CHAPTER VIII.

Carbon County in the War of the Rebellion

 

Pages 630 to 649

 

“The contributions of Carbon County in aid of suppressing the slaveholders’ rebellion, in proportion to her population, is unequaled by any county in the state of Pennsylvania, and probably not surpassed by any community in any other state.  Not only did this county furnish more men in proportion to her voting population, but the record of her soldiers is unsurpassed in point of bravery and endurance by any other troops.  When the first call was made by President Lincoln for seventy-five thousand troops for ninety days, Carbon County sent three full companies to Harrisburg in twenty-four hours.  These companies were attached to the Sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers.  Immediately afterwards a full company was raised for three years, and attached to the famous ‘Bucktail Rifles.’  Upon the expiration of the three months’ campaign tow companies were raised for the Twenty-eighth Regiment P. V., four companies for the Eighty-first Regiment P. V., one company for the Sixty-seventh Regiment P. V., one company for the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry, one company for the Eleventh P. V., a portion of a company for the Fifty-third Regiment P. V., and a portion of a company for the Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry.  Besides these, about a company were scattered in different other regiments.

 

“On the next call for troops, in 1862, two more full companies were organized for nine months, which were attached to the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment P. V.  When the State was threatened with invasion in 1862, a large number of men volunteered for the emergency.  In 1863, when Pennsylvania was invaded, the county sent over four hundred men to repel the invaders.  In 1864 over two hundred men volunteered for one year.  Besides these volunteers from the county, the different sub-districts paid bounties to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars to other volunteers.

 

“The record of the Carbon soldiers commands the admiration of the country.  From the beginning to the end of the war our gallant sons were at ‘the front.’  In Western Virginia, at Falling Waters, from the battle of Dranesville, in 1861, to the surrender of Johnston’s army in 1865, there was scarcely a battle fought but witnessed the fall of some brave Carbon County soldier.  On the Peninsula, where fell Miller, Conner, Shurlock, Abbott, and a host of others; at Chancellorsville, where the noble Chapman sealed his devotion to his country with his heart’s blood; at Bull Run, where the brave Hyndman died, fighting to the last; at South Mountain, where Bitterling cheered on his command with his last breath; at Mine Run, where we lamented the fall of Phillips; at Spottsylvania, and in the long struggle for the capture of Richmond, where fell Hawk, Ginder, Hoover, McGee, Peters, and a host of others; in the last battle with Lee’s army, where fell Bond, who had served from the very first call; at Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and a hundred other battle-fields, where such men as Maj. Harkness, Capts. Conner, Shields, Pryor, McLaughlin, Abbott, Marsh, Bieber, Patton, and a thousand other brave Carbon County soldiers bled and won imperishable laurels; in struggles in the Southwest, and in the long and fatiguing march of Sherman’s army from Atlanta to the sea, in which many of the Carbon County men bled and died.

 

“While we point in sorrow to the long lists of the dead, we mourn with a pride which only such a record can inspire – such a record of heroism, where five eights of the soldiers sent from a community are killed and wounded.  But not only in bravery and heroic fighting is the record of these soldiers unequaled, but also in point of health and endurance.  The grand record of casualties of the United States Volunteers during the war shows that double the number of soldiers died of disease that were killed in battle.  The record contained in this volume shows that three times a many of the Carbon County Volunteers were killed in battle as died of disease.  We give the record of officers as follows:

 

“One brevet brigadier-general.

 

“Three colonels, of whom one was killed.

 

“Three lieutenant-colonels, of whom one was killed and one wounded.

 

“Three majors, of whom one was killed and one wounded.

 

“Twenty-eight captains, of whom five were killed, one died, and sixteen wounded.

 

“Thirty-nine lieutenants, of whom seven were killed and twenty wounded, making a total of seventy-eight officers furnished by Carbon County.  Of this number fifteen were killed, one died of disease, and thirty-nine wounded.

 

“But it is not only the record of the officers that presents such unmistakable evidence of bravery and endurance.  The men who filled the ranks have a record equally grand; and it will stand for all time to come as a noble monument to the patriotism of little Carbon.  While the remains of the loved ones rest peacefully in the dust of the battle-fields of the South; while we mourn the loss of so many of the noblest youths of our county; while fathers and mothers cherish the memory of patriotic sons, and widows and orphans that of husbands and fathers, we have the one proud consciousness that during a period of danger such as few nations have ever experienced we were true to the legacy entrusted to us by the founders of this great nation.  The people of Carbon County have consciousness that during the slaveholders’ rebellion they discharged their whole duty. 

 

“Native and foreign alike served with honor and distinction, and it is but just to say of the German, Irish, and Welsh, who form so large a proportion of the population of Carbon, that they came up nobly to the defense of their adopted country, and the list of deaths on many a battle-field attest the gallantry of the foreign portion of Carbon County volunteers.”

 

THE ROSTERS

 

Sixth Regiment P.V.I.

The Bucktail Rifles, Co. F.

Twenty-eighth Regiment, Cos. E & A

Fourth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, Co. A

Fifty-Third Regiment

Eleventh Regiment Pennsylvania Cavalry

Seventy-fifth Regiment

Eighty-first Regiment

Sixty-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers

One Hundred and Forty-seventh Regiment, Co. C

Eleventh Pennsylvania Infantry

Second Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery

One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment

One Hundred and Eighty-sixth Regiment

Two Hundred and Second Regiment

Nineteenth Regiment Volunteer Militia of 1862

Twenty-seventh Regiment Volunteer Militia of 1863

Thirty-fourth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers

Miscellaneous

 

 

 

END

 

 

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RETURN TO THE MATHEWS & HUNGERFORD

INDEX PAGE

 

 

 

From

The History of the Counties of Lehigh & Carbon, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

By

Alfred Mathews & Austin N. Hungerford

Published in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1884

 

Transcribed from the original in 2003 & 2004

by

Jack Sterling

 

 

Web page by

Jack Sterling

August 2004