Among the many brave and valuable officers who fell in the late battle of Gettysburg was Major Wm. Gustin Lowry, of the 62d regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was a native of Armstrong county, Pa., his birthplace being on the Island in the Allegheny river, near to Freeport, of which his gather was at that time, the owner.

He entered the army as a volunteer from Clarion county, in July, 1861, and was chosen 2d Lieutenant in Capt. Monks’ company, which formed a part of the regiment commanded by the late Col.. Black, of Pittsburgh. A vacancy occurring, he became 1st Lieutenant, then Adjutant, afterwards Aid to Gen. Griffin, and finally Major, which last position he held at the time of his death. This occurred on the 2d day of July, 1863, in the midst of the fierce conflict of that memorable day. He was in the prime of life, having completed his 27th year in the month of January preceding his death. Some few months before his death, he visited Pennsylvania, on a brief furlough, during which he was united in marriage to Miss Mattie Stewart, of Indiana county, a most estimable and intelligent young lady, who has been involved in deepest afflictions by his sudden and painful bereavement.

Maj. Lowry was engaged in then or eleven battles, beginning with that of Hanover Court House, (in which he commanded the company, Capt Mouks being sick) and passing through all the various battles on the Peninsula, and the two battles of Fredericksburg, and in all escaping unhurt, until in that of Gettysburg, in which he fell.

The bravery of Maj. Lowry was of the most undoubted character. It was well tested on many battle fields, and was observed and spoken of by both officers and men, who were near him. Many facts are related of his promptness and vigor, in the midst of the most trying circumstances. Gen. Griffin, in one of his reports, made mention of him by name as behaving with great gallantry and prompt attention to all his duties as an officer. With his fellow soldiers, he was deservedly popular. He was constitutionally affectionate and kind, ever ready to exercise self-denial, that he might contribute to the comfort or advantage of others. Had his life been spared, there is good reason to believe that he would have attained to higher honors, and been promoted to a more elevated position in the military service of his country. But God’s ways are not our ways, and it becomes us to be silent, under the most afflictive dispensations of His providence. D.E. 

Reed's division was a part of the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1–3, 1863. On the second day of fighting, the captain of the battery, John Bigelow, was shot and wounded between enemy lines. Under constant fire, Reed led his and another horse into the firing zone where he retrieved his captain, thus saving his life. Over thirty years later, in 1895, Bigelow would recommend Reed to the adjutant general of the United States for a Medal of Honor, which was approved in August 1895.

After Gettysburg, Reed fought in the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and the Siege of Petersburg from 1864 to 1865.  He sustained a severe wound to his right hand by a saber during the Petersburg siege.

In November 1864, Reed was transferred to the staff of Gouverneur K. Warren. Because of his background in art he worked as a topographical engineer.[3]

During the war Reed completed roughly seven hundred sketches, many of which contributed to John David Billing's work Hard Tack and Coffee, a bestselling memoir depicting the life of a Union soldier in the Civil War.

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Bugler Charles Wellington Reed, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 2 July 1863, while serving with Battery 9, Massachusetts Light Artillery, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Bugler Reed rescued his wounded captain from between the lines.

William H. Raymond (May 30, 1844 – December 7, 1916) was an American soldier who fought with the Union Army in the American Civil War. Raymond received his country's highest award for bravery during combat, the Medal of Honor, for actions taken on July 3, 1863, during the Battle of Gettysburg.

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Corporal William H. Raymond, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 3 July 1863, while serving with Company A, 108th New York Infantry, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Corporal Raymond voluntarily and under a severe fire brought a box of ammunition to his comrades on the skirmish line.

Colonel Roy Stone’s “Bucktail” Brigade, composed of the 143rd, 149th, and 150th Pennsylvania, spent the night of June 30, 1863, in camp near Marsh Creek, Pa., six miles south of Gettysburg. Attached to the 3rd Division in Maj. Gen. John Reynolds’ 1st Corps, the brigade quietly began moving toward Gettysburg the morning of July 1, with Color Sergeant Henry C. Brehm of the 149th Pennsylvania carrying the

Color Sergeant Henry C. Brehm was mortally wounded after his color guard detail hunkered down in a field north of the Chambersburg Pike, creating the illusion that a regiment occupied the position. (Richard Kohr Collection)

national flag. Upon reaching the Emmitsburg Road, on the outskirts of Gettysburg, the brigade heard sounds of battle. Pressing forward at the double-quick, the men reached the vicinity of the Lutheran Seminary at approximately 11 a.m. and then marched obliquely across the fields west of the seminary to the McPherson Farm. Major General Abner Doubleday, commanding the 1st Corps following Reynolds’ death earlier that morning, placed Stone’s Pennsylvanians between the 1st Division brigades of Brig. Gens. Solomon Meredith and Lysander Cutler. In the 149th, seven companies took a position facing west in a farm lane; three others faced north along the Chambersburg Pike.

Confederate artillery from the north soon enfiladed the position. As companies shifted toward the Chambersburg Pike to avoid the barrage, Rebel cannons to the west—on Herr’s Ridge—continued the onslaught of fire. Realizing his position was becoming untenable, Stone ordered the 149th’s color guard into a field just north of the pike. The ruse worked! Hunkering down behind a pile of fence rails, with only their flags exposed, Brehm’s six-man guard attracted artillery fire and convinced enemy infantry that a regiment had occupied that position.

In the late afternoon of July 2, 1863, Captain Edwin William Miller and the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry clashed with Brig. Gen.

Captain Edwin William Miller was awarded the Medal of Honor for his cool under fire on July 3 decisive cavalry clashes east of Gettysburg. By disobeying orders and calling for a change, he risked being court-martialed for disobedience, but his decision was vindicated when the Confederate calvary column disintegrated. (Cumberland Historical Society)

James A. Walker’s famed Stonewall Brigade on Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, east of Gettysburg. The brisk skirmish had important repercussions on the battle’s outcome. For the beleaguered Union defenders on Culp’s Hill that day, the absence of Walker’s 1,300 or so veterans during critical fighting helped keep the summit in Federal hands.

Miller and his troopers would have another memorable engagement the following day. Part of the Union cavalry screen east of Gettysburg, Miller commanded a squadron of four companies concealed in a patch of woods along the Low Dutch Road. By early afternoon, Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart had arrayed four cavalry brigades to their north.

In a series of chess-like moves, each side’s horsemen sought an edge. Dismounted cavalry advanced, retreated, reinforced, and retired. Stuart then launched a mounted attack, only to be blunted by a Union counterattack. Sensing a stalemate, Stuart finally ordered a coup de main—a mounted charge of his best brigades. The Federals launched another desperate counterattack. Southern troopers soon appeared before Miller’s position. Success or failure hung in the balance.

The captain turned and asked his lieutenants, “I have been ordered to hold this position, but if you will back me, in case I am court-martialed for disobedience, I will order a charge!” All agreed. Miller’s men fired a volley, charged, and crashed into the Confederate column’s “rear flank.” In the confusion, Confederates looked over their shoulders to see Union cavalry threatening their escape route to safety. The column disintegrated. The Army of the Potomac’s flank and rear had been secured.

In July 1897, Miller was presented the Medal of Honor. He is one of two Medal of Honor recipients buried alongside fellow unsung heroes in Gettysburg’s National Military Cemetery.

On June 12,13, 1861, Lewis Powell left home and traveled to Jasper, Florida, where he enlisted in Company I of the 2nd Florida Infantry. He was accepted because he lied about his age – he claimed to be 19.[9] Powell's unit fought in March and April 1862, in the Peninsula Campaign. Powell became a battle-hardened and effective soldier. He won praise from his commanding officers and claimed that when he shot his rifle he did so to kill – never to wound. He was alleged to have carried the skull of a Union soldier with him, which he used as an ashtray.[10] His one-year enlistment having expired, Powell received a two-month furlough, during which time he returned home to visit his family. He re-enlisted at Jasper on May 8, 1862.[11] In November 1862, Powell fell ill and was hospitalized at General Hospital No. 11 in Richmond, Virginia.[11] He returned to active duty within a few weeks, and fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg.[12] His unit was then assigned to Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, which was organized at the beginning of 1863. Third Corps finally went into combat at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Powell was shot in the right wrist on July 2.[10] He was captured, and sent to a prisoner of war hospital at Pennsylvania College.[13] Transferred to Camp Letterman, the vast medical field hospital northeast of Gettysburg, on July 6,[14] Powell worked as a nurse in the camp and at Pennsylvania College until September 1, when he was turned over to the Provost Marshal. He was taken by train to Baltimore, Maryland, and—still a POW—began working on September 2, at West Buildings Hospital. [16] In Baltimore, Powell met and developed a relationship with a woman named Margaret "Maggie" Branson, who was volunteering as a nurse. It is believed that Branson assisted Lewis in escaping from the hospital on September 7. Some historians contend that she actually provided him with a Union Army uniform.

Margaret Branson took Powell to her mother's boarding house at 16 North Eutaw Street in Baltimore. Maryland was split during the Civil War. West of the Atlantic Fall Line the central and western parts of the state largely being settled by Germans from Pennsylvania and other Northerners during the 18th Century, tended to support the Union, as evidenced by Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks' plan to stop secession by moving the Maryland General Assembly to Frederick, where on April 29, 1861, secession had been voted down 53–13, this taking place before Maryland was placed under martial law. East of the Fall line, the city of Baltimore and all of the land between the Mason-Dixon Line and the Potomac and the Eastern Shore for the most part was peopled by Confederate sympathizers, who either directly or indirectly aided the Confederacy. The few exceptions to this rule included Hicks' successor, Augustus Bradford, who had his home in North Baltimore burned to the ground in 1864 by Frederick native Confederate General Bradley T Johnson and his Maryland troops. Johnson was the first to concoct the idea of kidnapping President Lincoln while he was visiting the soldier's home, but whether there were any direct connections to Booth and Powell is unknown.

The Branson boarding house was a well-known Confederate safe house and frequent rendezvous point for members of the Confederate Secret Service – the Confederacy's spy agency. Powell may have spent up to two weeks at the Branson house before heading south. While still in Maryland, he learned the location of Harry Gilmor and his "Gilmor's Raiders"—a unit of Confederate cavalry detached from Second Corps—and spent a few days with them.  He crossed into Virginia and on September 30, he ended up at the home of John Scott Payne, a prominent doctor and Confederate sympathizer who lived at Granville Tract, a plantation about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Warrenton. By now, Powell was wearing a ragged Confederate uniform, and Payne welcomed him into the home for a meal and a night's stay. They discussed the exploits of Colonel John S. Mosby's Rangers, a large, detached unit of partisans based in Warrenton. Powell joined Mosby the following day. 

For more than a year, Powell served under Mosby. Mosby considered Powell to be one of his most effective soldiers, and Powell earned the nickname "Lewis the Terrible" for his ferocity and murderousness in combat.[22] He lived as a civilian with the Paynes, putting on his uniform and participating in military activities only when conducting a partisan raid.[20] Powell participated in a number of actions, including the Wagon Raids of October and November 1863; the Battle of Loudoun Heights on January 10, 1864; the battle of Second Dranesville on February 20–21; the action at Mount Zion Church on July 3 and 6; the Berryville Wagon Raid on August 13; the Raid on Merritt's Cavalry Division in September; the Mansassas Gap Railroad Raid on October 3–7; the Greenback Raid on October 14;[23] the Valley Pike Raid on October 25; and the Rout of Blazer's Command on November 17. This last raid proved to be a turning point for Powell. Union Army Lieutenant Richard R. Blazer was a noted Native American fighter who had been sent to destroy Mosby's Rangers. Instead, Blazer's unit was routed and Blazer captured. Powell and three others were given the privilege of taking Blazer to prison in Richmond, Virginia, in late November.[20]

Powell's visit to Richmond changed him. He returned to Warrenton morose and introspective. Historian Michael W. Kauffman argues that Powell saw a Baltimore acquaintance in Richmond, and that turned his thoughts back to the time he had spent in September 1863, romancing Margaret Branson and her sister, Mary, at the Branson boarding house.[20] Powell biographer Betty Ownsbey, however, argues that his Richmond trip made him aware that the Confederate cause was lost, and his depression was caused by his desire to get out of the fighting.[24] Several other historians claim that the Confederate Secret Service had already recruited him into its ranks during the previous year—with Mosby's consent—and that Powell's moodiness came from moral misgivings he had as he contemplated being sent north to assist with various kidnap plots against Abraham Lincoln

Scott C McDowell was a soldier in Company G, 62nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was killed at Gettysburg. He was twenty-two years old when he died on 2 July 1863.

Scott was the son of Annie and an unnamed father that she married on 1 June 1839 in the county of Tyrone, Ireland. Her husband died in Ireland, and in the Spring of 1847, she moved to the United States. On the 3 August 1847 she married Samuel McClarin in Pittsburgh. Samuel died 12 August 1855. She had three children by Samuel, the eldest of which was fourteen in 1865. Scott McDowell was not married and had no minor children.

Scott McDowell was removed from Gettysburg and reinterred in Hilldale Cemetery on 5 March 1864. The funeral took place from the home of his mother, No. 46, Virgin alley, between Wood and Smithfield.

The long list of casualties from the storm of musket and artillery fire that devastated Confederate Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett’s division at the Battle of Gettysburg included Zachariah Angel Blanton. A tobacconist from Cumberland County, Va., Blanton enlisted as a sergeant in the Farmville Guards less than two weeks after the bombardment of Fort Sumter. He sat for this portrait wearing a cap with the metal letters “FG” and armed with a Model 1816 conversion musket. The Guards became Company F of the 18th Virginia Infantry. Before the end of his first year in uniform, Blanton traded his sergeant’s chevrons for the insignia of a first lieutenant. In 1862, he advanced to captain and company commander. Blanton fought in this capacity at Gettysburg. During Pickett’s Charge, he suffered a gunshot wound that caused massive damage to the right side of his face — a significant section of his upper jaw was destroyed and his tongue severely injured. Captured on the field of battle, he spent the next 10 months as a prisoner of war at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, and elsewhere. Blanton was exchanged in mid-1864, and retired from the service on account of his wounds. He returned to his occupation, married in 1868 and started a family that grew to include three children. He died in 1893. 

Harriet A. “Hattie” Dada (later Emens) planned to lead a missionary life serving Native Americans. She had just completed a memorable stint with the Choctaw people in Indian Territory when the Civil War erupted. Dada immediately volunteered for the war effort and arrived in Washington shortly after the Union debacle at First Manassas. She found Dorothea Dix, superintendent of army nurses, and offered her services. Dada later recalled, “The only question Miss Dix asked, was, ‘Are you ready to work?’ and added, ‘You are needed in Alexandria.’” Dada was soon engaged at the military hospital in Alexandria, Va. Thus began four years of caring for Union soldiers at hospitals in Winchester and Harper’s Ferry, Va., Gettysburg, Pa., Murfreesboro and Chattanooga, Tenn., and elsewhere.

Dada described the situation at Gettysburg after she reported for duty to the XII Corps on July 8, 1863:

 The hospital of the Twelfth Army Corps was at a farmhouse. The house and barns were filled with wounded, and tents were all around, crowded with sufferers, among whom were many wounded rebel prisoners, who were almost overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude to find that northern ladies would extend to them the same care as to the soldiers of their own army.”

Tepe's husband enlisted in the 27th Pennsylvania Infantry as a private. He wanted Tepe to stay behind and run their tailor shop during his service, but Tepe enlisted herself.[5] She enlisted in the 27th as well. While the unit marched to Philadelphia, Tepe was responsible for carrying a 1.5-gallon keg for whiskey or water. While at camp, Tepe sold various goods to the soldiers until the First Battle of Bull Run, when she worked in the regimental hospital. [5] Tepe's time with the 27th Infantry ended when her husband and his friends, while intoxicated, stole $1,600 from Tepe.[5]

The opportunity to be a Vandivere called Tepe back into the service. She joined Charles H.T. Collis and his regiment of Zouaves d’Arques, the 114th Pennsylvania.[6] In this regiment, she received a soldier's pay with an additional twenty-five cents for each day spent working at the hospital. She became the "daughter of the regiment."[5] She worked alongside the 114th Pennsylvania as a sutler as well as cooking and washing and mending clothing.[6] After a particularly deadly Battle of Chancellorsville, Tepe began working with a field hospital. Tepe and Annie Etheridge were awarded the Kearny Cross on May 16, 1863, after their work in the Battle of Chancellorsville, though Tepe refused the award.[5][2] They were the only women awarded out of 300 medal recipients.[2]

Tepe joined the 114th on numerous campaigns and was for the most part spared of injury.[5] She was reported to be wounded in the ankle during the Battle of Fredericksburg but otherwise had good luck.[3][4] By one account, Tepe came under fire a total of thirteen times. At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Tepe endured particularly hazardous conditions to bring water to exhausted troops.[7] Tepe's regiment was present at the First Battle of Bull Run, Fair Oaks, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Spotsylvania.[6]

Hiram Gilbert began his war service in 1861 with a mix-up. He and a number of others signed up for a three-year enlistment in the 24th New York Infantry, a two-year regiment. He reassured his anxious sister, “I shall come home when the rest of the boys do.” But when the term ended on May 29, 1863, he and the other three-years’ men transferred to the 76th New York Infantry to finish out their remaining time. He left the 24th battle-tested at Antietam and elsewhere, and with this Mathew B. Brady portrait taken early in his service. About a month after his transfer to the 76th, Gilbert and his regiment composed the advance of Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler’s brigade at Gettysburg, forming at the extreme right of the first Union battle line on McPherson’s Ridge. They were barely in position when a savage attack on their front exposed their right flank and resulted in the loss of some 62 percent of their men in the first 20 minutes of action. Pulled back to the relative safety of Oak Ridge, the New Yorkers left behind their dead, including Gilbert.

Gilbert was shot dead, according to a letter from a sergeant in his company published in a New York newspaper, the Rome Citizen, on July 21. The editor lamented how the sad news “was rendered only more painful to the friends of the deceased by the long and anxious suspense time which had elapsed since that terrible battle on northern soil, and into which they knew his regiment was thrown,” and added, “now the decisive news that takes away the last cordial from the heart—the last hope that he may yet come back—has been received.”

The remains of Gilbert were not recovered. He likely lies in the Soldier’s National Cemetery, where at least four of the 11 graves from the 76th are marked as unknown. Or perhaps he may be one of the estimated 1,000 dead still buried beneath the killing ground itself. The editor of the Citizen stated, “although no hand can point to the exact spot of his resting place, his epitaph is not unwritten or his fame unknown,” and added, “Mourn not then parents, brothers and sisters, friends, that he reposes in a strange land. The battlefield is a fitter burial-place for the brave than the marble vault or the quiet churchyard of his native place, for history will know him there.”

After the colonel of the 74th Pennsylvania Infantry was wounded during the first day’s fight, the regiment’s second-in-command, Theobold Alexander Von Mitzel, assumed its leadership. Von Mitzel, who had helped raise the regiment, had recently been promoted to major. Born and military educated in Germany, he had served as an infantry officer in the Prussian army before coming to America in the late 1850s.

Von Mitzel’s martial background served little use at Gettysburg, as he suffered a wound in the right hand early on and was captured—his second stint as a prisoner. His first, just two months earlier at the Battle of Chancellorsville, lasted 10 days before being paroled and exchanged from Richmond’s Libby Prison.

He returned to Libby Prison after Gettysburg. On Feb. 9, 1864, he joined a group of more than a hundred who escaped through a tunnel—one of the great breakouts of the war. About half made it back to the Union, including Von Mitzel. He returned to the 74th, advanced to lieutenant colonel, and served through the war’s end.

Von Mitzel settled in Baltimore, where he died at about age 52 in 1887. His wife and five children survived him.

The 142nd Pennsylvania Infantry suffered severely as Union troops struggled to hold out against the Confederate juggernaut that tore apart their ranks during the first day of the battle. Along McPherson’s and Seminary Ridges, the 142nd left behind many of its comrades. That evening, only 80 men had survived. They laid on their arms, exhausted.

One of the absent men, Sgt. William Whaley of Company H, had received a severe wound in his right arm. A western Pennsylvania farmer, he had enlisted the previous autumn when the regiment organized with recruits from across the Keystone State.

His wound ended in an amputation. He did not survive, dying in a Baltimore hospital on July 21. He was about 29 years old.

The 151st Pennsylvania Infantry suffered 70 percent casualties in the first day’s fight. Among those on the injured list: 23-year-old Pvt. Michael Link of Reading, Pa., who suffered a life-altering wound. According to a local writer, “A minnie bullet entered at the side of his right eye, passing through his head back of the eyes and wiping out his sight forever. He fell into a ditch, where he lay in the rain for two days before he was found. Eleven days passed before his injuries were properly attended to.” He reportedly stated, “The last thing I remember seeing was the rebel flag, and I was shot just as I was leveling my gun.”

The writer added, “After Mr. Link recovered and was mustered out of service he returned to Reading, after which he entered an institution for the blind in Philadelphia. He possessed remarkable aptitude for learning and, although totally blind, soon became proficient in carpet weaving, broom making, brush making and cane seating chairs.” Turns out, he was also an expert domino player and had a unique ability to tell the time of day by the touch of his crystal-less watch.

“Blind Mike,” as he was affectionately known, died in 1899 at age 59. His wife and a number of children and grandchildren survived him.

After the guns of Gettysburg fell silent, New York Times special correspondent Sam Wilkeson stood in a room of the Adams County Alms House recently filled with wounded Union soldiers. He wrote to his daughter, “I saw today a bloody mark about the size of a large man giving the outlines the human figure, that mark was made by Bayard as he lay six or eight hours dying from neglect and bleeding to death.”

Bayard Wilkeson, his son, was a 19-year-old first lieutenant in command of a battery in the 4th U.S. Artillery. During the first day’s action, he and his gunners fought along Blocher’s Knoll. Wilkeson sat astride his horse when a shell tore through the animal and his right leg. Carried to the Alms House, he cut away the remnants of his limb with a knife, and used his sash as a tourniquet.

Sam Wilkeson left the bloody spot and found his son’s corpse hastily buried in a mud pit.

On July 6, the Times published a story by Sam Wilkeson. It stands as masterpiece of American writing—and a tribute to a fallen son. It begins, “Who can write the history of a battle whose eyes are immovably fastened upon a central figure of transcendingly absorbing interest—the dead body of an oldest born, crushed by a shell in a position where a battery should never have been sent, and abandoned to death in a building where surgeons dared not to stay?”

As Union forces battled Confederates on the first day, Robert C. Knaggs found himself in more than one precarious position. A first lieutenant in the 7th Michigan Infantry and an aide to Brig. Gen. Henry Baxter, he rushed his commander’s orders to frontline troops.

The rebels nabbed Knaggs as he moved through the streets of Gettysburg. It was a tough break for Knaggs, who less than a year earlier at Antietam had tempted fate when he leapt off his horse, grabbed fallen colors and waved them defiantly in the face of the enemy. He managed to get away then, but not before suffering two minor bullet wounds.

Knaggs could not evade the Confederates at Gettysburg. They carted him off to Libby Prison, where he became the camp’s postmaster, and earned special privileges for good behavior. According to one report, he used his status against those who gave it to him. “Knaggs enabled many Northern prisoners to escape by not calling their names when he took the roll.”

He gained his release from Libby in March 1864, returned to the 7th, and ended his service with a captain’s brevet for gallantry. Knaggs settled in Chicago after the war and played a role in relocating the original Libby Prison building to the Windy City, where it was operated as a museum.

Knaggs died in 1927.

A noted forager, David Barnum of the 5th Alabama Infantry exercised his skills in Pennsylvania. “Davy” brought back a canteen of milk, butter and apple butter from Chambersburg, and shared it with his pards. At Gettysburg after the 5th participated in the rout of Union troops during the first day, he showed up with a haversack of candy, lemons and other niceties and distributed the treats to his comrades.

Truth be told, Barnum wanted to be a sailor. He had attended the U.S. Naval Academy. But the war dashed his dreams of being a navy man. A month after Gettysburg, he applied to the Confederate navy, and was accepted. By mid-1864 he had been transferred back to the 5th, as the army needed men. Barnum remained in uniform until June 1865, when he signed the oath of allegiance to the federal government. He died soon after in St. Louis, the cause of death, unknown.

The 17th Pennsylvania Cavalry moved with the rest of the Army of the Potomac to counter the Confederate invasion. It arrived at Gettysburg by the end of the month. For Cpl. Wilson S. Severs and his troopers in Company F, the territory was familiar. Their company had been raised in Cumberland County, just north of Gettysburg. Severs had grown up in Dickinson Township, the youngest of five kids born to Jacob and Rachel Severs. He had spent his youth on the family farm working long hours and honing his equestrian skills.

On June 30, Severs’ Company F galloped up the Carlisle Road north of town and discovered that enemy troops occupied their very homes only a dozen miles distant.

The next morning, Severs numbered among the videttes posted on the Carlisle Road. Shortly after sunrise, Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps advanced, and a smattering of rifle-fire broke the morning stillness. The battalion to which Severs belonged, commanded by Maj. James Q. Anderson, fought stubbornly through the morning, buying precious minutes for Union infantry to arrive.

After the battle, Severs received a promotion to sergeant and, eventually, first sergeant of Company F. In the spring of 1864, before departing on the Overland Campaign, Severs posed for this likeness in his camp at Culpeper County, Va.

Much more fighting lay ahead. On Aug. 25, 1864, Severs and 17 other men in the regiment suffered wounds fighting Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates near Leetown, Va.

Severs succumbed to his injuries two days later at Sandy Hook, Md. He was a few weeks shy of his 21st birthday. His remains were interred in the family plot at Spring Hill Cemetery in Shippensburg, Pa., with his mother and two brothers who had preceded him in death.  —Britt C. Isenberg

Union forces arrayed along Oak Ridge dealt a deathblow to the North Carolina brigade led by Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson, Jr., as it advanced during the afternoon of July 1. As the Confederate assault sputtered, the 97th New York Infantry seized the opportunity and launched a counterattack that inflicted even more damage. According to the New Yorker’s historian, “At last, when the outstretching lines and the overwhelming numbers of the enemy lapped nearly around the depleted ranks of the 97th, it was ordered to withdraw to Cemetery Hill, but too late for all to escape.”

Among the New York men who fell into enemy hands was Francis Murphy, an Irish immigrant who had helped recruit Company G, and served as its second lieutenant. Less than a year earlier at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Murphy had suffered a gunshot in the groin. This time he was uninjured, but his capture began an odyssey that took him first to Libby Prison in Richmond, then on to Macon, Ga., and Columbia, S.C. He escaped from the latter place in November 1864 and made it safely back to Union lines. He received a discharge from the army in March 1865.

After the war, Murphy became active in his regimental veterans’ association and lived until age 86. He died in 1915. His wife and six children survived him.

Capt. William Daniel Reitzel and his comrades in the 31st Pennsylvania Infantry made a timely arrival as Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles and his Third Corps faced serious trouble on the second day of the battle. A writer described the action: “This regiment reached the front on the 2d, in a crisis, when the 3d Corps was falling back before the enemy, and, with a shout and a solid volley, crossed the marshy space in front of Little Round Top, cleared the rocky face of the slope beyond, and answered the enemy’s last desperate rally by driving him into the woods.”

Reitzel suffered a wound at some point that day. Though the exact nature of the injury was unreported, it may have contributed to his dismissal on Dec. 7, 1863, for being absent without authority, misbehavior in the presence of the enemy and visiting “improper places of amusement while under medical treatment.”

The dismissal was later revoked, and he resigned. In 1864, he rejoined the army as a captain for a four-month stint in the 195th Pennsylvania Infantry, and then returned to his home and family in Lancaster County. A teacher by profession and an able writer and musician, he died in 1896 during the middle of a campaign for the state legislature on the Republican ticket. He was 63.

The 400-strong 4th Michigan Infantry battled for its life in The Wheatfield on July 2. Surrounded and hit hard by advancing Confederates, the most intense fighting occurred after the Michiganders’ color sergeant dropped the colors. The effort to retrieve them ended in a brutal melee that cost the life of the regiment’s colonel, Harrison H. Jeffords, who was bayoneted.

The casualty list of 164 included Pvt. David T. Dudley of Company C, who fell into enemy hands. Imprisoned at Belle Isle, he rapidly wasted away until he could no longer care for himself. On August 29, he received his parole and later a formal exchange. He regained his strength and returned to the 4th before the end of the year, mustering out in June 1864.

Dudley returned home to Michigan and eventually settled in Nebraska, where he died in 1912. His wife and son survived him. A friend and comrade from the 4th remembered Dudley as a good soldier who served his country well.

On the afternoon of July 2, Charles A. Foss stood with his comrades in the 72nd New York Infantry east of the Emmitsburg Road. This was 22-year-old Foss’s inaugural engagement as a first lieutenant, a promotion he received two months earlier at Chancellorsville.

Foss had started the war in the summer of 1861 as a corporal. Along the way, he worked his way up the chain of command. “I feel it is my duty to fight for my country as long as there is any chance of it being saved from ruin, so you must not think of my coming home yet,” he wrote to a brother in early 1863.

At Gettysburg, Foss and the 72nd occupied the extreme left flank of Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Humphrey’s division, to the immediate right of a brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Charles K. Graham. After a Confederate attack by Brig. Gen. William Barksdale’s Mississippians drove back Graham’s troops, the exposed 72nd withdrew in confusion, only to rally and join in a counterattack from Cemetery Ridge that helped drive away the Confederates.

During the action, Foss suffered a leg wound and underwent an amputation at a field hospital located on the Michael Fiscel Farm. Foss died on July 7, and was buried there in a field of clover. His remains were later reinterred in the New York section of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

The charge of the men and officers of the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry through Sherfy’s peach orchard on July 2 began with a yell and a 150-yard dash through the afternoon heat. Though they drove back enemy troops, success was short-lived, after brother regiments on their flanks fell back. The 2nd followed suit and withdrew. The Granite State men did so “fearfully diminished in numbers, yet firm and fearless still,” stated their colonel.

The wounded included Clark Stevens, a private in Company F. It was his third battle injury. The other two had occurred at First Bull Run, which ended in his capture and imprisonment in Richmond, and Second Bull Run, where he suffered a bullet wound. The exact location of it went unreported.

Stevens survived Gettysburg and left the regiment in 1864 to join the 1st New Hampshire Heavy Artillery as a second lieutenant. He is pictured here at this rank. After his service ended in the summer of 1865, Stevens lived in Vermont and New Hampshire. He married in 1867 and started a family that grew to include nine children. He died in 1896 at age 57. His relatively early death was attributed to his war wounds. One source noted that the bullet that hit him at Second Bull Run remained in his body. In 1901, a Grand Army of the Republic post was named in his honor.

Elijah Walker of Rockland, Maine, had once been the business partner of Hiram Berry, a major general killed by a sharpshooter at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Walker was also the foreman of the Dirigo Engine Company, a firefighting outfit in his hometown.

Walker joined the army despite family obligations, namely a wife and seven children, the youngest, seven months old. He recruited 25 men of his engine company, and opened a recruiting office that signed up 80 more volunteers. He became the captain of Company B in the 4th Maine Infantry, and later advanced to command the regiment.

At Gettysburg, his men defended Devil’s Den. When Capt. James E. Smith of the 4th New York Independent Battery asked Walker to move his men to the left of the line at the Den, Walker refused. “I would not go into that den unless I was obliged to,” he said. Smith complained to Brig. Gen. Hobart Ward, who commanded the brigade. The general sent a staffer with orders for Walker to do as Smith asked. “I remonstrated with all the power of speech I could command, and only (as I then stated) obeyed because it was a military order,” Walker said.

Walker was shot during the resulting fight, the bullet almost severing his Achilles tendon and killing his horse. “Our flag was pierced by thirty-two bullets and two pieces of shell, and its staff was shot off, but Sgt. Henry O. Ripley, its bearer, did not allow the color to touch the ground, nor did he receive a scratch, though all the others of the color guard were killed or wounded,” Walker reported.

Walker survived the battle and the war, and lived until 1905. 

The assault of Brig. Gen. William Barksdale and 1,400 of his Mississippians struck Union troops along Cemetery Ridge with the force of what seemed like a cyclone. That is, until they happened into a brigade of New Yorkers that included the Empire State’s 125th Infantry—a regiment that began its enlistment under a cloud.

Less than a year earlier, the 125th and its brigade had surrendered along with the rest of the garrison of Harper’s Ferry, Va. It was a bitter blow to the rookie regiment, which included Pvt. Charles W. Ives. He and his comrades were paroled, and spent the next two months at Camp Douglas in Chicago before a formal exchange allowed them to return to active duty—and seek a chance to clear their regiment’s name.

Redemption came at Gettysburg on July 2. The New Yorkers arrived that morning, took their assigned position along Cemetery Ridge, and sent out skirmishers, who suffered considerably. Then came the charge, which the 125th and its brigade repulsed. Confederate losses were heavy, and included Barksdale, who suffered a mortal wound and fell into enemy hands. Union casualties also ran high, and included Ives, killed at some point during the day.

As darkness settled on the evening of July 2, Reuben Miller, 22, and the rest of the 153rd Pennsylvania Infantry occupied a position at the base of Cemetery Hill. The regiment had been mauled the previous day in the fields north of town, and they sought revenge. “Our forces have a good position and would rather the Rebs to make an attack,” stated one of Miller’s comrades with confidence.

They got their wish. Unbeknownst to them, three Confederate lines had emerged from Gettysburg and marched towards the Hill. They arrived in the black of night, and the Pennsylvanians were unsure if the troops moving rapidly towards them were friend or foe.

A lieutenant in the 153rd discerned them as rebels, and urged his brigade commander, Col. Leopold Von Gilsa, to give the order to fire. Von Gilsa declined, believing the advancing men to instead be federal infantry.  A company commander in the 153rd nonetheless yelled “fire!” and the Union line erupted in flame and smoke. But by now, the first line of Confederates had swept past them, headed for the Union batteries on the crest. The Pennsylvanians now confronted a second line of attackers.

What happened next is unclear. A chronicler of the 153rd related that “here a promiscuous fight took place,” with “muskets being handled as clubs; rocks torn from the wall in front and thrown, fists and bayonets used.” Farther up Cemetery Hill, a Union artillery officer complained that the federal infantry in front of him “commenced running in the greatest confusion to the rear,” and “so panic stricken were they that several ran into the canister fire of my guns and were knocked over.” At some point during the action, Miller suffered a wound to his right shoulder. Taken to the Eleventh Corps Hospital at the George Spangler farm, medical personnel evacuated him to a Harrisburg hospital. During his stay, a chaplain gave him a small booklet of hymns and psalms, and Miller led the singing in his ward.

Meanwhile, the 153rd mustered out of service at the end of July. Miller received his discharge and moved to Michigan, taking up farming near the town of Constantine. He died in 1902. His tintype and psalm book, along with a metal cigar box of other family treasures, were discovered in the wall of an abandoned house in 2015.

The 64th New York Infantry participated in two major actions at Gettysburg—in The Wheatfield on July 2 and in the defense of Pickett’s Charge on July 3. The man pictured here, Andrus Franklin, a private in Company B, was only present for one. At some point during the engagement in The Wheatfield, he fell with a severe wound in his left leg, making him part of a grim list of 85 enlisted men killed, wounded or missing that day out of 185 engaged—46 percent of the regiment. The next day, only one man suffered a wound.

The injury ended Franklin’s combat career. He received a discharge from Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C., less than a year later. Franklin returned to his home in Chautauqua County, N.Y., settled in Jamestown, and started a family of six children. He died on New Year’s Day 1908 at age 62.

A passage in the after-action report of the 64th is a fitting tribute to Franklin’s life and military service: “Every officer and enlisted man did his duty in such a manner as to honor himself, his regiment, his brigade, and his country.”

Some historians argue that the high water mark at Gettysburg was a charge led not by George E. Pickett, but by William Barksdale. The general led his brigade of Mississippians on a charge, part of a massive assault against the Union’s left flank that broke federal lines. Barksdale’s Brigade continued forward for a mile, before being stopped and forced back with heavy casualties. Barksdale, who suffered mortal wounds, numbered among them.

The list of captured that day included 25-year-old farmer Newton J. Ragon, a private in the 13th Mississippi Infantry. He’s pictured here holding a Model 1842 musket and what appears a militia officer’s sword that dates to the 1830s. Worthy of note is his cap with an elaborately embroidered band and tassel, tinted shirt and suspenders and patterned pants with frame buckled belt—a quintessential early war Southern volunteer.

Ragon had enlisted in 1861 and suffered a wound at Maryland Heights in September 1862. His military records indicate that the nature of the wound went unrecorded, but it took him out of action for about six months. He returned to the 13th not long before Gettysburg, which proved his last battle. Ragon spent the rest of the war a prisoner and signed the oath of allegiance to the U.S. government on June 11, 1865. He returned to Mississippi, married, and started a family that grew to include four children. He died in Choctaw County, Miss., in 1907 at age 69.

The half-mile gap created when Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles advanced his entire Third Corps ahead of their assigned place in the Union line proved an invitation to disaster. The Confederate attack that followed smashed the federals. One Union regiment caught up in the lopsided fight, the 12th New Hampshire Infantry, suffered 92 casualties.

Among the wounded was Sgt. Joseph K. Whittier. A patriotic Christian who joined the army instead of heading off to college, he had celebrated his 20th birthday just a day earlier. His injury was described as minor, and he soon rejoined his comrades. The following year, after being promoted to first lieutenant, he died at the Battle of Cold Harbor when canister shot tore through his body. The intensity of the firefight made it impossible to recover his remains, though comrades managed to retrieve his sword and pocket watch.

Words he had written home earlier in the war are a tribute to his character. “Let shame and confusion be the lot of him who at this crisis shall lift his hand, or voice, to stay the onward march of victory. Blasting infamy shall be his reward through this and coming generations.”

The men of 12th New Hampshire Infantry marched into Gettysburg only 224 strong, due to heavy losses at the recent Battle of Chancellorsville. The senior staff had all been taken out of action, leaving the regiment in command of a senior captain. The stalwarts in the ranks included Cpl. Howard Taylor of Company C, who had suffered a slight wound in his left hand at Chancellorsville. According to regimental lore, 5-foot-tall Taylor was the shortest man in the 12th by a full three inches. As the story goes, he had passed his physical exam by wearing shoes fitted with extra soles.

On July 2, he and the 12th participated in heavy fighting north of the Klingel Farm. Here Taylor suffered a wound to the index finger of his right hand. The tip of the bandaged finger is just visible poking through the sling around his hand.

Taylor returned to the 12th seven weeks later. He fought on for the remainder of his enlistment, suffering a third wound—a minié bullet in his head, in May 1864, at Bermuda Hundred, Va. According to a sketch of his life in the regimental history, “This last wound, though he did not allow it to unfit him for duty but a day or two at a time, was the cause of his insanity and death, more than twenty-five years afterward. No words of eulogy, though never more deserving, can add anything to a record like his.”

Matthew Marvin, an orderly sergeant in the 1st Minnesota Infantry, scrawled in his diary on the morning of July 2, 1863, “this is to be the battle of the Civil War.”

What inspired this uncanny prediction from a leather goods store clerk who relocated from his native Illinois to Minnesota in 1859 is not known. His war experience was likely a key factor. Marvin had enlisted in Company K of the 1st two weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter, and suffered two wounds: In 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run, and in 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign, when a soldier from another regiment in his brigade accidentally shot him in the thigh at Harrison’s Landing, Va.

At Gettysburg, the 1st marched into the fight just over 260 muskets strong. Marvin’s diary also included a request common to many soldiers facing death in action. “Should any person find this on the body of a soldier on the field of battle…they will confer favor on the parents of its owner by sending the book and pocket piece & silver finger ring on the left hand.”

Hours after Marvin recorded his thoughts, he and his fellow Minnesotans were called upon to make a sacrifice. Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock ordered the 1st to charge into a breach in the center of the Union line, into which 1,600 Alabamians were also charging. Hancock hoped the Minnesota men could buy him time while he brought up reinforcements.

The Minnesotans ran down a slight slope toward the rebels. Marvin suffered a wound early in the action when a bullet tore through his right foot, entering next to the big toe and exiting through the heel. Nevertheless, Marvin got up and continued the assault, later explaining, “No rebel line could stand a charg of my Regt & if the Bayonet must be used I wanted a chance in as it was free to all.”

Just as Marvin caught up with the rest of his comrades, he collapsed from loss of blood and crawled back to Union lines on his hands and knees. He wrote that night that he “was in awfull pane” and “of all the suffering that I have ever had I believe that this has beat them all.”

Meanwhile, the Minnesotan’s audacious charge succeeded in throwing back the Alabamians and saving the Union center at a horrible cost—some 80 percent casualties.

Marvin survived, though the painful and troublesome wound ended his service. Transferred first to Philadelphia and on to Illinois, where his parents still lived, he received a discharge in June 1864. About this time, he posed for this likeness in Chicago. His prized finger ring is visible on the pinkie of his left hand.

In late 1861, New York City passenger tram driver Daniel Banta left his wife, infant son, and joined the 66th New York Infantry. He started as a private and rapidly rose through the ranks to sergeant major. He served in this capacity during the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, where the 66th futilely hurled itself against the stonewall. The regiment’s after-action report lauded Banta for standing preeminent among the ranks.

Seven months later at Gettysburg, Banta, now a first lieutenant, led his men into combat on July 2. The 66th and the rest of its brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Samuel Zook, moved upon a small wooded and rock studded eminence on the Union left called Stony Hill. There, Zook’s men engaged Confederate Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s brigade of South Carolinians. In the ensuing fierce fight, both Zook and Banta received gunshot wounds to the abdomen—injuries almost invariably deemed fatal. Zook succumbed the next day.

In Banta’s case, a Minié bullet tore through the fleshy part of his right arm just below the shoulder, continued through the right lung, diaphragm and intestines, and exited his left side near the spine. Carried to the Second Corps Hospital, according to military records, he suffered days of “vomiting and involuntary evacuations,” spitting up “bloody and rust colored” fluid with “fecal matter escaping through [his] abdominal orifice.” The bullet paralyzed his right arm.

Over the next two weeks, medical personnel kept him in a quiet place and administered generous doses of opium or morphine every two hours. At the end of that time, though his arm remained non-functional, he was able to sit up in his bed. Furloughed and sent home to convalesce, Banta posed for this portrait, with pain evident on his face.

He returned to the 66th in March 1864, physicians reported, “unable to do any duty, but enjoying a comfortable state of health.” The same doctors presented his case to the New York Medico-Legal Society “to show that punctured wounds of the abdomen are not necessarily fatal.”

Days later, Banta received a discharge and resumed his life and job in New York City. By 1879, his old war wounds forced him to leave his job. He died five years later, at age 50.

As Pickett’s Charge erupted during the afternoon of July 3, a much smaller operation unfolded about eight miles west in the village of Fairfield. There, the 6th U.S. Cavalry rode into town to plunder Confederate wagons and seize Fairfield Pass—one of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s principal retreat routes.

One of the troopers in the saddle that day, Cpl. James M. Sturgeon, an ex-boatman from Erie, Pa., had enlisted in the regiment following the First Battle of Bull Run. In the early spring of 1863, Sturgeon posed for this portrait near the Army of the Potomac’s winter headquarters. The photographer who captured Sturgeon’s likeness was none other than James F. Gibson, one of Mathew B. Brady’s talented team of lensmen.

A few months later at Gettysburg, Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt dispatched Sturgeon and the roughly 400-strong 6th in response to a civilian’s report about an unguarded rebel supply train in Fairfield. Upon its arrival, the 6th ran into elements of a Confederate brigade commanded by ill-tempered William E. “Grumble” Jones.

The ensuing battle initially favored the Union. Sturgeon and his comrades, part of a squadron led by 1st Lt. Tattnall Paulding, fought dismounted from the protection of a fenced ridgeline. They blunted a charge by the 7th Virginia Cavalry with deadly fire from the muzzles of their .52 caliber carbines. Then, the 6th’s major ordered Paulding’s squadron to pursue the defeated foe.

As they saddled up, the balance of Jones’ brigade came up, drew sabers and attacked. Unable to reach their horses in time, Paulding’s men were overrun by saber-swinging rebels. “My men were scattered through the field, and being pursued by the mounted foe were soon captured,” Paulding reported. Prisoners included Paulding and Sturgeon, along with over half of the troopers of the 6th. Lee’s vital artery of retreat remained open.

Sturgeon gained his release and returned to his regiment by its muster out in July 1864. He eventually married and moved around, farming in Wisconsin in 1870 and trying his hand in the Colorado Silver mines in the 1880s, He returned to farming life in Riverside, Calif., by the turn of the century. In 1908, suffering senility and various physical ailments, he entered the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers near Los Angeles. He died there two years later, leaving 34 cents to his name. 

Mary Ann O’Connor experienced tragedy after she emigrated from County Lough, Ireland, to Philadelphia in the early 1840s. Her husband, Richard, went off to fight for his adopted country during the Mexican War and never came home. His loss left her a widow with a young son, Patrick, who had been born in their homeland.

Flash forward to the Civil War. Patrick, now a confectioner’s apprentice, earned as much as $5 a week, the lion’s share of which went to support his mother. In September, he followed his father’s footsteps and volunteered to fight for his country. He enlisted in the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry. Standing just shies of 6-feet, he was the tallest man in Company K.

At some point during his service, O’Connor posed for this portrait with a cigar between his lips. His hat, a “beehive” or plug style, worn at a rakish angle, was popular in the regiment.

At Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 3, O’Connor stood in line of battle with 33 other members of his company near the far left of the 69th’s position. When Pickett’s Charge crested at the angle to their right, the rebels broke through that portion of the line. The Confederate attackers swallowed up the rightmost company and forced others to bend back.

O’Connor and Company K did not bend back. A lieutenant in Company D explained, “we were determined that as long as a man lived, he would stand and be killed too rather than have it said that we left on the battlefield in Pennsylvania the laurels that we so dearly won in strange states.” Among those who paid the price was O’Connor, killed by a musket ball to the lungs.

His body was brought home to Philadelphia and buried for free in a tract at the Old Cathedral Cemetery in the western part of the city, along with some 80 of his comrades. The graves were unmarked, and his exact resting place remains unknown. His mother received an army pension in 1865, and her death date is not known.

 In the early 1840s, Henry and Priscilla Huber welcomed their firstborn, Frederick A. Huber, into the world on February 12, 1842. Notably, this date aligned with the 35th birthday celebration of an Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln. Frederick, following in his father’s footsteps, pursued education at Pennsylvania College, where his father held a teaching position. By 1860, Frederick was on the brink of completing his studies at a medical school in Philadelphia.

However, the specter of war cast a shadow over Frederick’s plans. In August 1861, he enlisted in the 23rd Pennsylvania, a Zouave unit under Major General David B. Birney. Frederick’s rapid ascent within the ranks culminated in his appointment as his company’s First (Orderly) Sergeant. Tragically, his promising journey was cut short on May 31, 1862, during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Frederick, displaying remarkable resilience, endured two bullet wounds within an hour before succumbing to a fatal third. His last words to the chaplain were a poignant message for his father: “Tell my father I have died for my country.”

The news of Frederick’s death prompted Henry to embark on a somber journey to Richmond, located deep in enemy territory. Despite the challenges, he returned home within a few days, bearing his son’s coffin. A grieving Priscilla, despite the advanced state of decomposition, insisted on seeing Frederick’s body, leading to a heart-wrenching moment. Frederick found his final resting place in Evergreen Cemetery on June 13, 1862, marked by a poignant ceremony presided over by Peter and Elizabeth Thorn, with a beautiful monument erected to memorialize him.

The Huber family’s hardships continued with the arrival of their second child, John M. Huber, on March 22, 1844. In 1860, as Frederick pursued medical studies, John prepared to enter Pennsylvania College. However, the unfolding war altered John’s course. He enlisted as a private and bugler in the cavalry element of the First Maryland Potomac Home Brigade. John received a medical discharge in the same month his brother fell, later becoming a druggist and passing away just shy of his 51st birthday on March 3, 1895.

The ravages of war extended to the Huber family home in Gettysburg. On June 26, 1863, Jubal Early’s forces entered the town, with local farmers enduring losses of livestock and crops. Even Henry suffered as his sorrel mare, along with a saddle and bridle, was confiscated for Confederate service. The war reached their doorstep on June 30, as citizens gathered at the Huber residence to witness John Buford’s cavalry. The next day, the family faced a harrowing experience when a Confederate artillery round struck their home, necessitating extensive rebuilding.

The ultimate blow occurred as Confederate artillery targeted Frederick’s monument in Evergreen Cemetery, causing significant damage. The Huber family’s narrative, intertwined with the threads of war and loss, serves as a poignant reminder of the Civil War’s profound impact on ordinary lives.

Enlisted in Company H, 13th Alabama Infantry Regiment July 2, 1861. Engaged in battle of Yorktown during the Peninsula Campaign, wounded in Battle of Seven Pines. Saw combat duty at South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam),

Chancelorsville, Severely wounded in the head at Gettysburg. Exchanged as a prisoner of war on November 1, 1863. 

Died of wounds, received, Jul 1,1863 at Gettysburg.

Enlisted, Jun 17,1861. Capt

Residence: Granville Co,NC

Mustered into Co "I" 23rd NC Infantry

He was a devout Christian, good neighbor, and devoted husband. His wife, crushed by his death took to her bed and never rose.

Biographical information courtesy of Ted Myers September 2013. 

SERVED WITH CO D 84TH NY INFANTRY REGIMENT DURING THE CIVIL WAR. KILLED IN BATTLE AT GETTYSBURG, PA.

SERVED WITH CO F 7TH WIS INFANTRY AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. WOUNDED JULY 1 1863. DIED FROM HIS WOUNDING. 

Peter D. Boyer, of Cornwall, died at 8:30 o'clock on Tuesday evening from paralysis, following an illness of eleven months. He was 73 years old and leaves his wife Mary C. and the following children; Mrs. S. M. Scott, Annville; Mrs. H. J. Leitner, Richland; John Boyer at home; Jeremiah Boyer, Annville; William, Peter, Samuel and Clayton Boyer, Cornwall.

A laborer by occupation, Mr. Boyer was a member of the Episcopal church. He was a veteran of the Civil War, having served as a member of Company C. Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

James Brown fought in the 97th New York as a Corporal and was killed July 2nd, 1863.

Civil War Confederate Army Officer. Known as the “Boy Colonel” because of his achieving high rank at an extreme young age, he was born outside of Boston, Massachusetts while his parents were vacationing in the North. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1861, where one of his instructors was Thomas Jonathan Jackson, soon to be famous as “Stonewall” Jackson. He joined the Confederate Army as soon as the Civil War began, and served on recruitment and training duty before being commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel of the 26th North Carolina Infantry regiment. He participated in the March 1862 Battle of New Bern, North Carolina before his unit was assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. At the July 1, 1862 Battle of Malvern Hill, he participated in the failed rebel assaults on Union positions, with the 26th North Carolina taking numerous casualties. In August 1862 the regiment’s commander, Colonel Zebulon Vance, was elected as Governor of North Carolina, and Henry K. Burgwyn was promoted to Colonel and commander at the age of twenty. Conflict with his brigade commander, Brigadier General Robert Ransom, saw the Colonel Burgywn and his men transferred back to North Carolina, where they spent the fall and winter in skirmishes with Union forces. In May 1863 the regiment was transferred back to the Army of Northern Virginia, and owing to it’s relatively inactive recent service it became the largest unit in the army. As part of Brigadier General John J. Pettigrew’s Brigade, Major General Henry Heth’s Division, Colonel Burgwyn’s command was part of the infantry that met and fought first Union cavalry, then Union infantry in the opening moves of the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg northwest of town. There in the afternoon, in the Herbst Woods near Willoughby Run, the 26th North Carolina met the 24th Michigan Volunteer Infantry from the Union’s famed “Iron Brigade”. The two regiments blazed at each other in a stand-up fight that inflicted great casualties on either side. Colonel Burgwyn was leading his men in advance when the color bearer next to him was shot down. He himself them pick up the flag, and after allegedly handing it off to another bearer he was shot through the lungs as the remnants of his men crested McPherson Ridge. Mortally wounded, he died two hours later. In the fight his unit lost 588 men out of 800 brought into the battle. Interred in a field along Chambersburg Pike, his family retrieved his remains in 1867, and had them interred in the family plot in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor by the Confederate governor for his bravery in the battle. Today, his name is inscribed on the 26th North Carolina Infantry Monument on Meredith Avenue in the Gettysburg National Military Park 

Commissioned in to the 5th Regiment of Artillery upon graduation, Calef fought with it in the Peninsula Campaign and at Antietam. He transferred to Battery A, 2nd U.S. Artillery and the U.S. Horse Artillery Brigade in October 1862.

While in command of Battery A during the early summer of 1863, his three-inch rifles supported Buford on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. For his bravery during that battle and exemplary service during the war, Lieutenant Calef received brevet promotions to captain and major. Promoted to permanent first lieutenant on November 3, 1863, Calef also acted as the regimental adjutant of the 2nd Regiment of Artillery from November 1864 through March 1865.[1]

After the war, Lt. Calef remained in the Regular Army. He was stationed for a considerable period at the Presidio of San Francisco in California[2] and at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. He turned down an offer at a promotion to captain that would have required him to transfer branches to the 10th U.S. Cavalry. The 10th Cavalry was (along with the 9th) a regiment formed of African-American troopers. Though Calef's reasons for turning down the promotion can only be speculated, many officers at the time considered to accept command of black troops a career ending move. Calef remained with the Artillery branch, and earned his captaincy with the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and also briefly served as an instructor at the Artillery School of Practice at Fort Monroe, in Hampton, Virginia. He was promoted successively to command the 1st Regiment of Artillery as colonel of the regiment.

Enlisted Aug 30, 1862. Pvt, Co "K" 142nd PA Infantry. Mustered out May 29, 1865. GAR Post 139