CHAPTER VIII.
“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
Twenty-eighth
Regiment, Cos. E & A
Fourth
Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, Co. A
Eleventh
Regiment Pennsylvania Cavalry
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
********************************************************************************
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
August 2004