USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. I > Part 77
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On May 27, 1864, the 2nd Penna. Heavy Artillery was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac, which had just passed through the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and North Anna, fought within a circle of twelve miles in diameter, which history records the bloodiest spot on earth. (See "History of 2nd Penna. Veteran Heavy Artillery, pp. 167-176).
In the early dawn of June 5, 1864, the regiment reinforced the Army of the Potomac at Cold Harbor, and was immediately formed in line of battle to charge the Confederate intrenchments, in front of which lay more than fourteen thou- sand dead, wounded and dying comrades, whose sufferings are graphically
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described in Drake's "History of the 9th New Jersey Veteran Volunteers," pp. 218-221; Eaton's "Civil War Photographs," p. 87; and "The Story of Ameri- can Heroism," pp. 412-414.
After the repulse at Cold Harbor, the Second Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, on the night of June 12, 1864, under a ceaseless fire of musketry and artillery, silently moved out of the Union trenches to the road in the rear, when the command in a low voice passed along the line, "Double up, double-quick march", which order was strictly obeyed until the White House Landing on the Pamunky river, twenty-two miles away, was reached. For an account of this flank move- ment, see "History of 2nd Penna. Veteran Heavy Artillery," pp. 59-60. On the 14th of June, Major-General William F. ( Baldy) Smith's 18th Army Corps of the Army of the James began a forward movement with Petersburg as its objective point. After days of continuous fighting, Smith's command closed in upon Petersburg.
At the battle of the Crater on the morning of July 30, 1864, the 2nd Pennsyl- vania Heavy Artillery stood in line of battle ready for the order to charge into the bloody vortex of death, in which more than four thousand comrades fell. For seventy-two days this brave Pennsylvania regiment lay in the advance line of trenches exposed to the incessant fire of the enemy day and night.
On September 29, 1864, occurred the battle of Chapin's Farm, which was fought by a part of the Army of the James, commanded by Major-General Ed- ward O. C. Ord, and was in reality a number of desperate charges against the intrenched and strongly fortified positions of the enemy. The first assault was directed against Battery Harrison, mounted with sixteen pieces of heavy artil- lery, which was successfully made. In this charge General Ord was wounded, and Brigadier-General Burnham, who led the storming columns, mortally wounded.
In the same chain of defenses on the right of Battery Harrison, was Fort Gil- mer, the key to Richmond, which was next assaulted, first by two divisions of the Ioth Corps, Army of the James, in succession. The first charge was made by Foster's division, and the other by Birney's division of colored troops. The charges of the brave men of this corps were repulsed with terrible slaughter. Again another assault was ordered, and soon the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artil- lery charged over the ground strewn with the bodies of dead and dying comrades, and many reached the redoubt in front of the fort where the gallant Colonel James L. Anderson fell at the head of his courageous men. Anderson's body was left on the field and never recovered.
This ended the battle of Chapin's Farm, in which the 2nd Penna. Heavy Artillery lost over three hundred men in killed, wounded and missing. (See "History of 2nd Penna. Veteran Heavy Artillery," pp. 107-8, etc.).
After the battle of Chapin's Farm, George M. Stark was appointed orderly to Major-General Godfrey Weitzel (one of the greatest compliments to bestow upon a soldier ) commander of the 25th Army Corps, Army of the James, the first troops to enter Richmond after its capture by the Union army at whose head on that eventful 3rd day of April, 1865, rode Weitzel, his staff and young Stark.
With the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, the slave-holders' rebellion, which sent sorrow and mourning into thousands of happy northern and southern homes, came to a righteous end, and soon the disbandment of the armies of the Union began. In the early, summer of 1865 the surviving
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heroes of the Second Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, with battle flags riddled with shot and shell, returned to their homes and firesides, and with them came George M. Stark, who became one of the leading business men of the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania. He died July 27, 1895, at his summer home near Dallas, Penn- sylvania, leaving surviving him his wife, Albertine Brace Stark. George M. Stark is buried in the historic Forty Fort Cemetery, near the site of the old fort, from which his revolutionary kinsman, Aaron Stark, marched forth to battle on the memorable third day of July, seventeen hundred and seventy-eight.
The following brothers of John M. Stark also served in the Civil War : William S. Stark, in the 52nd Penna. Infantry, George H. Stark ( Mexican War Veter- an) in the 177th Penna. Inf., and Henry W. Stark in Capt. Hileman's Company, of the 19th Penna. Inf.
Charles H. Flagg married his sister, Mary Jane Stark, and became captain of Company K, 142nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, made up of Pittston, Pennsylvania men, which he led into action at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, and with Meade's Division, ( Pennsylvania Reserves) in which were Sin- clair's, Jackson's and Magilton's brigades, courageously, in a terrific storm of shot and shell, charged the Confederate entrenchments on the Heights of Fred- ericksburg, defended by General A. P. Hill's division of Stonewall Jackson's corps.
During Hooker's campaign he was again under fire at Chancellorsville, where the Army of the Potomac met with disaster and defeat, after which there fol- lowed, in the rapid march of events, the invasion of Pennsylvania, one of the most perilous epochs in our country's history.
Captain Flagg was a Pennsylvanian by adoption, and gallantly served as an aide on the staff of Brigadier-General Thomas A. Rowley, who commanded the Ist Brigade, 3rd Division, of the First Army Corps, at Gettysburg. The 142nd Pennsylvania Volunteers fought in Rowley's brigade, and bravely helped to drive the rebel invaders off the soil of Pennsylvania.
After the clash of steel and thunder of battle was hushed, his body was found on the field and brought home to his young and griefstricken wife, who caused to be erected in the Hollenback Cemetery, to the memory of her soldier husband, an enduring monument of granite upon which is inscribed :
"CAPT. CHAS. H. FLAGG." "KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG." "JULY 3, 1863-AGED 29 YEARS." "Sleep, sleep, noble warrior, sleep, The tomb is now thy bed, Cold is its bosom, thou dost rest In silence with the dead." "We tell thy doom with many tears, How rose thy morning sun, How quickly too, alas it set, Warrior, thy march is done."
John M. Stark died at his residence in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, on March 14, 1896. Sarah (Davidson) Stark, his wife, died at her summer home at Lake Carey, Pennsylvania, September 9, 1898. Both are buried in Hollenback Ceme- tery.
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Lydia Ellen Stark was born in Plains Township, Luzerne county, Pennsyl- vania, May 19, 1851.
Ruth Mosier, only child of Frank C. Mosier and Lydia Ellen (Stark) Mosier, born April 2, 1893, died December 16, 1901. On the base of the Italian marble statue which marks her grave in Hollenback Cemetery are the inspired words: "Heavenly Bells are calling me now", which were found after her death among her child treasures, written in her own hand.
Frank C. Mosier is a Mason, and belongs to St. John's Lodge, F. and A. M., Pittston, Pennsylvania; Pittston Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Wyoming Val- ley Commandery, Knights Templar ; Pittston, Pennsylvania, (of which he is past eminent commander) Irem Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. (Mystic Shrine) Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania; and Keystone Consistory, S. P. R. S., 32ยบ, Ancient Ac- cepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Northern Jurisdiction, United States of America.
Frank C. Mosier is of the Democratic faith, and believes that a sound democ- racy is the substructure of this, the greatest government on earth, and favors the enactment of laws that will benefit all the people, promote everlasting tranquil- ity and continued prosperity throughout the length and breadth of the Union.
For centuries, the progress of the people of the Southern States was handi- capped by the two great Evils of the Ages. It required the awful horrors, suf- ferings and enormous expenses of a cruel fratricidal war to add the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The people whose soil has been drenched with the blood of its sons and de- vastated by invading armies, are now engaged in another revolution, and will, with ballots, destroy forever the other, which will never be extirpated until another amendment to the constitution, allowing a just compensation to all American citizens whose moneys are invested in the liquor traffic, is ratified by three-fourths of the States of the American Union.
In the halls of Congress, nothing should be left undone to perpetuate the friend- ship between the descendants of the men who followed the battle-flags of Grant or Lee. This will keep the Union safe to the end of Time, and save our fair land from being overrun by Pagan armies thoroughly drilled, armed and trained for battle, under the skies of Asia.
The subject of this sketch, in the past, has often been called upon to address the surviving soldiers of the Civil War, and his utterances have always com- manded respectful attention. Upon the occasion of the Fortieth Annual Reunion of the 143rd Pennsylvania Volunteers, September 1I, 1906, General J. Madison Drake, one of New Jersey's most gallant soldiers, was a prominent speaker and subsequently wrote Comrade Mosier that the address delivered by him at the reunion ought to be republished. The following is a copy of the letter which is inserted herein, with address referred to, copied from the columns of the Sun- day Leader, Elizabeth, N. J., in its issue of September 16, 1906:
Elizabeth, N. J., July 3, 1907.
Frank C. Mosier, Esq., Pittston, Pa.
My dear Comrade :- In the autumn of last year you delivered an address at Fern- brook Park, Penna., on the occasion of the Fortieth Annual Reunion of the gallant 143rd Penna. Vols., which I had the honor to attend. Rev. Otis A. Glazebrook, a Virginian, and an officer on the staff of General Stonewall Jackson, who preceded you in an eloquent
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and scholarly address, was outspoken in his admiration of your patriotic effort, and has often referred to it in words of praise.
I suggest that it would not be out of place to publish your speech entire in some historical work, as it not only reflects credit upon you as an orator, but also perpetuates the record of one of the bravest fighting regiments of the Second Brigade, Third Divi- sion, First Corps, Army of the Potomac. Fraternally yours,
(Signed) J. MADISON DRAKE, Capt. 9th N. J. Vols. and Bt. Brig. Gen. 1861 Medal of Honor, U. S. A., 1865.
After the conclusion of Captain Glazebrook's able and eloquent address, Hon. Patrick DeLacy of Scranton, Pennsylvania, president of the Regimental Associa- tion (143rd Penna. Vols.) afterwards commander of the Medal of Honor Legion, U. S. A., and department commander of Pennsylvania, Grand Army of the Republic, introduced Comrade Mosier, who spoke as follows :
In this assembly are many of the surviving veterans of America's great Civil War, who fought under the battle flags of Grant, Meade, Warren, Reynolds and Sheridan, or followed the banner of Lee and Jackson, or marched with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, which makes this reunion one of the most memorable in the history of the gallant One Hundred and Forty-third Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, who have met again beneath the autumnal skies of old Luzerne to greet comrades with whom they marched to battle, to help preserve the American Union from dismemberment and save from ruin, the great political edifice erected by the patriotic men of the north and south, who, upon the battlefields of the Revolution, were led by Virginia's greatest son, George Washing- ton, whose name will ever remain bright on the pages of his country's history.
When we study the great achievements of our Revolutionary forefathers during the prolonged struggle with the mother country, we admire their wisdom in civic council and bravery on the field of battle. Without these grand attributes inherent in the statesmen and soldiers of the Revolution and firmly adhered to by them from the beginning to the end of the conflict, victory would have been achieved by British arms and the fate of Ire- land, unhappy Ireland, the home of Emmett, whose memory will live forever in the hearts of the brave sons of the Emerald Isle; Scotland, the land of Bruce and Wallace, only in name, with all its ancient glory gone, nothing but its national music left, which sound- ed the charge of the brave Highlanders at Alma, the storming of the Malakhoff, and when they fought their way over the bodies of mutinous Sepoys to the gates of Lucknow, whose beleagured garrison, men, women and children, wept with tears of gladness when they faintly heard in the early dawn of the morning, afar away the bag pipes playing :
"The Campbells are coming: the Campbells are coming !"
Wales, the nation of bards, from the tops of whose rugged mountains the fires of lib- erty have long since gone out; India, with its restless Pagan and Mohammedan mil- lions-upon whom the watchful eye of the British lion will never close, and South Africa, subjugated and enslaved forever, would be ours to-day and the school children of Amer- ica, instead of reciting Drake's grand poem :
"When Freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there !"
would now be singing "God Save the King."
Our own favored land not included, where is the country, from the frozen seas of the north to the shores of the great southern ocean in the far south, that has ever thrown off the everlasting grip of England's rule?
The hand of God is visible in the great struggle for independence and more than three-quarters of a century afterwards, it appears again in American history, when it struck the bonds of slavery from the limbs of a race of human beings, who would never have been released from bondage, if Southern slavelords had not inaugurated a war for the destruction of the American Union in order to rear upon its ruins a government founded upon human slavery.
The statesmen of the south believed that slavery was a divine institution, and for years arrogantly advocated in the Congressional Halls of the nation that it should be ex- tended to all the new territories of the Amcrican Union. This provoked an irrepressible conflict between the north and south that culminated in war, which had to come, for in no other way could slavery, the relic of the dark ages, be forever extirpated from the land of the free.
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When the storm of the Civil War burst upon our beloved land, we of the north remembered with pride the traditions that made our country great, and when the call came to defend the old flag, maintain the supremacy of the constitution and save the Union, there was a mighty uprising of the patriotic men of America, with whom we include the loyal people of the border slave states of the Union, many of whose valiant sons bravely supported the government and fearlessly fought and died to save it from destruction. When the clouds of disunion darkened our political horizon, it required a high grade of patriotism and indomitable courage for the men of the south to remain true to their country which owes each and every one of them an eternal debt of gratitude, for without their aid, the Union would never have been restored.
To-day we are honored by the presence of an eminent and learned divine whose eloquence upon this occasion will ever be remembered. To him, under the peaceful skies of a restored Union, we gladly extend a friendly welcome for he was a brave soldier of the south and fought under the battle flag of Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, who, as the com- mander of a corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, won imperishable renown on many bloody fields, which placed his name high on the roll of fame, with the most eminent of Virginia's sons. At Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson fought the Army of the Potomac for the last time, the battle precipitating the invasion of the north, which soon followed in the rapid march of events.
We of Pennsylvania are proud of her grand Colonial and Revolutionary records. Upon her soil the Declaration of Independence was born, the Federal Constitution framed and the Thirteen Colonies formed into a more perfect Union. Pennsylvania, the last to adopt the Federal Constitution, stands in history, the Keystone state of the Union. Pennsylvania has always remained true to the Union and her valiant sons have taken part in every war in which the Republic has been engaged, and their blood has reddened the soil and crimsoned the seas from the walls of Quebec to those of Pekin, all for God, coun- try and freedom.
In 1861, when South Carolina fired upon the old flag, the thunder of disunion's guns rolled over sea and land, crossed the Potomac, shook the tomb of Washington, and, re-echo- ing among the hills and mountains of the north, it aroused Pennsylvania, whose troops were the first to rush to the defense of the imperiled National Capital.
Again in 1861, after the Army of McDowell fled defeated, demoralized and dismayed from the disastrous field of Bull Run, it was the Pennsylvania Reserves, fresh from their camps in the old Keystone State, marching up Pennsylvania avenue with 15,000 bayonets flashing in the summer's sun that restored order and saved the capitol from capture and pillage.
This nation owes an everlasting debt of gratitude to Andrew G. Curtin, the great War Governor of Pennsylvania, for through his patriotic efforts, the Pennsylvania Reserves were enrolled, trained, armed and equipped for battle. Curtin is dead. He sleeps among the Altoona Mountains, but justice will never be done his memory until his country erects a monument within the shade of the capitol he helped to save.
In 1863, the Confederate Army with Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville inscribed up- on its victorious banners, debouched from the plains of Culpepper in solid columns, marched northward nearly one hundred thousand strong. Sweeping across Maryland with the resistless force of a tornado, Lee crossed our southern border and met the Army of the Potomac, commanded by a gallant son of Pennsylvania, Gen. George G. Meade, who after a terrific combat, administered a crushing defeat to the invader. At Gettysburg, the high water mark of the Rebellion was reached, and after the crimson tide receded, the Confederate States of America, which came very near being marked on the map of nations, was doomed.
After years of blood, the loss of thousands of lives, the destruction of millions of property and expenditure of billions of money, Grant was called to the command of all the Union Armies, and at midnight on May 3, 1864, led the Army of the Potomac, the most formidable body of disciplined troops that ever went forth to battle on this continent, against the Army of Northern Virginia, strongly intrenched in the Wilderness. The cam- paign that followed is written in blood and revealed to the nations of the world the des- perate valor of northern and southern troops.
The surrender of the Confederate Armies made General Grant the hero of the hour. His conduct toward the vanquished revealed to his countrymen, the greatness of the silent soldier who had fought from the Rapidan to the James and compelled Lee to furl his battle flags and lay down his arms at Appomattox. Grant, in the hour of victory, was magnanimous. He looked upon those who had bravely opposed him in battle as Americans, and worthy of a victor's magnanimity. In after years he was chosen the ruler of a re- united people and when death summoned him from earth, a mighty nation mourned, for a great soldier and civic leader had passed away.
When the death notes of the bugle that once sounded the charge of the armies he led to victory, floated over the Hudson and re-echoed along its historic banks, there stood around the grave of Grant, brave comrades side by side with gallant soldiers of the South who were there to pay a last tribute to one who will ever live in history, the no- blest of Americans, for after he sheathed his sword, he uttered the immortal words: "Let us have peace," which a grateful country has inscribed upon his tomb.
The mighty blows struck by Abraham Lincoln in behalf of human freedom and the
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American Union, placed his name alongside of Washington, to be and remain there, so long as the Republic survives.
The fame of Grant, Sherman, Farragut, Meade, Warren, Reynolds, Hancock, Sheridan, Thomas and Logan will endure forever, for they commanded nearly three millions of men in arms, in one of the greatest fratracidal conflicts the world has ever known.
America's glorious sun of peace is now in the zenith, high up under the Union dome and its refulgent rays light up a land happy, prosperous and free under one flag, from whose blue fields there is no star lost in disunion's eternal night of political darkness.
For each star upon the nation's flag a battleship will soon be in commission to proclaim on every sea that our country is a world power ever ready and able to defend its possessions. wherever the waves of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and Carribean and China seas dash upon our shores. Nearly one hundred millions of people, representing no north, no south, no east, no west, are now firmly united under one flag, one constitution and one govern- ment.
More than four hundred years ago, the Ruler of nations permitted Spain, through the compass of the navigator or by conquest, to become the possessor of numerous small isl- ands in the mighty waste of waters extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of Asia. Spain was a cruel and oppressive master. From the days of Columbus, who felt the heavy weight of her ungrateful hand, the people of her colonies after paying tribute to their sovereign, were robbed, enslaved, tortured, or thrown into prison. This would have continued down to the present time if an intrepid son of the Green Mountain State had not, with a squadron of his country's warships, manned by brave northern and southern men, fearlessly entered Manilla Bay and demolished the sea power of Spain in the Orient, which placed Dewey on the roll of sea fighters with Drake, Nelson and Farragut, to which we add the name of Togo, the hero of the Sea of Japan.
In the harbor of Santiago, again the patriotic sons of the Union, under the gallant Schley, of Maryland, dealt the battleships of Cervera a blow which was as destructive as God's storm centuries before, which destroyed the Spanish armada and made England mis- tress of the seas.
In the war invoked by God and declared by Congress for the liberation of Cuba, whose leaders all want office, and whose people are restless, on the verge of revolution and unfit for self-government, let us not forget the brave and gallant men who courageously charged up Santiago Hill under one flag, went down to death together and now sleep in one common grave.
The part taken in the Spanish-American War by Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, and Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama, gallant Confederate troopers, will never be forgotten by a grateful country. In the far off incoming years, the example of Lee and Wheeler and thousands of patriotic southern men who fought under Dewey, Schley, Lawton and Roosevelt will ever be remembered by the future rulers of this Republic, who will always trust the descend- ants of the men who espoused the cause of the south in the Civil War when the order, founded on the Federal constitution is given, let no one but Americans be placed on guard !
FRANKLIN LAWRENCE SHEPPARD
and
HOWARD REYNOLDS SHEPPARD
The paternal ancestors of the subjects of this sketch were early settlers in Salem county, New Jersey, the Sheppards coming there originally from Eng- land, while the Westcotts, with whom the former family early and often inter- married, came to Salem, Massachusetts, a half century earlier and located in Salem, New Jersey, at about the same time as the Sheppards. The Sayres, another ancestral line also came from New England to New Jersey, by way, however, of Long Island.
DAVID SHEPPARD, with Eve his wife, settled for some years at Shrewsbury, Monmouth county, East Jersey, and in 1688, removed to that part of Salem county, West Jersey, later incorporated as Cumberland county, taking up 500 acres of land lying on the south side of Cohansey river and on the north side of Back's creek which flows into Delaware Bay, which was known as Back Neck. Here, David Sheppard died early in 1696, leaving a will dated November 30, 1695, in which he devises to his wife Eve, "the right and privilege of my Mansion House and improved land and thirty pounds current money of this Province", besides a full share of his personal estate with his sons David, John and Joseph and his daughters, Elizabeth and Hannah Sheppard. To his eldest son David, and his second son Jolin, he devises each 150 acres of land in Back Neck, and to his son Joseph, when of age, twenty pounds. To his daughter Ruth Abbot he devises five shillings, having probably provided for her on her marriage. David Shep- pard was one of the organizers in 1690 of the First Cohansey Baptist Church, and the first and second church edifice, the latter erected in 1741, stood on the north side of Cohansey creek, south of the road leading to Sheppard's plantation and mill. The church has long since disappeared and a new church has been erected at Roadstown; but the old grave-yard near the siet of the ancient church building, where many of the Sheppard family are interred, is still enclosed.
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