USA > Pennsylvania > History of the First regiment infantry, National guard of Pennsylvania (Grey Reserves) 1861-1911, pt 1 > Part 1
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M. L
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00825 0810
HISTORY
OF THE 100. FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRY
NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA
(GRAY RESERVES)
1861-1911
BY JAMES W. LATTA MAJOR-GENERAL NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA, RETIRED
ET
ORDI
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1912
563 -
Latta, James William, 1839-
F 3349 8097 History of the First regiment infantry, National guard of Pennsylvania (Gray reserves) 1861-1911, by James W. Latta ... Philadelphia & London, J. B. Lippincott com- pany, 1912. xv, 811 p. front , plates (partly col.) ports., facsim, 252cm.
1. Pennsylvania infantry. 1st regt. (militia) 1861- Library of Congress UA424.1st.L3
12-10797
IT 190 -- Copy 2.
** -... Copyright . \314101 SHELF. GARD
HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRY NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA
2
FIRST REGIMENT ARMORY. BROAD AND CALLOWHILL STREETS
COPTRIGHT, 1912, BY THE VETERAN CORPS OF THE FIRST REGIMENT OF INFANTRY OF THE NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AI SPICES OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMIT- TEF. OF GENERAL COMMITTEE ON CELEBRATION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY, FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRT, NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA. COL. THEO, E. WIEDERSHEIM, CHAIRMAN.
PREFACE
This work, matured of a long-cherished purpose of the Veteran. Corps, was conceived in a conviction that the fifty years of military life of the First Regiment Infantry, Gray Reserves, beginning with one war, with intervening disturbances of for- midable riot and serious tumult, passing through another war. all the while rating as of the best, have earned for the regiment a record and a reputation well worthy of historic preservation. That there is enough in the story to sustain this preconceived conviction is apparent from a superficial glanee; whether it has been sufficiently well told to justify its publication must bear the test of the discriminating judgment of the soldier of that day and this, citizen, reviewer and general reader alike.
Research has disclosed, with but a few years of sterile result, such a wealth of original material, that to select what there was space for, and omit for want of it what had consequently to be rejected, has been a task of delicate performance.
Regimental and company order books, minute books of the Board of Officers, complete, save for a single lapse of a brief interval, and of the Veteran Corps, entire for its time, diaries and journals of commissioned and non-commissioned officers, re- ports of committees of historic moment, their full import appar- ently never before appreciated, have been laboriously sought for, found, and willingly furnished by those responsible for their present eustody. The regimental archives have been at all times freely opened and all requests for research have been promptly complied with.
Gen. J. Lewis Good. Col. William F. Eidell. Lieut .- Col. Albert L. Williams, Major George B. Zane. Jr., Captain Augustus D. Whitney, Captain Millard D. Brown, regimental adjutants: Captain Arthur J. Purssell, in charge of regimental records, the staff and line and rank and file alike, have been constant and ready in offering suggestions, supplying information and making research ; Mr. William S. Dougherty, Superintendent of the Armory, his aid continuously sought. has been assiduous in his
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PREFACE
attentions, and his services have, at all times, been of especial value.
The Veteran Corps has been liberally drawn upon. Col. Theo. E. Wiedersheim, with an industry and application that never wearies, a wealth of memory retentive and reliable; Col. J. Campbell Gilmore, rendering services deserving of especial acknowledgment; Mr. James Hogan, his active business energy always at command; Mr. Francis B. Irwin, ably assisting him; Col. R. Dale Benson ; Col. Sylvester Bonnaffon, Jr .; Col. William W. Allen, officers and members, all, whenever and wherever ealled upon have promptly responded.
There have been also invaluable contributions of newspaper material, wisely selected and well preserved in the " scrap book " form, notably by Col. Theo. E. Wiedersheim, whose three large volumes, of priceless worth, inelude two decades or more of events of local, State and national import, in which the First Regiment has had more or less participation. Adjutant Joseph B. Godwin's single volume of pertinent matter covered the early seventies, a period not otherwise supplied with readily available information. Col. William W. Allen furnished matter, some as clippings, ex- tracts and pamphlets, but most of it original, from the earliest times up to and including the year of the Centennial. Gen. Wendell P. Bowman's newspaper clippings cover a field seant of other supply, except what the formidable task of a search through the files of the newspapers from which those elippings are taken might reveal. Col. Sylvester Bonnaffon. Jr.'s book of well-chosen selections, touching the operations of his Twentieth Emergency Regiment and other matters, has been of much value. Major Henry J. Crump generously permitted the use of his manuscript that begins his proposed history of his old Company D. together with original records and newspaper material, without which the text of the book would have lost much of substantial worth. First Lieutenant Edward S. Sayres, also of Company D, in manuscript form has told an interesting story of two campaigns of riot, so helpful that it has been freely quoted from. Major Charles S. Turnbull's careful preservation of the diaries, commissions, journals, notes, etc., of his grandfather, Col. Charles Somers Smith, has permitted him to supply invaluable material, other- wise out of reach.
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PREFACE
Lieut .- Col. Fred. Taylor Pusey, generously responding to the call made upon him, has contributed Chapter X, in which he tells, with skill, thoroughness and fluency, the story of the participation of the First Regiment Infantry, Pennsylvania Volunteers, in the Spanish-American War.
Col. John P. Nicholson, Recorder of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, President of the Gettys- burg battlefield Commission, whose valuable energies were early enlisted in the success of the proposed commemoration of the First Regiment's Semi-Centenary, watchful of the progress of its history, has, as well from a copious knowledge of what has been as from his present acquaintance with what is being written, past history and current literature, offered many acceptable suggestions which have been willingly put to a practical use.
Brig .- Gen. Thomas J. Stewart, the Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff of Pennsylvania, at all times generously disposed to help the undertaking to a successful conclusion, beside offering every facility of his office to the furtherance of investigation, has liberally furnished much material that has required time, thought, and careful supervision in its preparation.
The Philadelphia Library, the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the library of the Union League of Phila- delphia, have, through their respective librarians, courteously afforded every opportunity for consultation, examination and research.
The National Guard is now reckoned as of the permanent establishment in the " first line " with the Regular Army, a force secure for immediate operations. Hence it is sensitive to what- ever touches, concerns or affects the art upon which it is founded.
There is no science that has so rigorously followed the evolu- tionary tendencies of the times as has the science and art of war; none that has so responsively answered the evolutionary demands created through a real purpose and from an absolute necessity; none where its every stage of development has been so effectually forced by new invention, new methods, new dis- covery. There is no science that has been freer from the " tor- rent of talk " of charlatan or tyro, from the arts of the demagogue, the wiles of the political. literary, seientifie or religious " Nostrum
·
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PREFACE
venders "; freer from the intrusion of men " of new thought, new ideas without themselves ever having learned to think." There is no science that better illustrates the process of evolution in that its ends, aims, progress, and development " are out of and because of what it has been," than does this same science and art of war. There is no science whose story of its recrudescence, enriched with incidents of campaign, march, battle, bivouac, pageant and parade, can be retold following the lines of the " old thought," avoiding its " rust and decay," giving neither offence to nor doing violence to the new, than can that of war in all its radical changes of progressive development.
Though these evolutionary processes in the art of war have never been halted, hindered nor impaired by the near approach of, they have nevertheless met and for quite an appreciable time have travelled side by side with their direct antithesis, progres- sive, evolutionary processes in ethics, economics, religion, soci- ology, whose sole end and purpose are to so make for the ways of peace that war may be abolished and its art disappear. Mean- while the nations are reaching out for its better perfection, pur- suing with ever strenuous energy opportunities that offer for the betterment of their armies upon the land and their fleets upon the seas. Great guns of huge missile, heavier calibre, farthest reach, small arms of perfected accuracy, effective explosives, bigger ships, weightier armaments, furnish convincing testimony of the vigor with which this purpose is pursued, while philosophy, scholarship, religion, wealth. conference, convention, tribunal are persuasively but insistently summoned to find some saner methods for the better disposal of international differences than the un- relenting rigors of the flaming sword of war. " It is war against war."
" Never before," said Nicholas Murray Butler at the Lake Mohonk Conference of 1911, "has the mind of the world been so occupied with the problems of substituting law for war, peace with righteousness for triumph after slanghter, the victories of right and reasonableness for those of might and brute force." . . . " The long years of patient argument and exhortation and of painstaking instruction of public opinion in this and other coun- tries are bearing fruit in full measure. In response to the im- perative demands of public opinion. responsible governments and
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PREFACE
cabinet ministers are just now busying themselves with plans which but a short time ago were derided as impracticable and visionary."
Learning and literature launched in the propaganda are send- ing their messages of universal peace with a grace of diction, an elegance of expression, a logie of conviction that attracts, per- suades, convinces.
Through the intervention of the Great Powers of Europe, frequent and impressive, in the domestic affairs of the smaller powers and the concession that the United States is practically the Sovereign on this continent, the doctrine emphasized by Chief Justice Marshall in the words that " no principle of general law is more universally acknowledged than the perfect equality of nations " is becoming obsolete, superseded by the doctrine that a " primacy " with regard to some important matters is vested in the foremost powers of the civilized world. The principle of this "Great Power Primacy " has now the rule of the future in its keeping and, save for the yellow man yet to be reckoned with, can make a universal peace or break it.
The Second Hague Conference of the powers great and small solemnly declared " that the maintenance of peace is the supreme duty of nations." And this same conference took opportunity before it concluded its sessions to confirm in substance what it had proclaimed in sentiment, by its adoption of the proposition championed by the United States that "obligated a resort to arbitration in the collection of contractual obligations before a resort to force is permissible."
Again the United States with Great Britain, two of the " re- sponsible nations now busving themselves with plans which but a short time ago were derided as impracticable and visionary," have agreed upon a general arbitration treaty of the highest im- portance to both nations and the whole world. The treaty so felicitously avoids all reference to questions of "vital interests and honor" and so providently provides for a submission of " all future differences arising under a treaty or otherwise to a previously prescribed course of negotiation with a view to a judicial determination." that there is every prospect that these two great English-speaking nations will take action that will be not only beneficial and resultful, but in the end may prove the treaty to be the herald of a universal peace.
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PREFACE
But, meanwhile, the science of war now become the art of destruction, may not war itself end itself ? War's aim has always been to destroy, not to produce; its forces of destruction may now so vie with the forces of production "that war from its own monstrosity may become absurd and impossible." The long-range cannon, the rapid-fire gun, the perfected accuracy of the small arm, the disappearing gun carriage, the high explosive within the zone of fire, can make a sepulchre of a battlefield and leave not a " wraith behind." The romance of the fight is ont of it, the smoke of battle has gone, the defiant shont of the charge is hushed forever, new invention suppresses the "rattle of musketry " and the boom of the cannon has not long to stay. The song of the camp alone survives ; farewell, all ye idols of a soldier's worship- ful remembrance! Then the weapons of offence and defence, under sea and over sea, the aeroplane above the waters and the sub- marine below, all these tremendous engines of modern, scientific warfare are speaking for peace in tones of thundering eloquence, more insistently persuasive than the essays of the pacificists, the appeals of the anti-militarists or decree or utterance of congress, convention, conference or tribunal.
But whether war shall work out its own destruction or peace prevail because of tribunal's decree or treaty obligations, declara- tion of conference or command of convention, the Waterloo man will never be forgotten, the Gettysburg soldier will ever be the nation's hero, and that August morning with Farragut will always be a blessed memory. Heroism is always recognized; patriotism and sacrifice are ever reverenced. "Bravery never goes out of fashion." Notwithstanding the Court's requirements for the strictest observance of the most rigorous rules of dress, George II was always permitted to wear at all his functions the old, faded uniform he wore at Oudinarde. The men who have worn, do wear, or will wear the livery of the nation, the soldiers of its armies, the sailors of its fleets, assured of an enduring remem- branee and a lasting fame, will ever command the people's homage and the country's praise.
J. W. L.
PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1911.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE 1
Organization
CHAPTER II
Drills - Parades - Target Practice - Field-Days - Orders - Circulars- Equipment-Escorts-Resignations-Elections-Testimonials-Tender of Services to National Government-Riot Duty-Brigade Drills- First Anniversary, April, 1862. 12
CHAPTER III
Campaigns, Antietam, September, 1862, as Seventh Regiment, Penn- sylvania Militia-Funeral Escorts-Col. Charles S. Smith Elected- Anecdotes-Incidents-Property, Inventory, Valuation, Needs-Report of Committee on Betterments 48
CHAPTER IV
Gettysburg Campaign, June-August, 1863, as Thirty-second Pennsylvania Ninety Days' Militia-Act of May 4, 1864-Non-acceptance -- Com- panies Maintain Organization-Board of Officers Preserve Identity- Colonel Smith Retires. 75
CHAPTER V
1866-1873-Colonels Prevost. McMichael and Latta-A, C, D, E, and I Resume-Captain Keyser Commanding-" Wigwam Convention "-On Duty "to Preserve the Peace "-Acceptance Act of 1864-Militia Tax-Its Repeal-New Legislation-Dedication Antietam Monument -Cape May Encampment-Camp Upton-President Grant's Visit- Eleventh Anniversary-Evacuation Day, New York Visit, 1872- New York Seventh-Inauguration Governor Hartranft-Appoints Colonel Latta Adjutant-General. 140
CHAPTER VI
Colonel Benson, June 4. 1573-December 4, 1878-Susquehanna Depot, April, IST4-Centenary First Troop, November 17, 1874-Hazleton, April, 1875-Boston Bunker Hill Centenary, June 17, 1875-Regi- mental Badge-Funeral Vice-President Wilson-Second Inauguration Governor Hartranft-Changes in Officers, Division. Brigades, Regi- mental-Centennial Exposition, May to November. 1876-" Industrial Disturbanees, 1877 "-Colonel Benson Resign -- Captain Muldoon Commanding, December 8, 1877, to October 1, 1878. xi
176
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CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER VIL
Colonel Wiedersheim. 1.29-1557-State Uniform Adopted-Washington Grays Become Company G-Encampments, Division. Brigade, Regi- mental, ISTS-ISST-Regimental Anniversaries-General Grant's Reception-llis World Tour Completed-New York Memorial Day. ISSO-Regomental Fair. Isso -- Garfield Inauguration. 1881-York- town Centennial, ISSI-Corner-stone New Armory, 18-2-Occupation. ISS4-Regimental Fair, 1854-Cleveland's Inauguration. 1885 --- General Grant's Funeral-Colonel Wieder-heim Re-igns 241
CHAPTER VIII
1887-1892-Colonel Bowman Elected-Centenary of Constitution-Annual Encampments-Meade Equestrian Statue Dedication-Inauguration President Harrison, 1889-Centenary Washington's Inauguration. New York-Ritle Practice and Inspection-Scores-Averages- Homestead Riots-Dedication Hartranft Monument-Figure of Efficiency-First Regiment's Ritle Range-New Drill Regulation -. . . 319
CHAPTER IX
1893-1898-Inauguration President Cleveland-Battalion Majors Author- ized-Escort Liberty Bell for Chicago-Trenton Battle Monument Dedication-Midway Plaisance Exhibition-Church Services, Army- Anniversaries-Encampment --- Inspections; Annual and Spring -- Rifle Practice, Competition -. Re-tilts-Grant Memorial Dedication. New York-Cincinnati Washington Monument Dedication. Fairmount Park-War Declared-Regiment Volunteers. 388
CHAPTER X
The First Regiment in the War with Spain. 449
CHAPTER XI
1898-1905-Prace Jubiler Par.ule -- Reorganization-Dedications-Grant Monument. Fairmount Park-Hartranft Statue. Harrisburg -- Pitts- burgh E-cort Tenth Pennsylvania Volunteers Return from Philippine- -Admiral Dew yy's Return and Reception, New York-Companies L. and MI Transferred from Nineteenth-Three Battalions Established -Anniver-aries. Encampment -. Inspection -. Bitte Practice -- Mehard Wins State Championship Cup: Fontke. Wimbledon Cup. World Champion-hip- Inauguration President Mckinley-His Death- Liberty Bell Escort, Charleston, S. C. Exposition-Industrial Dis- turbances. Hazleton, 1902 -U. S. Inspection under Military Efficiency Aet-Armory Fund-New Magazine Hitte 469
CONTENTS
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PAGE
CHAPTER XII
1905-1911-President Roosevelt's Inauguration-Pennsylvania Military
. College Names its Annual Military Day-First Regiment Day- Spring Inspections - Annual Inspections - Encampments - Army Officers' Comments-Rifle Practice, Scores, Results, Competitions- Gamble Wins State Championship Medal-Regimental Anniversaries, Colonel Bowman Appointed Brigadier-General-Colonel Good Elected Colonel-Memorial Day Services-Founder's Week Parade, Phila- delphia-Brigadier General Bowman made Major-General-Colonel Good Brigadier-General-Major William F. Eidell Elected Colonel -- Fiftieth Anniversary 545
CHAPTER XIII
The Veteran Corps
617
Muster-Rolls and Appendices 665 Index 799
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Fir-t Regiment Armory Frontispiece
Col. P. C. Ellmaker
1
Uniform, "Gray Reserves," 1861-1865 6
Commission of Col. P. C. Ellmaker 9
Uniform, 119th, 7th, and 32d Regiments, 1862-1865. 4S
Col. N. B. Kneass.
60
Uniform, 32d Regiment (Col. C. S. Smith)
82
Carlisle, July 1, 1863
96
Col. Charles S. Smith
125
Uniform, First Regiment Infantry (Gray Reserves), 1865-1869 139
Col. Charles M. Prevost 145
Col. William MeMichael 153
Col. James W. Latta 156
Camp Upton, Cape May, N. J 15S
Uniform, First Regiment Infantry (Gray Reserves), 1869-1870. 161
Col. R. Dale Benson. 176
Uniform, First Regiment Infantry, "Riot Service," 1874-1877 217
Capt. James Muldoon. 239
Col. Theodore E. Wiedersheim. 241
Uniform, First Regiment Infantry, N. G. P., 1870-1885. 252
Uniform Artillery Corps, Washington Grays, 1822-1861 301
Uniform, First Regiment Infantry, N. G. P., 1885-1911. 306
Col. Wendell Phillips Bowman. 319
Uniform, First Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, Spanish- American War, 189S. 449
Khaki Summer Uniform, 1902. 507
Col. J. Lewis Good. 570
Col. William V. Eidell. 608
Statue of Gray Reserve 610
Medal Fiftieth Anniversary 617
Uniform Veteran Corps, 1911 618
Col. Sylvester Bonnaffon, Jr. 622
Major Edwin N. Benson. 624
Testimonial Vase Presented to Col. Theodore E. Wiedersheim 653
XV
HISTORY
OF THE
FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRY NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER I
ORGANIZATION
The First Regiment Infantry, National Guard of Pennsyl- vania (Gray Reserves of 1861), was an immediate product of the War of the Rebellion. It was of sudden, unexpected, it may be said unprecedented growth. Its conception and maturity were contemporaneous. Its recruitment was without drum or trumpet, speech or persuasion.
Emergency organizations disappear with the emergeney, and a long war, by its continuous drain, so depletes the ranks of the militia as practically to work its disbandment. This organization holds a unique place. It has maintained itself continuously, with an ever-inereasing profieieney, until it has now passed into the fifty-first year of its usefulness.
The secretly manœuvred withdrawal of the then beleaguered little garrison from the weak and insceure Fort Moultrie in the late December of 1860 to the more formidable water-bound eitadel of Sumter had not bestirred the North to its real warlike signifi- cance. Then, four months later, Sumter fired upon and the flag lowered, the whole people spoke as one. "Patriotism, which had been a rhetorical expression, became a passionate emotion, in which instinet, logie, and feeling were fused." 1
The President's proclamation followed; the people willingly offered themselves; the entire organized militia responded; war
1 Hon. John Hay, in his Mckinley Congressional Memorial address.
1
1
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2
HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
1861
was upon us, and the city was left without a soldier. Solely in response to an appeal from their fellow-citizens, not in answer to the call of authority, within forty-eight hours eight hundred sturdy, vigorous men had enrolled themselves indefinitely for military service.
The Government had but faint conception of the magnitude of the contest that confronted it. What was afterward styled by Mommsen, the German scholar of much repute, as the " mightiest struggle and most glorious victory yet recorded in human annals," it was expected would be disposed of in the brief space of three months, with the meagre contingent of 75,000 volunteers. The regular army at the time numbered but 1083 officers and 11,848 enlisted men.
Of the troops that helped make up Pennsylvania's quota of this contingent was the Light Artillery Corps of Washington Grays, then serving as infantry as Companies A and F of the Seventeenth Regiment. The corps was organized April 19, 1522. Conspicuous for its efficiency in drill, discipline, and personnel; notable for its men of prominence. reputation, and influence; rich in the lore of prestige and tradition, it was the parent of and is now, through the passing of the independent military organization, Company G of the regiment it once had fathered.
The Corps, as the two companies of the Seventeenth Regiment, made prompt response to the President's proclamation of the fifteenth of April, was ready for the field on the eighteenth, and moved with other troops on the twenty-fifth to Baltimore.
Coneurrently with the proclamation. the need for further organization being so apparent as to require immediate action, of their own motion a number of members of the Corps,-Cephas G. Childs, Joseph M. Thomas, Peter C. Ellmaker, and others, still on the rolls, but no longer active,-caused to be inserted in the public prints a notice requesting the retired and contributing members over the age of forty-five years to meet on the evening of the 17th of April. " for the purpose of organizing a Reserve Guard for the protection of the City and support of the Constitution and laws of the United States of America."
The response was so unexpected, the attendance so large and applications for membership so numerous, that the original inten- tion to form but a single company was abandoned, a regimental
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PLAN OF ORGANIZATION
organization determined upon, the age limit removed, all able- buwied citizens disposed to be helpful in the crisis invited, and the meeting adjourned from its wholly inadequate quarters at the Wetherill House, on Sansom Street above Sixth Street, to assemble again at Sansom Street Hall, upon the opposite side of the street, more suitable for a large gathering, two days later, on the evening of the nineteenth instant.
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