USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 35
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GEN. SAMUEL B. M. YOUNG.
injury on the pommel of my saddle by the fall of my horse, which kept me in bed for six months. Lieutenant Martin was put in the same box ear with me at Catlett Station to be conveyed with other wounded to Washington, and he then told me that he was the third or fourth messenger Gregg had sent with orders for me to fall back. I resolved that before I again went into a fight I would find out the meaning of the term, ' at all hazard.' "
After his convalescence, in June, 1864, he was assigned to duty at Giesboro Point, in command of the dismounted cavalry of Gregg's division awaiting a remount. On the 4th of July all the available men at Giesboro were ordered out armed as infantry and put aboard a train for Harper's Ferry, to assist in defending that point against Early, who was crossing into Maryland. When the troops were all aboard, orders were received placing Colonel Young in command of the provisional brigade consisting of his own dismounted cavalry, numbering fifteen hundred men (three battalions of five hundred each), and two regiments of one hundred days' infantry, numbering about six hundred each, in all about two thousand seven hundred men. Arriving at Sandy Hook, on the Potomac oppo- site and a little below Harper's Ferry, it was learned that Harper's Ferry had been abandoned and was occupied by the enemy, and that Sigel was holding Maryland Heights and a line across the valley to the bend of the river above ; also that the telegraph wires were cut and some bridges destroyed. In writing of these operations General Young says :
" My command was hurried up the heights, and on passing the summit I had a full view of the battle in progress. Early had crossed at Williamsport, and sent Breckenridge's division down to clean up Sigel, while he pushed on towards Washington. Sending the staff officer to report my arrival and strength to General Sigel, I started my command on the double-quick towards Colonel Mulligan's left, his weak point, and riding at a gallop, reported to him in person. Sigel was not on the field, but back some distance in his tent. Mulligan approved my action, and told me if I could hold that point on his left and keep a certain battery in action just where it was, he was certain of repulsing Breckenridge. Mulligan's programme was carried out, but when the action was hottest, the particular battery referred to was about to limber to the rear, and was only prevented by the officer whom I had placed in command of the support with special instructions in reference to it. Breckenridge failed and withdrew, and my reserves were deployed to relieve Mulligan's tired men, who had been in the works nearly twelve hours. By order of General Sigel I was placed under arrest for not reporting to him in person, and for interfering with his pet battery (so I was told). Colonel Mulligan came over in person about dark to thank me for making it possible for him to defeat Breckenridge, and remarked that had I gone in person to find Sigel, and halted my command until my return, we would all have been prisoners at the time that he was speaking. I then told him that, notwithstanding his success, I was a prisoner in even a worse sense than being in the hands of the enemy. Some time during the night Mulligan, accompanied by a staff officer, aroused me to tell me that I was restored to my command, and that General Sigel was relieved and succeeded by General llowe, I learned from a staff officer that Colonel Mulligan entered a strong protest against my humiliation, declaring that my action had enabled him to repulse Breckenridge, and having been approved by him, he should share my disgrace if it was persisted in. This was character- istie, for Colonel Mulligan was one of the most high-minded, brave and conspicuously gallant infantry officers it was my good fortune to serve with during the war. The next day, as my brigade marched pist the tents that had been occupied by General Sigel, we were horrified to hear the column, as if in accordance with a preconcerted arrangement, break out in the refrain :
"'All dat is drue I speaks mit you, I fights no more mit Sigel.'
. We were gratified, however, after order was restored, to learn that Sigel was not within hearing. At Mulligan's request my brigade was assigned to his division. Early, who had been at the gates of Wash- ington, was in a hurry to get back home, and so took the near cut across the Potomac between the
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GEN. SAMUEL B. M. YOUNG.
capital and Harper's Ferry. Our cavalry, during that campaign, was eminently successful in always finding out where Early's army had been. Wright followed close on Early's heels, with Crook trying to strike him on the right flank, but Early reached the Shenandoah before Crook could concentrate his scattered forces. Wright was ordered back before he reached Winchester, and Crook followed him through that place. Early turned back and struck Crook at Kearnstown, on July 24th. Here Colonel Mulligan was killed, and I received a musket ball in my right arm, shattering both bones close to the old wound and destroying the gutta-percha case in which I carried it bound across my breast. The ) ullet first struck my left breast pocket, and carried with it portions of official papers and cloth into the flesh of the arm. In October, however, I was back at Giesboro, and on my personal application was sent to my own regiment in front of Petersburg."
Colonel Young was active throughout the entire campaign with Sheridan's cavalry from Five Forks to the surrender, and led a charge of his brigade even after Lee had capitulated, that fact not being known to him, routing a brigade of the enemy and capturing its colors-the last colors captured from Lee's army. He participated during the war in eighteen battles, sixteen actions or engage- ments, and in thirteen skirmishes, and was present at many others. He was severely wounded at Warrenton, October 12, 1863, at Kearnstown and Win- chester, July 24, 1864, and at Hatcher's Run, February 5, 1865. He has received four brevets. On March 2, 1867, he was brevetted Major, Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel, United States Army, for "gallant and meritorious services in action " at Sulphur Spring, Amelia Spring and Sailor's Creek, Va., respectively ; and previously, on April 9, 1865, he had been brevetted Brigadier-General of Volunteers for "gallant and meritorious services during the campaign, ter- minating with the surrender of the insurgent army under Gen. R. E. Lee."
After the war closed he was mustered out of the volunteer service, July 6, 1865, and in the following year was appointed Second Lieutenant in the regular army, from which position he has been promoted until, April 2, 1883, he was commissioned Major, Third Cavalry. During these years he has been stationed at various forts on the Texan frontier, and been engaged in numerous expeditions against hostile Indians and marauding Mexicans. From February, 1871, to February, 1873, he was on recruiting service at Chicago, and was on duty under orders of the Lieutenant-General at the great fire in that city, October 8 to 15, 1871. In November, 1881, he was detached for duty at the United States Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, and for nearly four years was instructor, at times, in military law, cavalry tactics and hippology. At present (May, 1888) he is in command of Fort McIntosh, Texas.
Major Young is regarded as an unusually strict post commander, but he seems to possess the love and esteem of his men, who prefer to serve under him in the field, and never failed him at the critical moment. He claims that all soldiers cannot be governed by one iron rule, any more than all fish, flesh and fowl can be cooked together in one iron pot, and be palatable. He has the reputation of commanding the best drilled body of cavalry in the army, and has his men and their horses trained to perform evolutions that have surprised and elicited the encomiums of military officers generally for the remarkably perfect manner in which they were executed. E. T. F.
CAPT. JOHN S BISHOP.
CAPT. JOIIN SOAST BISHOP.
J OHN S. BISHOP, who has passed through all the grades from private to Colonel of Volunteers, and who is now a Captain in the Thirteenth Regiment In- fantry, U. S. A., is an excellent representative of the army officers who have been educated to warfare in the field. Though his military career has not been as brilliant as some who have had better opportunities to display their abilities his record is an exceedingly ereditable one, and shows that he possesses in a marked degree the virtues of the ideal soldier-courage, fidelity, loyalty, endurance and a thorough knowledge of his duties.
Captain Bishop was born in Philadelphia, March 23, 1834, the eldest of eleven children of William and Catharine Bishop, and can claim revolutionary blood, as he is descended through his paternal grandmother from John Morton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His father was well known among the iron men of Pennsylvania as a successful builder of furnaces and the originator of many valuable improvements in them. His grandfathers were both men of large stature and great physical strength, and many of their progeny have these distinguishing characteristics. Captain Bishop is fully six feet in height, and at the age of fifteen, when employed in a rolling mill, he was able to lift five hundred pounds easily and to swing a seventy-pound sledge-hammer over his head, and now, when past fifty, is able to make a march of thirty miles in a day over the plains without perceptible fatigue. On his fiftieth birthday he made a march of over thirteen miles in about four hours.
He was educated in the public schools of Philadelphia, where he was always among the first in his classes, and served an apprenticeship with Altemus and the Gihons, well-known bookbinders in Philadelphia. On reaching his majority he went to Nashville, Tenn., and was employed in the office of the Tennessee Baptist. While there he became a member of the Shelby Guards, which gave him his first knowledge of military evolutions. In 1858 he went to Jacksonville, Ill., and was engaged there with Catlin & Co., in the book business, when the first gun fired on Fort Sumter was heard in the extreme limits of the North and West. Though he did not enter active service at that time he performed a use- ful part in recruiting and drilling three months volunteers, and the company which he then assisted in drilling afterwards furnished fifty-two officers for the service. In November of 1861 he was commissioned Major of the Thirty-second Illinois Regiment, but there being two fractions of regiments desirous of consoli- dating he resigned the following month. In May, 1862, he enlisted in the Sixty- eighth Illinois Regiment, was made Sergeant on the organization of his company, and on June 4th was promoted to Regimental Adjutant. His regiment was sent to Alexandria, Va., to assist in the defences of Washington during the second Bull Run campaign and remained there until mustered out, when Captain
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CAPT. JOHN S. BISHOP.
Bishop was unanimously recommended by the officers of the regiment for ap- pointment as field officer of volunteers. Ile frequently requested to be sent to the front but was refused, his services being valuable with his regiment.
In 1863 business called him to Indianapolis, where he joined the Indiana Legion, in which he became Captain and served as such during the Morgan raid. He retained this commission in the Indiana Legion until June, 1864, when he resigned to enter the volunteer service as Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighth Colored Infantry. Relinquishing a very lucrative busi- ness, he organized the regiment at Louisville, Ky., and served with it at Owens- boro and Mumfordville, Ky., at Rock Island Barracks, Ill., and in the Depart- ment of Mississippi. While the regiment was on duty at Rock Island one of the sentries recognized his master inside the prison. The master, seeing his former slave on the parapet, picked up a stone with the intention of throwing it at the sentry, but the latter bringing down his musket, said: " None ob dat, massa. I'se de boss, now." The prisoners planned an escape on Christmas eve, 1864, and in some way had secured two ladders with which to scale the parapet, but the sentries detected the beginning of the rush and two firing at the same time killed the two leaders, thus effectually stopping the outbreak. While the regiment was at Owensboro, a company numbering seventy men was sent on an expedition up the river some twenty miles. On their return they were attacked by about one hundred and fifty guerillas and armed citizens. After a sharp little skirmish, in which three or four of the soldiers were wounded, the command captured ten of the enemy, and the report one of the corporals made of the fight -"We met 'em, we whopped 'em, and cotched ten ob 'em," was as good an example of brevity as Cæsar's famous despatch.
During the service of the regiment in the Department of the Mississippi it received many compliments for its discipline, appearance and prompt and efficient performance of duty. On leaving Columbus Colonel Bishop received an address signed by a large number of the citizens complimenting the regiment very highly, and expressing their appreciation of the quiet and order which pre- vailed during the occupancy by negro troops, comparing them very favorably with their own soldiers. Ile remained the senior officer of the regiment during its whole period of service, and on September 19, 1865, was promoted Colonel. While guarding the line of the M. & O. R. R. he came into command of the District of Columbus, and when General Force was relieved he succeeded to the command of the Northern District of Mississippi. He remained with the regi- ment until it was discharged at Louisville, March 29, 1866. The officers and men of this regiment contributed over $900 to the Lincoln Monument Fund.
In 1867, through the influence of Governor, then Senator, Morton, he received an appointment as Second Lieutenant in the Thirtieth Regiment Infantry, U. S. A., and joined the regiment near Julesburg, Neb., in June, 1867. The headquarters and part of the regiment moved to the site of Fort 1). A. Russell, leaving his company detached, and he was detailed as Assistant Quartermaster and Com-
CAPT. JOHN S. BISHOP.
missary. Ile served in the Department of the Platte, at North Platte (which post he built) and at Fort Sanders. In March, 1869, the Thirtieth Regiment consolidated with the Fourth Infantry, and in November of that year he was assigned to the Thirteenth Infantry, then serving in Montana, and has been with it ever since, living the life of a soldier on the frontier, enduring hardships and scarcely ever remaining at any post for a much longer period than a year. His first destination was Camp Cooke, Montana, which he was ordered to destroy, and to reach it he crossed the main divide of the Rocky Mountains in January in an open sleigh at midnight, during a driving snow-storm. After destroying this fort and being the last soldier at the post he marched to Fort Benton and then to Corinne, Utah, a distance of about six hundred miles, all of which, excepting seventy miles, he traveled on foot. To cross the Marias river between Camp Cooke and Fort Benton, which was then very high and running rapidly, he dismounted a wagon body, wrapped a "paulin" around it, sent a swimmer over with a small ropc, then hauled over a larger onc, launched his improvised boat and had a flying ferry. He swam his mules and passed men and baggage over in his boat without shipping as much as a bucket of water, and surprised his captain by marching into Benton about sundown.
While at Fort Bridger he met with a severe accident which kept him from duty for a year, and during his absence he was promoted to be First Lieutenant. Subsequently he was stationed at Camp Stambaugh, Wyoming Territory, situated in the mining region of the South Pass and in a country raided by the Sioux. He then went to Fort Fred Steele and from there to the Red Cloud Agency, now Fort Robinson, during the Indian troubles, returning to Fort Fred Steele in June, 1874, and in October of that year was ordered with his regiment to New Orleans during the election excitement, which threatened an outbreak. He was stationed in this vicinity until July, 1877, when the labor riots broke out in Penn- sylvania and he was sent to Wilkes Barre, where he served as Quartermaster and Commissary and won compliments from General Hancock, Colonel Otis, the com- manding officer, and the chief commissary and quartermaster for prompt and valuable services .* After leaving Wilkes Barre he went to Baton Rouge, where he remained for two years until the abandonment of the post in July, 1879, and was the last soldier to leave the post except the ordnance sergeant left in charge. Ile served as Regimental Quartermaster at Forts Leavenworth and Wingate, and for the next five years was on numerous scouting expeditions after the Indians in Arizona and other Territories. From September, 1885, to September, 1886, he was in command of his company in an expedition against Geronimo in
* Colonel Otis, in recommending Captain Bishop for the position of Assistant-Quartermaster or Com- missary of Subsistence, said : " I take pleasure in stating that Lieutenant Bishop acted in both capacities most efficiently during the time the United States troops were stationed at Wilkes Barre during a few months lately pas-ed. Ilis knowledge of the duties pertaining to these positions is very thorough, and his ability to exercise these duties is of a high order. The zeal and efficiency with which he performed his duties at Wilkes Barre deserve commendation."
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CAPT. JOIN S. BISHIOP.
the neighborhood of Horse Springs and in the Tularosa Valley, and on the castern side of the Mogollon Mountains. The company marched over fifteen hundred miles in three months, and, although Captain Bishop's command formed the rear line, he was complimented for efficient service by his immediate com- mander, Colonel Biddle, and many others.
During all these years of constant change and laborious service he can say truly, as he did say to the Secretary of War in his letter dated June 17, 1878, now on file in the War Department :
" I have always endeavored to do my duty faithfully in whatever position I have been placed, have donc a great deal of hard work, and never an hour of fancy duty. How well I have succeeded I can refer to numerous testimonials on file. I could add to these without end. . . During all my staff services I have never had a stoppage against me, and all my accounts are settled up to the date of my present appointment."
After nearly twenty years of active service as Lieutenant he received in March, ISS;, his promotion to Captain, and joined his new company at Fort Stanton, New Mexico. Captain Bishop is a strict disciplinarian but at the same time is courteous and kind, desiring that his soldiers should regard him as their friend as well as their officer. He is very fertile in resources, possesses considerable artistic taste and mechanical skill, and almost always carries with him a lot of carpenter and cabinet-maker's tools. He could easily qualify as a sharpshooter, for at target practice in 1886 he led the sharpshooters of his department, with a score of five hundred and forty-eight out of a possible six hundred. While in Indianapolis he wrote a small book on the war, which had a sale of sixty thou- sand copies.
In June, 1858, he was married to Mary, daughter of Thomas and Rachel Shepherd, a descendant of one of the old settlers of New York. They have three surviving children, two daughters and a son. The eldest is married to V. E. Stolbrand, who is Professor in the Colorado State Agricultural and Mechani- cal College, and is a son of Gen. E. J. Stolbrand, who was Chief of Artillery at the siege of Vicksburg. The other daughter is unmarried and the son, a promis- ing young man, six feet three in stature, is now employed with the Phoenix Iron and Bridge Company, at Phoenixville, Penna.
Captain Bishop is a member of the Masonic fraternity and has been an Odd Fellow since 1857. He was an original member of the Grand Army of the Republic, as then constituted in Indianapolis in 1867, and has recently become a member of the Kansas Commandery of the Loyal Legion.
CAPT OTIS W. POLLOCK.
CAPT. OTIS WHEELER POLLOCK.
C APT. OTIS W. POLLOCK, of the Twenty-third Infantry, United States Army, is a Pennsylvania officer who has rendered a great deal of valuable service to the Government, both in the late war and on the frontier, and, as many think, has not been adequately rewarded for it. He was born at Erie, August 7, 1833, and is the son of Charles and Elizabeth Wilson Pollock. The progenitor of the family in America emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania about 1750, and since 1800 his descendants have been farmers near Waterford, Erie county, where young Pollock spent the greater part of the first twelve years of his life. Ilis maternal grandfather, Dr. John Culbertson Wallace, the first resident physician in Erie county, was a surgeon in General Wayne's army during his operations against the Indians in the Northwest, and a Lieutenant-Colonel of a regiment of Pennsylvania militia in the war of 1812. Captain Pollock is also a great-grandson of Major James Gordon Heron, who was an officer in the American army during the Revolutionary War, and a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was for a time an Associate Judge of Venango county, residing in Franklin, where he died, December 30, 1809.
Captain Pollock's early studies included surveying and civil engineering, and at the death of his father, which occurred May 31, 1850, rendering it necessary that he should begin the battle of life early, he sought employment in railroad construction. In his eighteenth year he was employed in the construction of the Lake Shore Railroad between Erie and the Ohio State line, and before he was twenty years of age he was an assistant engineer on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, and in charge of a subdivision of the construction. Subsequently he was engaged upon the preliminary surveys of the Minneapolis and Cedar Valley Railroad in Minnesota, and in 1857, while thus employed, was elected County Surveyor of Steele county, and served one term.
In the spring of 1861, while engaged in surveying oil lands on the little Kanawha river, in what is now West Virginia, the war broke out, and he at once entered the service of the Government as agent of the Quartermaster's Depart- ment established at Wheeling, under command of Captain Craig. His duties comprised the superintendence of the transportation and delivery of munitions of war to the different commands in West Virginia, and this he pursued diligently until October, 1861, when he was commissioned by Governor Todd a Lieutenant in the Sixty-third Ohio Infantry, which at that time was being organized at Marietta. The organization of this regiment was finally completed by its con- solidation with the Twenty-second, under the command of Col. John W. Sprague. Pollock was made Regimental Adjutant, and in February, 1862, the regiment embarked at Marietta, moved down the Ohio river and reported to General Pope at Commerce, Mo. It marched thence with General Pope's command on New
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CAPT. OTIS W. POLLOCK.
Madrid. After besieging the place, and finally capturing it, the command crossed the Mississippi on transports a short distance below New Madrid, and moving up the river on the opposite side to a point across from Island Number Ten, captured and made prisoners the Confederate forces, thus securing Island Number Ten and opening the river as far down as Fort Pillow.
It now seemed to be the intention that Pope should move down the river with his army, and with the co-operation of troops from the interior to take Fort Pillow, and afterwards Memphis and so on, eventually opening the Mississippi to the Gulf. But the battle of Shiloh, which occurred on the 6th and 7th of April, caused a change of programme, and before Pope's army had time to disembark at Fort Pillow, he received instructions, in obedience to which he returned to Cairo, and thence up the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to Hamburg Landing, which placed him on the left flank of the combined forces of Grant and Buell, which were assembled on the west bank of the Tennessee river at Pittsburg Landing.
IIalleck, in person, having assumed command, a forward movement was at once begun, which resulted in the capture of Corinth on the 30th of May. Just pre- vious to the occupation of Corinth by the Federal troops, the affair at Farrington, which amounted to quite a respectable battle, was fought by Pope, and in which Lieutenant Pollock was engaged. On June 30, 1862, he was promoted to a Captaincy in the Sixty-third Ohio Infantry, and in the reports of the battles of Iuka, which occurred September 19th, and Corinth, October 4th, he was men- tioned as having rendered gallant and meritorious services. In the latter battle his regiment, of which he was Acting Adjutant, occupied the most exposed position in the field, supporting Battery Robinett. It repulsed three desperate assaults of the enemy, and lost one-half of its numbers in killed and wounded. Only four of its officers came out of the fight uninjured. Subsequently Captain Pollock participated with the Ohio Brigade under General Fuller in the engage- ment at Parker's Cross Roads, where Forrest was defeated with great loss.
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