BIOGRAPHY: Maj. James Harrison GAGEBY, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 185-7
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MAJOR JAMES HARRISON GAGEBY, deceased, was born within the corporate limits of 
the city of Johnstown, September 5, 1835, and died in the same city, July 13, 
1896. He was a son of Robert B. and Rebecca (Scott) Gageby. 
     Major Gageby was of Scotch-Irish stock, and his military genius came to him 
through a long line of honorable ancestry, easily traceable to the Conqueror, 
William of Normandy. His grandfather, James Gageby, emigrated from the North of 
Ireland to the United States in 1774, and located in the city of Philadelphia, 
and was present in Independence Hall when the Declaration of Independence was 
read. No doubt this document had the effect to convince him of the righteousness 
of the American cause, for he entered the patriot army and fought with them in 
the cause of liberty throughout the entire struggle. After the war was over and 
independence had been acknowledge, he removed to Westmoreland county, where he 
died in 1836, at the advanced age of eighty-six years.
     Robert Gageby (father) was born in Westmoreland county and was reared in 
that county, and in 1834, during the building of the Pennsylvania canal and 
Portage railroad, he came to Johnstown, dying in 1880, at the age of seventy-
four years. Robert Gageby was a staunch republican, and always took an active 
and intelligent part in all affairs pertaining to the party. He was a man 
possessing in an eminent degree many sterling qualities of head and heart. Major 
Gageby's mother was a native of Somerset county, of Scotch extraction, and a 
descendant of the Scott and Stewart families, so famed in the history of 
Scotland.
     In his early days, Major Gageby worked with his father in the blacksmith 
shop of Gageby & Kinley. His elementary education was obtained in the common 
schools of Johnstown, to which, when about eighteen years of age, was added an 
academical course in Elder's Ridge academy, under the direction of Dr. 
Donaldson. In 1857, following a spirit of adventure, he went to Iowa, and there 
for three years engaged in various occupations. He returned home, and entered 
the military service, April 19, 1861, as a sergeant in company K., Third 
Pennsylvania volunteers, for the three months' service. The company was known as 
the “Johnstown Zouaves,” and as such was thoroughly drilled in infantry tactics. 
In this regiment he served in General Patterson's column in Maryland and 
Virginia, and was engaged in the battle of Falling Water, Virginia, July 2, 
1961, and was discharged July 30, 1861. He assisted to recruit a company for the 
Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania volunteers, with a view of becoming a commissioned 
officer in that regiment, but prior to the organization of it, enlisted October 
25, 1861, in the Nineteenth regiment of United States infantry, and was 
appointed first sergeant, to date from enlistment. He was on duty in Greensburg, 
Pennsylvania, several weeks drilling a detachment of his regiment, and at the 
headquarters of the regiment in Indianapolis, Indiana, was engaged as drill-
sergeant, until the organization of companies G and H, of the first battery of 
this regiment, when he went into the field in the Army of the Potomac, as first 
sergeant of company G., and served with it at Harrison's landing. His regiment 
acted as guard for General McClelland from there, and was in the campaign 
through Maryland, took part in the battles of Antietam, South Mountain, and 
subsequently at the battle of Fredericksburg, at which time it was attached to 
the Seventeenth infantry, and was actively engaged during all that battle. In 
March, 1863, company G was transferred to the army of the Cumberland, and joined 
to the first battalion, Nineteenth infantry. At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, June 1, 
1863, he was appointed a second lieutenant, and assigned to company A, 
Nineteenth infantry; served with it until the battle of Hoover's Gap, Tennessee, 
when he was placed in command of company G of the same regiment, led it in the 
charge of the regular brigade against a division of the confederate forces, and 
was brevetted first lieutenant for “gallant and meritorious service” in action 
upon this occasion. He was returned to company A, First battalion, Nineteenth 
infantry, just prior to the battle of Chickamauga, in which battle he was 
wounded on September 20, 1863, and made a prisoner of war, and was taken to 
Libby prison, Richmond, Virginia. While there, the famous tunnel was being 
constructed to provide for the escape of prisoners, and Captain E. I. Smith, 
Lieutenant M.C. Causten and Major Gageby were told by Colonel Rose, chief of the 
tunnel party, to consider themselves as belonging to his party, and while they 
were not permitted work in the tunnel, on account of the prejudice of some of 
the volunteer officers, they were charged with preventing, the discovery of the 
tunnel while it was being constructed.
     Major Gageby escaped through this tunnel February 9, 1864, but was re-
captured February 11 near Charles City X Roads, Virginia, and returned to the 
prison, and placed in the middle dungeon during eight days, when he was removed 
to Danville, Virginia, thence to Charlotte, North Carolina, Macon, Georgia, 
Charleston, South Carolina, where he was for several days under the fire of the 
Federal artillery: Columbia, South Carolina; thence again back to Charlotte, 
North Carolina, and later to Raleigh, Goldsboro, and Wilmington where he was 
released on parole, March 1, 1863, after an imprisonment of seventeen months and 
ten days. He then returned to duty as first lieutenant of the Nineteenth 
infantry, on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, in May, 1865. He was on duty with his 
regiment in Arkansas and the Cherokee Nation in 1865 and 1866. He was brevetted 
captain September 20, 1863. He was ordered on recruiting service in September, 
1866, until March, 1868; was appointed a captain in the Thirty-seventh infantry, 
and passed his examination for that office in Louisville, Kentucky, then joined 
the Thirty-seventh infantry at Fort Stanton, New Mexico, in March, 1868, and was 
engaged in several unimportant scouts and expeditions against the Mescalero 
Apaches, and in October, 1868, was ordered with his company to join the Canadian 
River expedition under Col. A. W. Evans at Fort Bascom. This expedition was 
against the “Comanches,” and they were out four months, a greater part of the 
time without tents, until they found the Comanche village on the Salt Fork of 
the Red river, Texas, December 25, 1868. Here they were actively engaged with 
Indians from 10 o'clock, A.M., until sundown of that day.
     In April and May, of 1869, he was with General J. R. Brooke, on his 
expedition against the Mescalero and the Sierra Diablo Apache Indians. His 
company had a brief engagement with them near the big Canon of the Guadaloupe 
mountains, New Mexico. On August 11, 1869, he was assigned to the Third infantry 
and with his company (D) served on duty in 1870, guarding the Kansas Pacific 
railway in Colorado, where he had several slight skirmishes with Arapahoe and 
Cheyenne Indians; was removed to Fort Lyon, Colorado, and Camp Supply, Indian 
Territory, and in 1874 was ordered on reconstruction duty in the South, and 
remained there until August, 1877, when he was ordered north during the railroad 
riots in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. In September 1877, he was ordered to 
Fort Missoula, Montana, where he served until again ordered on recruiting duty 
in 1878. He rejoined the Third infantry from recruiting service in May, 1881; 
served with it until April, 1883. In February, 1889, he came to Johnstown on 
leave of absence, and was there at the time of the great flood, in which he lost 
several members of his family and all his home property. He was placed on duty 
there by order of the Honorable Secretary of War, and performed duty with the 
Pennsylvania National Guard until September, 1889, when he was detailed on 
special recruiting duty for one year, and subsequently selected by Colonel 
Mason, of the Third infantry, for the regular detail and was on that duty until 
promoted to major of the Twelfth infantry, July 4, 1892. He was then put in 
command of Fort Sully, South Dakota, where he remained two years, when he was 
transferred to Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, and at the time of his death stood 
within two files of a lieutenant-colonelcy, which it was his ambition to reach.
     In 1873 Major Gageby was happily married to Matilda, a daughter of Jacob 
Fend, of Johnstown, and to their union was born one child, Emma Fend, who was 
born at Fort Missoula, Montana, and is now being educated at Ogontz' near 
Philadelphia.
     The above military record, sketched somewhat in detail, is one of which any 
man might justly feel proud. Courageous in action, firm in the discharge of 
duty, he was yet one of the most generous, affable, and companionable of men, 
and his friends in the army were, perhaps, more numerous than those of any other 
man of his rank. He had the faculty of remembering names and faces to a great 
degree, and was scarcely ever at fault in recognizing and calling by name any 
person he had ever met. Constantly forming new acquaintances, he never forgot 
his old friends, and grasped them to himself as “with hoops of steel,” and 
although by reason of his occupation, separated for the greater portion of his 
life from the scenes of his childhood, it is doubtful whether there was at the 
time of his death a man in the community more universally known and more 
sincerely like than Major Gageby.