 
having been taken from their guns, were armed with muskets, and sent to the 
front.  They went among veterans and were immediately put upon the advance line 
to do veterans' work.  Captain Strawbridge was commissioned Major of the new 
regiment, and throughout the hard fighting which followed, and until the reunion 
of the two regiments in September, he was ceaselessly employed.  His gallantry 
won for him the rank of Brevet Colonel.  Of the united regiments he became in 
succession Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel, and until the muster out in the 
early part of 1866 was faithful and vigilant, commanding the esteem of his men, 
and the approval of his superior officers.	

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 722

JOHN MILLER MARK, Colonel of the Ninety-third regiment, was born on the 15th of 
March, 1822, in East Hanover, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania.  He was the son of 
George and Elizabeth (Miller) Mark.  His boyhood was passed in a rural 
neighborhood and his school advantages were few.  He entered the service as 
Captain in the Ninety-third on the 3d of October, 1861, and was promoted to 
Major in June following, and Colonel in November.  He was with Peck in the 
battle of Williamsburg, of whom General Couch said, "He had the good fortune to 
be in advance, and arriving on the battle ground at a critical time, won a 
reputation to be greatly envied."  In the desperate fighting at Fair Oaks, 
Colonel Mark was wounded in the right arm, which resulted in the stiffening of 
three fingers.  At Antietam he was again with his regiment, and at 
Fredericksburg was in General Wheaton's brigade of General Franklin's Grand 
Division.  On the 12th of March, 1863, Colonel Mark was mustered out of service.

THOMAS FOREST BETTON TAPPER was born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, August 31st, 
1823.  His father was John Tapper, by birth a Prussian.  His mother, Lydia Maria 
(Vogal) Tapper, was a native of the city of Amsterdam, Holland.  At a very early 
age he was put to work in a factory, and was also employed upon a farm.  He 
subsequently spent four years in learning the trade of a carpenter; but being 
dissatisfied with this, finally became a machinist and engineer - employments 
for which he had genius.  A single term at school when at the age of fourteen 
was all the opportunity he ever had of acquiring educational discipline.  But 
being of an inquiring turn of mind, he was able to supply, by his own exertions, 
what of scholastic training had by the hard lot of poverty been denied him.
  For several years previous to the war he was Lieutenant in the Spring Garden 
Rifle company.  When hostilities opened, in April, 1861, he was active in 
recruiting soldiers for the common defence, and on the 29th of May was 
commissioned Captain of Company G of the Fourth Reserve regiment.  He led that 
company in the battles before Richmond under McClellan; and at Charles City 
Cross Roads, on the 30th of June, 1862, performed

JOHN M. MARK - THOS. F. B. TAPPER - WM. M. MINTZERS  - 723

prodigies of valor, receiving a sword-cut on the right arm, and a bayonet wound 
in the left leg.  Though suffering intensely, and weak from the loss of blood, 
he kept the field and lay down at night with his men on the bare ground without 
cover.
  At Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam, at Fredericksburg, Cloyd 
Mountain in West Virginia, and New River Bridge, he was with the foremost, and 
no soldier was more sorely tried nor found more vigilant.  Few campaigns more 
severely tested the metal of men than that conducted by General Crooke in West 
Virginia.  For twenty days the troops were upon the march; skirmishing 
commencing on the third day out, and continuing without cessation until the end 
of the campaign.  But no hardship nor fatigue could turn a soldier like Tapper 
from his purpose, and with such, no enterprise was too daring, nor trial too 
great.  On the 1st of March, 1863, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, on the 
10th of May, 1864, to Colonel, and on the 17th of June following, having served 
the full period for which he had enlisted, was mustered out of service with his 
command.

WILLIAM M. MINTZER, Colonel of the Fifty-third regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-
General, was born on the 7th of May, 1837, in Chester county, Pennsylvania.  He 
was the son of Henry and Rebecca (Bechtel) Mintzer.  He entered the service of 
the United States on the 19th of April, 1861, as an enlisted man for the three 
months' term, and at its conclusion reentered for the war as a Lieutenant in the 
Fifty-third.  In this capacity he participated in the battle at Fair Oaks, and 
subsequently in the Seven Days' battle, in which he belonged to the rear guard, 
stubbornly holding back the foe at Peach Orchard, Savage Station, and White Oak 
Swamp.  On the 2d of June, 1862, he was promoted to Major.  In front of the 
sunken road, and the stone fence on the hill beyond, at Antietam, and at Marye's 
Heights in the battle of Fredericksburg, the Fifty-third was put to a severe 
test, but came forth from the ordeal with a reputation for valor unsurpassed.  
On the afternoon of the 2d reputation for valor unsurpassed.  On the afternoon 
of the 2d of July, 1863, this regiment was put into the terrible maelstrom of 
battle near the Peach Orchard on the Gettysburg field, and here it combated 
under a deadly fire of musketry and artillery

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 724

until a large proportion were either killed or wounded.  At the Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, Po River, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and a score of minor battles, 
he was with his regiment, having the active command for the most part, and 
leading it with rare skill and judgment.  On the 29th of September, 1864, he was 
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and on the 30th of October following, to 
Colonel.  At the Boydton Plank Road, where he charged, recharged, and finally 
took the enemy's works, resulting in the cutting of the Weldon Railroad, he 
displayed a coolness and courage unsurpassed, was warmly commended by his 
superior officers, and was brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and 
meritorious services."

THOMAS JEFFERSON TOWN, Colonel of the Ninety-fifth regiment, brother of Gustavus 
W., noticed elsewhere, was born on the 9th of October, 1841.  Their tastes were 
not unlike, and their education was substantially the same.  He entered the 
three months' service as Second Lieutenant of the company of which his brother 
was First Lieutenant, and in the Ninety-fifth he was Captain of Company A, from 
which he was subsequently promoted to Major.  In the battle at Salem Church, on 
the 3d of May 1863, when his brother fell dead upon the field, he made strenuous 
efforts to bring off his body; but while thus engaged, received a severe and 
painful wound in the hip, compelling him to abandon the purpose.  The field 
remained in the enemy's hands, and the body was never recovered.  Major Town was 
commissioned Colonel; but his wound was of so serious a character that in the 
August following he was mustered out of service "for physical disability arising 
from wounds."  In stature he is six feet and nearly three inches in height, and 
well proportioned.

WILLIAM ROSS HARTSHORNE, Colonel of the One Hundred and Ninetieth regiment, and 
Brevet Brigadier-General, was born at Curwensville, Clearfield county, 
Pennsylvania, on the 26th of January, 1839.  He was the son of William and 
Sophronia (Swan) Hartshorne.  He was educated at the Tuscarora Academy.  He was 
commissioned First Lieutenant of Com-

THOS. J. TOWN - WM. R. HARTSHORNE - NORMAN M. SMITH - 725

pany K, Bucktail regiment, on the 29th of May, 1861.  In August following, he 
was transferred to the Signal corps, in which capacity he served on the staff of 
General Banks.  Before the Reserve corps departed for the Peninsula, he was made 
Adjutant of his regiment and returned to duty with it.  At the battle of Beaver 
Dam Creek he received a severe wound, his skull being fractured by a musket 
ball.  The process of trepanning was performed by rebel surgeons at Savage 
Station, and he remained a prisoner until August 10th, 1862, when he rejoined 
his regiment and participated in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.  On 
the 22d of May, 1863, he was promoted to Major, and after the fall of Colonel 
Taylor at Gettysburg, the command devolved upon him.  At Gettysburg and the 
Wilderness he was hotly engaged, and led his men with great gallantry.  At the 
close of the term of service of the Reserve corps, two veteran regiments were 
formed from the remnants who were willing to reenlist.  The command of the first 
of these, the One Hundred and Ninetieth, was given to Colonel Hartshorne.  On 
the 20th of July, 1864, he was placed at the head of the Third brigade, Third 
division, Fifth corps, which he led with marked ability in the fierce fighting 
before Petersburg.  In the action at the Weldon Railroad, on the 19th of August, 
his command was overwhelmed and he was taken prisoner.  He was confined in Libby 
Prison, Salisbury, and Danville, and not until the 25th of March, 1865, was he 
released, being subjected to great privation and suffering for a period of over 
seven months.  Three days after his release he rejoined his command and led it 
till the close of the war.  He was made Brevet Brigadier-General on the 13th of 
March, 1865, and was mustered out with his regiment on the 2d of July.

NORMAN MACALESTER SMITH, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth cavalry, 
was born on the 22d of December, 1841, in Philadelphia.  He was the son of 
Edward T. and Ann Macalester (Bacon) Smith.  Until his sixteenth year he was 
educated in his native city, and in Burlington, New Jersey.  He then entered the 
Norris locomotive works, for the purpose of learning practically mechanical 
engineering, which was frustrated by the opening of the war.  He was deprived, 
by death, of a 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 726

mother at ten, and a father at fourteen years of age.  He volunteered, on the 
19th of April, 1861, in the Commonwealth Artillery of Philadelphia, in which he 
served for three months at Fort Delaware.  On being mustered out he was 
appointed Second Lieutenant in the Fifty-eighth regiment, but declined the 
position, enlisting instead in the Anderson Troop, on the 15th of October, and 
serving in it until June, 1862, having in the meantime participated in the 
battles of Shiloh and Corinth.  In the former he was personal orderly to General 
Buell, who, in noticing the conduct of his staff, said:  "I would add that the 
conduct of privates Smith and Hewitt came particularly under my observation, and 
the gallant manner in which, during the hottest of the fight, they rallied 
scattered parties of men, and led them back to their regiments, is deserving of 
the highest commendation."
  In June, 1862, he was ordered to Pennsylvania to recruit for the Fifteenth 
Pennsylvania cavalry, then being organized, in which he was commissioned 
Captain.  In this capacity he participated in the battles of Antietam and 
Williamsport, Maryland, and in Triune, Wilkinson's Cross Roads, Stone River, 
Lavergne, and Woodbury, Tennessee.  In June, 1863, he resigned and entered the 
Nineteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, serving first as Quartermaster, then as 
Adjutant, and finally as Captain of Companies L and C, participating in the 
actions at Okaloona, Ivy Farm, Mississippi; Cypress Swamp, Tennessee; Gun Town, 
Black River, Utica, Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, Mississippi; Marion, Arkansas; 
Nashville, Hollow Tree Gap, Franklin, Anthony's Hill, Tennessee; and Sugar 
Creek, Alabama.  During the summer of 1864 he served as Inspector and Assistant 
Adjutant-General of the First brigade, cavalry division of the Army of West 
Tennessee.  In the Nashville campaign he was for the most part in command of his 
regiment, and by his energy and skill won for it lasting renown.  General 
Hammond, who led the brigade to which it belonged, says:  "The Nineteenth 
Pennsylvania cavalry was for the greater part of the time commanded by Norman M. 
Smith, who, although only a Captain, was alone able to do anything with the 
regiment.  Under him it was efficient, and at all times ready for work.  I 
strongly urged that he be made Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, a rank 
belonging to the

HORACE B. BURNHAM  - 727

position which he holds.  I now hope that it is not too late to recognize his 
merit, by the brevets of Major and Lieutenant-Colonel, which he richly deserves 
for his services during the campaign when Hood was defeated at Nashville and 
pursued across the Tennessee River, even if he had served nowhere else, and for 
personal gallantry and attention to duty in the field."  To this unqualified 
commendation General George H. Thomas added his own approval, particularly 
calling attention to the request.

HORACE BLOIS BURNHAM, Colonel of the Sixty-seventh regiment, was born on the 
10th of September, 1824, at Spencertown, Columbia county, New York.  He received 
a good English education, with some knowledge of the classics, and read law with 
D. A. Lathrop, of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania.  He came to the bar in 1844, and 
practiced in the counties of Luzerne, Carbon, Wayne, Pike, and Monroe.  He was 
married on the 22d of February, 1846, to Miss Ruth Ann Jackson.  He entered the 
service in July, 1861, and in October following was made Lieutenant-Colonel of 
the Sixty-seventh regiment.  For more than a year and a half it was on duty at 
Annapolis, Maryland.  It was at Winchester in the column of Milroy when struck 
by the head of the entire rebel army on its way to Gettysburg, and was terribly 
decimated in the encounter which ensued.  He remained with the Third corps until 
the expiration of his term of service, on the 30th of October, 1864, when he was 
appointed by President Lincoln a Judge Advocate with the rank of Major in the 
regular army, in which capacity he acted on court-martial duty and in the Bureau 
of Military Justice at Washington, until April, 1867.  He was then ordered to 
duty as Chief Judge Advocate of the First Military District, with head-quarters 
at Richmond, Virginia.  He was at the same time Judge of Hustings Court here, 
from September, 1867, to May, 1869, to May, 1870, by appointment, in accordance 
with an act of Congress.  At the end of this time he was ordered to Atlanta, 
Georgia, as Chief Judge Advocate of the Department of the South, and 
subsequently, when the head-quarters of that department were transferred to 
Louisville, Kentucky, he accompanied it thither.  On 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 728

the 4th of November, 1872, he was assigned to duty in the same capacity in the 
Department of the Platte, embracing Iowa and Nebraska, and the Territories of 
Wyoming and Utah, head-quarters at Omaha, where he is still engaged.  He was 
brevetted Colonel by the President in July, 1865, for gallant and meritorious 
services during the war.

MARCUS A. RENO, Colonel of the Twelfth cavalry, and Brevet Brigadier-General, is 
a native of Carrolton, Green county, Illinois.  His ancestors were of French 
descent, who, three or four generations back, had settled upon the French 
possessions on the Mississippi.  His mother was a native of Hyattstown, 
Maryland.  His boyhood was spent at school in his native place, and he was 
destined for the mercantile profession; but, having received the appointment at 
West Point through the influence of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who was a friend 
of the family, he entered that school, and in due course graduated in 1857.  He 
engaged immediately thereafter in the national service, as an officer of the 
First United States cavalry, from which, towards the close of the late war, he 
was promoted to Colonel of the Twelfth Pennsylvania cavalry, One Hundred and 
Thirteenth of the line.  In the action of Kelly's Ford in March, 1863, he was 
severely wounded, which incapacitated him for duty in the battles of 
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, the only battles in which the Army of the 
Potomac had part in which he did not participate.  He was brevetted a Brigadier-
General on the 13th of March, 1865.  He was married in 1863 to a daughter of 
Robert J. Ross, of Harrisburg.

WILLIAM ANDREW ROBINSON, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-seventh regiment, and 
Brevet Brigadier-General, was born at North East, Erie county, Pennsylvania, on 
the 17th of June, 1830.  He was the son of William A. and Nancy (Cochran) 
Robinson, both of Scotch-Irish descent.  His father, his grandfather, Thomas, 
and his great-grandfather, George, were all natives of central Pennsylvania.  
His early years were passed upon a farm, and his education was obtained in the 
district school, and at academies in Chatauqua county, New York, and

MARCUS A. RENO - WILLIAM A. ROBINSON  - 729

Ashtabula, Ohio.  After leaving school and until the Rebellion came he was 
associated with older brothers in business in Pittsburg.  When the flag of his 
country was assailed, and troops were called for its defence, he enlisted in a 
company known as the Pittsburg Rifles, in which he served as a Sergeant.  
Failing of acceptance in the three months' force, it was held in camp, and 
became Company A of the Ninth Reserve.  In October, 1861, he was transferred to 
the Seventy-Seventh regiment, as First Lieutenant of Company E, and in the April 
following was promoted to Captain.  It was one of the few infantry regiments 
sent to the Western army from Pennsylvania, in the early part of the war, and 
was with Grant at Shiloh, being upon the front in the final charge and taking 
many prisoners.  At Stone River, on the 31st of December, 1862, were the right 
wing of Rosecrans' army was attacked at early dawn with great fury and by 
overwhelming numbers, this was one of the few regiments which was in readiness 
to receive the blow, and make a stubborn defence.  Robinson led his company with 
marked valor, and received the warm commendation of his superior officers.  He 
participated in all the battles of the Army of the Cumberland down to the ill-
starred contest at Chickamauga.  Here the Seventy-seventh with some other troops 
were isolated in a critical stage of the battle, and being unsupported, the 
field officers, seven line officers, and the greater part of the men were taken 
prisoners.  For fifteen months Captain Robinson was an inmate of rebel prisons 
of the worst type, at a period when the harshest treatment was accorded to the 
unfortunate victims:  six months at Libby; three at Columbia, South Carolina; 
three at Macon, Georgia; and three at Charleston, under fire of General 
Gilmore's powerful guns.  He was associated with Colonels Streight and Rose in 
tunneling their way out of Libby - a Herculean labor, and attended with 
remarkable immediate success, but not in the liberation of Captain Robinson.  
While confined at Macon he was selected as one of a committee of Union officers 
to go to Andersonville and make known to the Union Government the horrors to 
which the poor victims of cruelty and barbarity were subjected, in the hope that 
the administration would be induced on hearing their report to enter upon a 
system of exchange which the Confederates well knew

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 730

would redound largely to their advantage.  But this committee refused to 
interfere, believing that the Government was well aware of the facts and would 
act wisely.
  After his exchange and a brief furlough, he was placed on duty for a time at 
Columbus, Ohio, whence he was sent to his regiment, of which he had command 
during most of the time until his final muster out on the 6th of December, 1865.  
After the close of hostilities in the East he was sent to Texas, where further 
trouble was anticipated, but which subsided under the strong arm of Sheridan.  
He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General, on the 13th 
of March, 1865.  Throughout his entire term of service he displayed great 
coolness and courage, and wonderful powers of endurance.  The terrible marches 
he performed in East Tennessee, where for weeks the men were forced to subsist 
on green corn - his journey home through Kentucky after his furlough, where he 
was captured by guerillas - his escape and journey to the Union lines through 
rain and storm - and his long imprisonment would have broken the spirit and the 
constitution of one not preeminently endowed.  "I asked him," says his brother, 
the Rev. Thomas H. Robinson, D. D., of Harrisburg, "how he managed to come home 
from fifteen months of rebel prison life looking so fat and hearty.  He answered 
'by keeping cheerful and keeping clean.'  He was strictly temperate, full of 
patience and endurance, very bright and hopeful in disposition and a fine 
companion in camp.  He was an excellent singer, and in Libby he had a good 
chance to use his voice.  He read and with others acted from the plays of 
Shakespeare, which I sent him while there in six volumes.  He said he never felt 
fear but once, and that was when moving under a terrible fire at Stone River.  
There for a moment he leaned against a tree.  The feeling passed quickly, and he 
led his company on.  His picket duty at Stone River and the fighting there he 
considered about as trying as any he ever witnessed."

JOHN FRANCES GLENN, Colonel of the Twenty-third regiment.  Few regiments in the 
volunteer service deserve greater credit than the Twenty-third Pennsylvania.  It 
was first commanded by Colonel Charles P. Date; and upon its reorganization at 
the

JOHN F. GLENN  - 731

end of the three months' service was led by that fearless and intrepid soldier, 
Major-General David B. Birney.  He was succeeded by Brigadier-General Thomas H. 
Neil, an officer whose ability soon gained him promotion, and he was followed by 
Brevet Brigadier-General John Ely.  Though these several officers in succession 
held the nominal command, their skill and their reliability caused them to be 
often called to command brigades or divisions, and the real leadership fell to 
an officer of minor rank, John Francis Glenn, who finally became its Colonel, 
and continued at its head till the close of its term of service.
  He was born on the 2d of November, 1829, in Philadelphia.  His father, William 
Glenn, and his mother, Margaret (Tate) Glenn, were both natives of that city.  
His parents being poor, the son enjoyed scarcely any educational advantages, and 
from the age of seven to sixteen was obliged to labor incessantly at various 
occupations.  At the close of this period he entered a printing office, where he 
acquired not only practical skill but a large fund of useful information.
  In the summer of 1847, upon the call for troops to go to Mexico, he 
volunteered, then at the age of eighteen, as a private in Company D, First 
regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers.  After his return from a victorious campaign, 
in which he acquitted himself with credit, he joined the National Rifle company, 
a militia organization of Philadelphia, in which he rose to the rank of 
Lieutenant and afterwards to Captain.  When the Rebellion opened no soldier more 
promptly stepped to the front.  He raised a company for the Twenty-third three 
months' regiment, and showed himself in the affair at Falling Waters a true 
soldier.  Upon the reorganization of this regiment for three years, he became 
Captain of Company A.  At the close of the Peninsula campaign, in which his 
regiment served, he was promoted to the rank of Major.  In the battle of 
Fredericksburg, he bore himself with distinguished gallantry, and fairly won the 
honor which was accorded him at its close, promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-
Colonel.  Scarcely a year later, in December, 1863, he was again promoted, and 
now to the full command of the regiment.
  Colonel Glenn was the recipient of many complimentary notices from officers 
high in command.  That veteran soldier, 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 732

General Heintzelman, at the battle of Fair Oaks, publicly commended him for 
volunteering, after he had been wounded, to advance with one hundred picked men 
and a section of Miller's battery, to hold the enemy in check until a division, 
which was on its way to the front, could get into position.  The duty was 
executed with fearless intrepidity, and with success.  At Malvern Hill, General 
Couch warmly praised his courage and steadfastness in holding his regiment for 
thirteen hours under a fire unparalleled for its severity.  At Marye's Heights, 
General Alexander Shaler gave him unqualified commendation for the manner in 
which he advanced with five companies of his regiment to open the engagement on 
the morning of the 3d of May, 1863.  At Cold Harbor, General David Russell, 
following the generous impulse of the brave soldier, spoke in the most laudatory 
terms of his gallant bearing in the terrible conflicts of the 1st, 2d, and 3d of 
June, 1864.
  At the expiration of his term, on the 8th of September, with his regiment, he 
was mustered out of service.  Colonel Glenn is in person six feet in height, of 
fair complexion, and of nervous temperament, a condition indicative of ceaseless 
vigilance, which signally characterized him.  He was married on the 17th of 
February, 1850, to Eleanora Forebaugh.

CHARLES M. BETTS, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifteenth cavalry, was born in Bucks 
county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of August, 1838.  His boyhood was passed upon a 
farm, and in attending the public schools.  He received, in addition, 
instruction at an academy in his native county, and at Burlington, New Jersey.  
Having a taste for mercantile life, he went to Philadelphia in 1857, where he 
became clerk in a wholesale lumber establishment.  In November, 1861, he was 
appointed chief clerk in the Quartermaster's Department of General Franklin's 
division, then stationed near Alexandria, Virginia, and served in that capacity 
through the entire Peninsula campaign.  At Harrison's Landing he left that army, 
and in response to the President's call for fresh troops, enlisted as a private 
in the Fifteenth Pennsylvania (Anderson) cavalry, which rendezvoused at 
Carlisle.  He was soon after promoted to Sergeant, and when the enemy invaded

CHARLES M. BETTS  - 733

Maryland on the Antietam campaign, he was sent as acting First Lieutenant of a 
detail made to picket the southern border of Pennsylvania, and to cooperate with 
the troops of McClellan.  He was subsequently commissioned First Sergeant at 
Louisville, Kentucky, whither the regiment had been ordered.
  Upon the reorganization of the command at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in March, 
he was commissioned Captain of Company F, which he led in the stirring campaign 
of 1863, and near the close of the year, in a fight with the Cherokee Indians at 
Gatlinsburg, received a severe wound in the left arm, by which he was 
incapacitated for duty for a period of two months.  In May, 1864, he was 
commissioned Major, which gave him the leadership of a battalion.  As the armies 
of the Union advanced, the duties of the cavalry were greatly increased, 
requiring incessant activity.  At the opening of the campaign of 1865, he was 
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and given the active command of the regiment.  
With Stoneman's column he went upon an important expedition into North Carolina, 
and after rapid riding and the successful accomplishment of the object, he was 
put upon the trail of Jefferson Davis, who, after the surrender of Lee and 
Johnston, was endeavoring to escape to the Gulf with large sums of Confederate 
treasure.  "On the morning of the 8th instant," says General Palmer, "while 
searching for Davis near the fork of the Appalachee and Oconee rivers, Colonel 
Betts, Fifteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, captured seven wagons, hidden in the 
woods, which contained $188,000 in coin, $1,588,000 in bank notes, bonds, etc., 
of various Southern States, and about $4,000,000 of Confederate money, besides 
considerable specie, plate, and other valuables belonging to private citizens in 
Macon. . . .  The wagons also contained the private baggage, maps, and official 
papers of Generals Beauregard and Pillow."  In closing his report of this 
exciting chase, General Palmer says:  "I desire to recommend for honorable 
mention and promotion, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles M. Betts, commanding Fifteenth 
Pennsylvania cavalry, for gallant conduct in charging and capturing a South 
Carolina battalion of cavalry, with its commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Johnson, in front of Greensboro, on the morning of April 11th, 1865; also for 
thoroughly preserving the discipline of his regiment, on an 

MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA - 734

active campaign during which the troops were compelled to live exclusively on 
the country."  At the conclusion of the war, Colonel Betts returned to the 
mercantile business which he left to enter the service.  In stature, he is six 
feet and nearly two inches in height.

WILLIAM BUEL FRANKLIN, Major-General of volunteers, and Brevet Major-General 
United States Army, was born at York, Pennsylvania, on the 27th of February, 
1823.  He was educated at West Point, where he graduated first in the class of 
1843.  In the same year he joined the Topographical Engineers, and was with 
Kearny in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1845.  He was on the staff of 
General Taylor in Mexico, and was brevetted First Lieutenant for gallantry at 
Buena Vista.  For four years, commencing in 1848, he was Assistant Professor of 
Natural Philosophy at West Point.  During a part of the year 1852 he was 
Professor of Natural Philosophy and Civil Engineering in the Free Academy, New 
York city.  In 1857 he was commissioned Captain, and from 1857 to 1859 he was 
Engineer Secretary of the Light House Board.  He was subsequently appointed 
Superintendent of the extensions of the Post Office and Capitol at Washington, 
and in March, 1861, of the extension of the National Treasury building and Chief 
of the Bureau of Construction of the Treasury Department.
  On the 14th of May, 1861, he returned to military duty as Colonel of the 
Twelfth infantry, and in the same month was made Brigadier-General of 
volunteers.  In the first battle of Bull Run, he commanded a brigade in 
Heintzelman's division, and was active and fearless throughout the long hours of 
that trying day.  In the advance up the Peninsula in May, 1862, McClellan sent 
him in command of a division by transport to White House to strike the flank of 
the enemy's column.  On the 15th of May he was given a corps, which he held in 
front of Richmond during the first three of the Seven Days, easily repulsing the 
noisy demonstrations of the foe, and on the fourth, the 29th of June, in 
conjunction with Sumner, checked the enemy in his eager advance on Savage 
Station.  On the 30th he was in chief command at the bridge at White Oak Swamp, 
holding the enemy at bay, 

WILLIAM B. FRANKLIN  - 735

and preventing him from reaching the Charles City Cross Roads field.  For his 
services in this campaign he was made Major-General of volunteers, and 
Brigadier-General by brevet in the regular army.  In the battle of South 
Mountain he had the left wing, and having swept the enemy from Crampton's Pass, 
led on towards Antietam.  It was here McClellan's intention to have held 
Franklin in reserve; but being hard pressed on the right, Franklin was sent to 
the assistance of Sumner, where he was thrown upon the most hotly-contested part 
of the field.  At Fredericksburg he commanded the left Grand Division, composed 
of the First and Sixth corps, led respectively by Reynolds and Smith.  He was 
ordered by Burnside to make a demonstration with a division, and be prepared to 
support it with another.  He made the attack with the First corps, the 
Pennsylvania Reserves being selected for the assault.  It was entirely 
successful, the Reserves penetrating to the rear of the rebel line, and was 
supported by two divisions instead of one as directed; but even these were 
insufficient for more than a demonstration.  It would seem that Burnside 
intended that a demonstration should be made upon the left, and that the main 
attack should come from the town itself.  From the fact that the battle proved a 
great disaster, a disposition was manifested to censure Franklin for not 
cordially supporting Burnside.  But the facts do not warrant this view.  Had 
Burnside ordered him to attack and break the enemy's left, then there would have 
been cause for blame.
  General Franklin was subsequently transferred to the Department of the Gulf, 
and during the summer of 1863 commanded at Baton Rouge.  On the 15th of August 
he was placed in command of the Nineteenth Army corps.  He took part in the Red 
River expedition, being engaged at Sabine Cross Roads, where he was wounded, at 
Pleasant Hill, and Cane River.  On the 13th of March, 1865, he was brevetted 
Major-General in the regular army, and resigned one year thereafter.  He became 
Vice-President and general agent of Colt's Fire-Arm Company at Hartford, 
Connecticut, in November, 1865, where he is still engaged.  He was chosen 
President of the Commissioners constituted for the erection of a new State House 
in that city, and is at present Consulting Engineer of the Board.