USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume IV > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68
Upon the issuance of its own currency to an unlimited extent, unbacked by any form of tangible reserves and upon such foreign loans as its representatives abroad might secure, the financial status of the Confederacy at length, depended. Through the instrumentality of Baron Erlanger, an international loan actually was floated in England in March, 1863, the sum of sixteen millions sterling being raised by the efforts of its sponsors. These millions went, however, for the payment of famous blockade runners built in British and French ports and aside from awakening in the mind of the French Emperor a dream of the con- quest of Mexico and thus assisting the Confederacy from that direction, not much accomplishment was the outcome. The almost immediate fall of these foreign issues of the South to discouraging levels, added a faith to the Federal cause that no great fear was to be entertained as to further foreign interference and that the end of 1863 presaged the beginning of the end of open rebellion.
Of necessity, the strategy of the North, in 1864, implied taking the offensive with all the initiative at its command. Military leadership of an aggressive type, so noticeably lacking in the early years, became the one great problem of the administration. How it was found in the elevation of Grant to the rank of Lieutenant General and the handling of military affairs by men in the field, rather than by a bureaucracy at Washington, are matters of general history.
2085
Financially, the Federal government found itself sound. To furnish heavy replacements for its arinies so as to provide that overwhelming man power necessary to crush the Confederacy, was the one final problem.
The War Department set about this task without hesitation. Plans were formulated upon the assumption that the Federal armies would have a numerical strength of one million effectives in the Spring of 1864.
On February 1st, the President called for five hundred thousand volunteers and where this number was found lacking, the processes of the Draft Law were to be set in motion. By a combination of these two impelling motives for re- cruitment, the call was finally answered in time for the contemplated Spring campaigns.
While the principle organizations recruited in Luzerne County during the war have been mentioned and the names of those who composed these organiza- tions have been recorded insofar as rosters in possession of the Commonwealth permit, it is not to be inferred that the total of individual residents who responded to various calls has thus been encompassed. The fact that friends or relatives were serving in other units than those mentioned or that local officers were con- cerned in the organization of units not credited to the Wyoming Valley induced many local recruits to join these outside companies and thus escape classification in regiments known in local annals.
It was in this way that Robert Bruce Ricketts* became associated with an organization in which few other residents of Luzerne County served. He pre- ferred the light artillery arm and enlisted in the 43rd Pennsylvania Light Artillery where, as man and officer, his was to be one of the most distinguished contribut- ions made by citizen-soldiers of the Commonwealth to the Federal cause.
No mention has been made of the 50th Regiment, Company I of which was recruited along the borders of Luzerne County, nor of the services of the 53rd Regiment Company F of which, as well as several staff officers, came from what was then Luzerne County, nor of the 96th Regiment, the nucleus of which was the National Light Infantry of Pottsville but a portion of which organization was recruited in the tier of townships bordering Schuylkill County. The 142d Regiment, organized at practically the same time as Luzerne's own 143rd Regi- ment, had an overflow of volunteers from the community represented in Com- pany K, and Major John Bradley served among its distinguished staff officers. The Wyoming Valley was likewise represented in the 149th Regiment of the Bucktail Brigade, the familiar emblem worn in the hats of its survivors, adding distinction to its subsequent reunions. The 17th and 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiments likewise contained a sprinkling of recruits from the county, being among the last of the Pennsylvania's many volunteer regiments to be organized.
In the few Draft regiments sponsored by the Commonwealth in the latter days of the Rebellion, a quota was furnished the 177th Regiment and an entire unit, designated as Company C of the 178th Regiment, was composed of those willing, for a consideration, to take the place of lawful draftees within the county's limits.
It seems unnecessary for the present writer to follow the thread of the Civil War through many additional pages of this Chapter. How, after the Wilder-
*ROBERT BRUCE RICKETTS was born at Orangeville, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, April 29, 1839, the fifth son of Elijah Green and Margaret (Lockhart) Ricketts. Elijah G. Ricketts was the son of Edward Ricketts (born in 1759) of Scottish descent, who in 1781 was a Lieutenant in Capt. John Spencer's Company of the Second Battalion of Bedford County, Pennsylvania Militia, commanded by Col. Hugh Davidson.
Robert Bruce Ricketts was studying for admission to the Bar when, in the Spring of 1861. the American Civil
2086
ness, Lee was practically invested within narrow limits with Richmond as a base; how this base was rendered precarious by the march of General Sherman which ruthlessly divided the Confederacy in twain and opened the way for Admiral Farragut's exploit at Mobile; how the tired Johnson and his still more weary troops surrendered to Sherman, and the once dashing troopers of Hood yielded to Thomas are stories of their own whose interest is not lost in the telling. The War broke out; but soon after the beginning of hostilities, he quit his law studies (never to resume them again) and enlisted for a term of three years for service in the Union Army as a private in Battery F (commanded by Capt. Ezra W.
Matthews) of the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artil- lery (the 43d Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers). He was mustered into service July 8, 1861, and on the 5th of the follow- ing month was promoted and commissioned First Lieutenant of Battery F. The 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery was or- ganized at Harrisburg, being commanded by Col. Charles T. Campbell, and early in August, 1861, the regiment was ordered to Washington, where it went into camp near the United States Arsenal. There it was completely armed and equipped, and a few weeks later the sev- eral batteries of the regi- ment were separated aud assigned to different div- isions and corps of the army, and were never again united as a regi- ment. Battery F. pro- ceeded on September 12, 1861, to Darnestown, Maryland, where it was attached to the 5th Corps (commanded by Gen. N. P. Banks) of the Army of the Potomac.
Lieutenant Ricketts, in command of his section of the battery, was under fire for the first time ou December 20, 1861, in an engagement with a body of the enemy on the upper Potomac. Early in Jan- uary, 1863, Battery F. having been previously assigned to the 2nd Div- ision of the 1st Corps, Army of the Potomac, was assigned to the 3rd Division of that corps, at which time Lieutenant Ricketts was in actual command of the battery, which had come to be known as "Ricketts' Bat- tery." Under date of February 23, 1863, Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the Army of the Potomac, communicated to the ar- tillery commander of the Ist Corps the following: "None of your batteries are in bad order-the only corps so reported. The batteries in the best order are Reynolds' 'L', 1st New York, Ricketts' 'F', 1st Pennsylvania, and Lepperne's 5th Maine."
COL. ROBERT BRUCE RICKETTS
Captain Matthews of Battery F. was promoted Major March 14, 1863, and on the 8th of the following May, Lieutenant Ricketts was promoted Captain. As stated above, he was already in command of Battery F. Three weeks later Battery G of the 1st Pennsylvania Artillery was attached to Battery F-Captain Ricketts assuming com- mand of the consolidated batteries, comprising three commissioned officers and one hundred and forty-one non-com- missioned officers and privates.
As thus constituted the organization was commonly denominated "Ricketts' Battery," and it formed a part of the "Artillery Reserve" of the Army of the Potomac. This "Reserve" (commanded on June 1, 1863, by Brig. Gen. R. O. Tyler) was composed of one brigade of Regulars and three brigades of Volunteers. "Ricketts' Battery was a part of the 3rd Volunteer Brigade," commanded by Capt. James F. Huntington of the Ist Ohio Light Artillery.
Ricketts' Battery performed very noteworthy services at the battle of Gettysburg. On the second day of the battle (July 2, 1863) the battery occupied an exposed position on East Cemetery Hill, which Captain Ricketts was
2087
ordered to hold at all hazards. Battery I (commanded by Capt. Michael Wiedrick) of the Ist New York Light Artillery. attached to the Artillery Brigade of the 3d Division of the 11th Corps, was on Ricketts' right, while on his left was a battery of Rhode Island Light Artillery.
In the midst of the general action late in the afternoon of the second day, the famous Confederate brigades com- manded by Brig. Gens. Hays and Archer, composed of five regiments of Louisiana infantry, aggregating about seventeen hundred men, and popularly known as the "Louisiana Tigers", having formed in the streets of Gettysburg, suddenly and unexpectedly, with fiendish yells, charged upon Ricketts' Battery and its supports. The "Tigers" were daring and reckless men, who knew no fear.
"As soon as Captain Ricketts discovered that this compact and desperate Rebel column was moving upon his position, he charged his pieces with grape and canister, and poured forth deadly volleys," states Bates, in his "History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers." "The infantry supports, lying behind the stone wall in front, fled in despair, and so the brunt of the attack fell upon Ricketts; but he well knew that the heart of the whole army was throbbing for him in that desperate hour, and how much the enemy coveted the prize for which he was making so desperate a throw. With an iron hand, Ricketts kept every man to his post, and every gun in full play," and the terrible "Tigers." beaten back, retired discomfited and disrupted.
A Union soldier, who was present on Cemetery Hill at that time, afterwards wrote concerning the charge of the "Tigers" as follows:
"Many of them endured the deadly and destructive missiles, and, reaching the 11th Corps line, soon forced their way over the stone wall, actually leaping over our men. They yelled and charged up the hill, and in less time than I can tell the story they have reached the top and captured Wiedrick's battery. Then it is they yell and charge sonth- ward over the second stone wall, and capture the two left guns of Ricketts' Battery, and attempt to spike the same; but Ricketts' men will not yield to it. Then occurs the hand to hand struggle on Cemetery Hill, where they use ram- rods, gun-swabs, handspikes, the butts of muskets, stones, and even their fists. It is then that Lieutenant Brockway brains a 'Tiger' with a stone; another is brained with a handspike, while still another is beaten to death with a guidon.
"It is then that (General) Hancock again comes to the rescue, by sending Carroll's brigade to re-enforce our men on Cemetery Hill. Then it is that we charge and drive down the hill what is left of the 'Tigers.' Out of the seventeen hundred that made the charge, less than three hundred got back to the town. Over fourteen hundred were captured, killed and wounded, and their organization was not known thereafter."
"Tradition, story, history-all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg."
Notwithstanding the severe and strennous character of the work which fell to the lot of Ricketts' Battery at the battle of Gettysburg, its casualties were comparatively few in number-fourteen officers and men being woulded, three men being captured, and six being killed.
It would be interesting to follow Captain Ricketts and his battery into subsequent important and bloody battles and through other successful campaigns to the dawn of peace. but the limits of this sketch will not permit any further references to Captain Ricketts' military career other than the statement that December 1, 1864, he was promoted Major, and as such, in January, 1865, was in command of the artillery of the 9th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He was promoted Colonel of the Ist Pennsylvania Light Artillery March 15, 1865. He was honorably discharged from the military service of the United States June 3, 1865, and shortly thereafter located in Wilkes-Barre, where he con- tinued to reside until his death.
Shortly after his return to civil pursuits, being then in the twenty-seventh year of his life, Colonel Ricketts came into possession of vast tracts of primitive woodland on the North Mountain, in the counties of Luzerne, Sullivan and Wyoming, Pennsylvania, where, for a number of years subsequently to 1892-alone, and in partnership with others. he carried on an extensive business in the manufacture and sale of lumber. Later he converted a portion of this ample North Mountain estate (Including Lake Ganoga) into a handsome and attractive place of residence, where, for the last fifteen or twenty years of his life, he and his family spent the greater part of each year.
In 1886 Colonel Ricketts was nominated for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania by the Democratic party of the State (the Hon. Chauncey F. Black being the nominee for Governor); but at the election in November the Republican party was triumphant, Gen. James A. Beaver being elected Governor and the Hon. William T. Davies Lieutenant Governor. In Luzerne County Colonel Ricketts received 12,816 votes, which gave him a majority of 1,730 votes over the candidates of the Republican and Prohibition parties in his home county. Two years later the Democratic State Convention would have given Colonel Ricketts the gubernatorial nomination had he not refused to allow his name to be brought before the convention.
In April, 1898, President Judge Woodward of the Courts of Luzerne County appointed Colonel Ricketts Receiver of Taxes in and for the city of Wilkes-Barre, and this office he held until April 1, 1902. He was a member of Conyngham Post, No. 97, Grand Army of the Republic; a companion of the First Class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; a member of the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monument Commission; a member of the World's Columbian Fair Commission; a member of the Wyoming Commemorative Association; a member of the Westmoreland Club, Wilkes-Barré, and was Vice President (in 1889) of its original Board of Directors. He was a member of the Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, and was a charter member and the first Eminent Commander of Dieu Le Vent Commandery, No. 45, Knights Templar, constituted at Wilkes-Barré in September 1872. He was elected a member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society May 8, 1885.
Colonel Ricketts possessed an abundance of cheerfulness and geniality, and was unquestionably a man who was truly fond of his friends, always loyal to them and delighting in their companionship. By them he was greatly beloved. He was ever a modest man, and it was a matter of great difficulty to get him to talk about himself and his achieve- ments either as a soldier or a civilian.
Robert Bruce Ricketts was married at Wilkes-Barre October 1, 1868, to Elizabeth Reynolds (born at Kingston, Pennsylvania, April 13, 1842), sixth child of the Hon. William Champion and Jane Holberton (Smith) Reynolds. William Champion Reynolds, who was born in what is now the borough of Plymouth, Wyoming Valley, December 9, 1801, was the son of Benjamin, grandson of David and great-grandson of William Reynolds. The last-named was one of the earliest New England settlers in Wyoming under the auspices of the Susquehanna Company, and was a partici- pant in many of the stirring events of those early days.
William C. Reynolds was for many years a man of prominence and influence in Wyoming Valley, being actively and successfully engaged in the mining and shipping of coal and in general mercantile pursuits. He served two terms as a Representative from Luzerne County in the State Legislature of Pennsylvania; was for five years an Associate Judge of the Courts of Luzerne County; was for thirteen years a Trustee of Wyoming Seminary, Kingston; was one of the organizers, later a Director, and for a time President of the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Company; was for several years, up to the time of his death, a Director of The Wyoming National Bank of Wilkes-Barre (of which at a later period, one of his sons was President).
He was an original member of The Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, and retained his membership therein until his death, which occurred at his home on South River Street, Wilkes-Barre, January 25, 1869.
Mrs. Elizabeth (Reynolds) Ricketts became a member of The Wyoming Historical and Geological Society in 1896, and, until ill-health affected her activities, she took an intelligent, earnest and helpful interest in the welfare and ad- vancement of the Society. She was also a member of the Wyoming Commemorative Association; the Society of May- flower Descendants; the Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America; Wyoming Valley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Society of Colonial Governors. She was also, for many years, a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilkes-Barré.
She was a woman of the most lovable character, gentle and refined by nature, intelligent and cultured by education and training, dignified, yet always approachable, studiously regardful and considerate of the feelings and opinions of others, sympathetic and truly benevolent with respect to those who were in trouble and distress-in a word, she was just the sort of a woman whose friendship one would feel honored in having and be most desirous of holding. To her family and friends it was a matter of great sadness and regret that during the last two or three years of her life she was affiicted with hodily and organic maladies most aggravating and severe in their character.
Colonel Ricketts died at the family home at Lake Ganoga, North Mountain, November 13, 1918, and just six days later Mrs. Ricketts died at the family residence in Wilkes-Barre. It was the expressed wish of each of them that their remains should be interred side by side at a spot on North Mountain which they had selected some time previously. They were survived by two daughters and one son. William Reynolds, Jean Holberton and Frances Leigh Ricketts (Mrs. William S. McLean, Jr.)
2088
Confederacy was doomed from the time that Grant's policy administered smash- ing, follow-through blows in the Wilderness.
Only once thereafter, did sponsors of the Lost Cause regain a momentary hope. General Lee, although practically surrounded, planned one last desperate stroke, which almost succeeded in purpose. Communicating with Gen. Jubal A. Early in July, 1864, he ordered that intrepid leader to once more try the road to the Potomac through the Shenandoah Valley with Washington as an object- ive and the hope, with its capture, of securing a form of peace which would save the face of his cause. That the military policy of Grant left open this door to the South, almost unprotected, as it was, was admittedly a grave oversight. Starting northward with seventeen thousand veterans, stripped of all impedi- menta and moving with startling swiftness, the impetuous Early swept all be- fore him until the dome of the Capitol was in plain sight of his advance guard and Washington itself had almost given up hope of the arrival of sufficient troops to defend it. The appearance, by a strange decree of fate, of the Nine- teenth Corps by sea from the ill-fated Red River expedition of the winter before, saved the city, but Early leisurely moved southward, extracting ransoms in cash from unfortunate Pennsylvania communities as he went, until he, like the others, was to meet a crushing defeat at Cedar Run at the hands of the brilliant Sheridan.
The remaining steps of Grant's policy were taken with inexorable inilitary precision. Atlanta was literally presented to the President by Sherman as a welcome "Christmas present" near the close of the struggle's most decisive year. Fort Fisher, guarding the last open port of the Confederacy, fell under the most terrific naval attack of the age, on January 15, 1865. It remained for the 31st of March to witness the beginning of the last "grand movement" which was to end the titanic struggle. Lee had defended Petersburg with masterful skill, extending his thinning lines throughout the extensive defences of that city and depending upon his alertness in handling mobile reserves to prevent penetration by assault. The dashing Sheridan led the final assault on the Confederate right, but so desperately was the position held that Warren's corps was sent to his assistance. Next morning Grant attacked in force and before another sun was to set the doom of Lee's army was sealed. Sending word of this final disaster to his superiors at Richmond who made their escape while the city was being evacuated, the genius of Lee was devoted to saving what he could of his shattered army and of escaping to Danville, where he hoped to reunite the remnants of the Confederacy. This forlorn hope was not to be fulfilled. By paralleling the retreat of the worn and rationless survivors of Lee's demoralized forces, Grant was able to outdistance his adversary, and at Appomattox court house, Lee found himself completely surrounded. On April 7, 1865, the famous correspond- ence between the commanding generals was opened which was to terminate on the 9th when formal terms of surrender were agreed upon. In the Wyoming Valley the news of Lee's surrender was the occasion of rejoicing bordering almost on delirium, the scenes enacted having no parallel in local history except when the 11th of November, 1918, brought authentic news of terms of the Armistice, which was to end the World War-the bloodiest and most destructive military contest of all time.
THE FORTUNES OF WAR
CHAPTER XLVII.
EARLY MINING DISASTERS-RAILROADS ENTER WYOMING-STREET CARS- WILKES-BARRE BECOMES A CITY-EARLY WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS- RAILROAD STRIKES-STORY OF WYOMING MONUMENT-CENTEN- ARY OF THE BATTLE-LACKAWANNA COUNTY ERECTED- FIRST TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE-THE ROCKA-
FELLOW FAILURE-INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION- THE CYCLONE OF 1890.
While other States may sow and reap, Or forge the sabre bold, Or on a heap of glittering quartz Sit counting up their gold, Or weave the silk or cotton cloth To wrap Columbia's form, 'Tis Pennsylvania tends the heartli That keeps the country warm.
Her court is in a darksome mine Below the light of day, And troops of sturdy miners march Her mandates to obey. Black diamonds crown her dusky brow, She never seeks to roam, But for the nation keeps aglow The sacred fires of home.
Hail! Keystone State upon thy throne Of ebon anthracite, The proudest rulers of the earth Bow low before thy might. Bright altars to thy name and fame From azure sea to sea, Twice fifty million blazing hearths Send up their smoke to thee. -Minna Irving.
The cycle of events recorded in the present Chapter embraces major incidents of community life from a readjustment period, following the Civil war, to the year 1890.
Starting with an era of high prices, which lent a mighty impulse to the development of the anthracite business, there followed a long period of general prosperity, interrupted occasionally by re-alignment of values to correct inflation tendencies and by such business disturbances as an inadequate system of national finances might tend to produce.
2089
2090
The country was growing rapidly. The scars of war were being effaced in proportion as the laws of supply and demand were permitted a natural oper- ation unhampered by unjustifiable and often vindicative laws which marked the years of "Reconstruction."
In perhaps greater measure than the rest of the country, the Wyoming valley shared the material progress and prosperity which set a seal upon national affairs. The year following Appomatox found an all-rail transportation system entering Wilkes-Barré. In the same year, residents gladly acclaimed the first street car which began regular trips from the Public Square to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western passenger station at Kingston. Still later in the year the first cobblestone pavement was laid on West Market Street. The following year taught the need of a modern fire department in the lesson of the "Great Fire" in the West Market street district. In the year 1871, Wilkes-Barré was to kick off the swaddling clothes of Borough existence and become a City of the third class. In 1877, the community experienced a share in the railroad riots which flared up suddenly and savagely in an otherwise uneventful period.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.