USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 > Part 16
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ORMAN MACALESTER SMITHI, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth cavalry, was born on the 22d of December, 1841, in Philadelphia. He was the son of Edward T. and Ann Macalester (Bacon) Smith. Until his sixteenth year he was educated in his native city, and in Burlington, New Jersey. He then entered the Norris locomotive works, for the purpose of learning practically mechanical engineering, which was frustrated by the opening of the war. He was deprived, by death, of a
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mother at ten, and a father at fourteen years of age. He volun- teered, on the 19th of April, 1861, in the Commonwealth Artil lery of Philadelphia, in which he served for three months at Fort Delaware. On being mustered out he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Fifty-eighth regiment, but declined the posi- tion, enlisting instead in the Anderson Troop, on the 15th of October, and serving in it until June, 1862, having in the mean- time participated in the battles of Shiloh and Corinth. In the former he was personal orderly to General Buell, who, in noticing the conduct of his staff, said : "I would add that the conduct of privates Smith and Hewitt came particularly under my observa- tion, and the gallant manner in which, during the hottest of the fight, they rallied scattered parties of men, and led them back to their regiments, is deserving of the highest commendation."
In June, 1862, he was ordered to Pennsylvania to recruit for the Fifteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, then being organized, in which he was commissioned Captain. In this capacity he par- ticipated in the battles of Antietam and Williamsport, Maryland, and in Triune, Wilkinson's Cross Roads, Stone River, Lavergne, and Woodbury, Tennessee. In June, 1863, he resigned and entered the Nineteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, serving first as Quartermaster, then as Adjutant, and finally as Captain of Com- panies L and C, participating in the actions at Okaloona, Ivy Farm, Mississippi ; Cypress Swamp, Tennessee; Gun Town, Black River, Utica, Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, Mississippi ; Marion, Arkansas; Nashville, Hollow Tree Gap, Franklin, Anthony's Hill, Tennessee; and Sugar Creek, Alabama. During the summer of 1864 he served as Inspector and Assistant Adju- tant-General of the First brigade, cavalry division of the Army of West Tennessee. In the Nashville campaign he was for the most part in command of his regiment, and by his energy and skill won for it lasting renown. General Hammond, who led the brigade to which it belonged, says: "The Nineteenth Pennsyl- vania cavalry was for the greater part of the time commanded by Norman M. Smith, who, although only a Captain, was alone able to do anything with the regiment. Under him it was efficient, and at all times ready for work. I strongly urged that he be made Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, a rank belonging to the
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. HORACE B. BURNHAM.
position which he holds. I now hope that it is not too late to recognize his merit, by the brevets of Major and Lieutenant- Colonel, which he richly deserves for his services during the campaign when Hood was defeated at Nashville and pursued across the Tennessee River, even if he had served nowhere else, and for personal gallantry and attention to duty in the field." To this unqualified commendation General George H. Thomas added his own approval, particularly calling attention to the request.
ORACE BLOIS BURNHAM, Colonel of the Sixty-seventh regi- ment, was born on the 10th of September, 1824, at Spen- certown, Columbia county, New York. He received a good English education, with some knowledge of the classics, and read law with D. A. Lathrop, of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania. He came to the bar in 1844, and practised in the counties of Luzerne, Carbon, Wayne, Pike, and Monroe. He was married on the 22d of February, 1846, to Miss Ruth Ann Jackson. He entered the service in July, 1861, and in October following was made Lieu- tenant-Colonel of the Sixty-seventh regiment. For more than a year and a half it was on duty at Annapolis, Maryland. It was at Winchester in the column of Milroy when struck by the head of the entire rebel army on its way to Gettysburg, and was terribly decimated in the encounter which ensued. He remained with the Third corps until the expiration of his term of service, on the 30th of October, 1864, when he was appointed by Presi- dent Lincoln a Judge Advocate with the rank of Major in the regular army, in which capacity he acted on court-martial duty and in the Bureau of Military Justice at Washington, until April, 1867. He was then ordered to duty as Chief Judge Advocate of the First Military District, with head-quarters at Richmond, Virginia. He was at the same time Judge of Hustings Court here, from September, 1867, to May, 1869, and President Judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, from May, 1869, to May, 1870, by appointment, in accordance with an act of Congress. At the end of this time he was ordered to Atlanta, Georgia, as Chief Judge Advocate of the Department of the South, and subse- quently, when the head-quarters of that department were trans- ferred to Louisville, Kentucky, he accompanied it thither. On
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
the 4th of November, 1872, he was assigned to duty in the same capacity in the Department of the Platte, embracing Iowa and Nebraska, and the Territories of Wyoming and Utah, head- quarters at Omaha, where he is still engaged. He was brevetted Colonel by the President in July, 1865, for gallant and meritori- ous services during the war.
ARCUS A. RENO, Colonel of, the Twelfth cavalry, and Brevet Brigadier-General, is a native of Carrolton, Green county, Illinois. His ancestors were of French descent, who, three or four generations back, had settled upon the French possessions on the Mississippi. His mother was a native of Hyattstown, Maryland. His boyhood was spent at school in his native place, and he was destined for the mercantile profession ; but, having received the appointment at West Point through the influence of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who was a friend of the family, he entered that school, and in due course graduated in 1857. He engaged immediately thereafter in the national service, as an officer of the First United States cavalry, from which, towards the close of the late war, he was promoted to Colonel of the Twelfth Pennsylvania cavalry, One Hundred and Thirteenth of the line. In the action of Kelly's Ford in March, 1863, he was severely wounded, which incapacitated him for duty in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, the only battles in which the Army of the Potomac had part in which he did not participate. He was brevetted a Brigadier-General on the 13th of March, 1865. He was married in 1863 to a daughter of Robert J. Ross, of Harrisburg.
ILLIAM ANDREW ROBINSON, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-seventh regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-General, was born at North East, Erie county, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of June, 1830. He was the son of William A. and Nancy (Cochran) Robinson, both of Scotch-Irish descent. His father, his grand- father, Thomas, and his great-grandfather, George, were all natives of central Pennsylvania. His early years were passed upon a farm, and his education was obtained in the district school, and at academies in Chatauqua county, New York, and
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MARCUS A. RENO .- WILLIAM A. ROBINSON.
Ashtabula, Ohio. After leaving school and until the Rebellion came he was associated with older brothers in business in Pitts- burg. When the flag of his country was assailed, and troops were called for its defence, he enlisted in a company known as the Pittsburg Rifles, in which he served as a Sergeant. Failing of acceptance in the three months' force, it was held in camp, and became Company A of the Ninth Reserve. In October, 1861, he was transferred to the Seventy-seventh regiment, as First Lieu- tenant of Company E, and in the April following was promoted to Captain. It was one of the few infantry regiments sent to the Western army from Pennsylvania, in the early part of the war, and was with Grant at Shiloh, being upon the front in the final charge and taking many prisoners. At Stone River, on the 31st of December, 1862, where the right wing of Rosecrans' army was attacked at early dawn with great fury and by overwhelming numbers, this was one of the few regiments which was in readiness to receive the blow, and made a stubborn defence. Robinson led his company with marked valor, and received the warm commen- dation of his superior officers. He participated in all the battles of the Army of the Cumberland down to the ill-starred contest at Chickamauga. Here the Seventy-seventh with some other troops were isolated in a critical stage of the battle, and being unsup- ported, the field officers, seven line officers, and the greater part of the men were taken prisoners. For fifteen months Captain Robinson was an inmate of rebel prisons of the worst type, at a period when the harshest treatment was accorded to the unfortu- nate victims : six months at Libby ; three at Columbia, South Carolina; three at Macon, Georgia; and three at Charleston, under fire of General Gilmore's powerful guns. He was associ- ated with Colonels Streight and Rose in tunnelling their way out of Libby-a herculean labor, and attended with remarkable im- mediate success, but not in the liberation of Captain Robinson. While confined at Macon he was selected as one of a committee of Union officers to go to Andersonville and make known to the Union Government the horrors to which the poor victims of cruelty and barbarity were subjected, in the hope that the administration would be induced on hearing their report to enter upon a system of exchange which the Confederates well knew
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. .
would redound largely to their advantage. But this committee refused to interfere, believing that the Government was well aware of the facts and would act wisely.
After his exchange and a brief furlough, he was placed on duty for a time at Columbus, Ohio, whence he was sent to his regiment, of which he had command during most of the time until his final muster out on the 6th of December, 1865. After the close of hostilities in the East he was sent to Texas, where further trouble was anticipated, but which subsided under the strong arm of Sheridan. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General, on the 13th of March, 1865. Throughout his entire term of service he displayed great coolness and courage, and wonderful powers of endurance. The terrible marches he performed in East Tennessee, where for weeks the men were forced to subsist on green corn-his journey home through Kentucky after his furlough, where he was captured by guerillas-his escape and journey to the Union lines through rain and storm-and his long imprisonment would have broken the spirit and the constitution of one not preeminently endowed. "I asked him," says his brother, the Rev. Thomas H. Robinson, D. D., of Harrisburg, "how he managed to come home from fifteen months of rebel prison life looking so fat and hearty. He answered 'by keeping cheerful and keeping clean.' He was strictly temperate, full of patience and endurance, very bright and hopeful in disposition and a fine companion in camp. He was an excellent singer, and in Libby he had a good chance to use his voice. He read and with others acted from the plays of Shakspeare, which I sent him while there in six volumes. He said he never felt fear but once, and that was when moving under a terrible fire at Stone River. There for a moment he leaned against a tree. The feeling passed quickly, and he led his com- pany on. His picket duty at Stone River and the fighting there he considered about as trying as any he ever witnessed."
OHN FRANCIS GLENN, Colonel of the Twenty-third regiment. Few regiments in the volunteer service deserve greater credit than the Twenty-third Pennsylvania. It was first commanded by Colonel Charles P. Dare; and upon its reorganization at the
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JOHN F. GLENN.
end of the three months' service was led by that fearless and intrepid soldier, Major-General David B. Birney. He was suc- ceeded by Brigadier-General Thomas H. Neil, an officer whose ability soon gained him promotion, and he was followed by Brevet Brigadier-General John Ely. Though these several offi- cers in succession held the nominal command, their skill and their reliability caused them to be often called to command brigades or divisions, and the real leadership fell to an officer of minor rank, John Francis Glenn, who finally became its Colonel, and continued at its head till the close of its term of service.
He was born on the 2d of November, 1829, in Philadelphia. His father, William Glenn, and his mother, Margaret (Tate) Glenn, were both natives of that city. His parents being poor, the son enjoyed scarcely any educational advantages, and from the age of seven to sixteen was obliged to labor incessantly at various occupations. At the close of this period he entered a printing office, where he acquired not only practical skill but a large fund of useful information.
In the summer of 1847, upon the call for troops to go to Mexico, he volunteered, then at the age of eighteen, as a private in Company D, First regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers. After his return from a victorious campaign, in which he acquitted himself with credit, he joined the National Rifle company, a militia organization of Philadelphia, in which he rose to the rank of Lieutenant and afterwards to Captain. When the Rebel- lion opened no soldier more promptly stepped to the front. He raised a company for the Twenty-third three months' regiment, and showed himself in the affair at Falling Waters a truc soldier. Upon the reorganization of this regiment for three years, he became Captain of Company A. At the close of the Peninsula campaign, in which his regiment served, he was promoted to the rank of Major. In the battle of Fredericksburg, he bore himself with distinguished gallantry, and fairly won the honor which was accorded him at its close, promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Scarcely a year later, in December, 1863, he was again promoted, and now to the full command of the regiment.
Colonel Glenn was the recipient of many complimentary notices from officers high in command. That veteran soldier,
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
General Heintzelman, at the battle of Fair Oaks, publicly com- mended him for volunteering, after he had been wounded, to advance with one hundred picked men and a section of Miller's battery, to hold the enemy in check until a division, which was on its way to the front, could get into position. The duty was executed with fearless intrepidity, and with success. At Malvern Hill, General Couch warmly praised his courage and steadfast- ness in holding his regiment for thirteen hours under a fire unparalleled for its severity. At Marye's Heights, General Alexander Shaler gave him unqualified commendation for the manner in which he advanced with five companies of his regi- ment to open the engagement on the morning of the 3d of May, 1863. At Cold Harbor, General David Russell, following the generous impulse of the brave soldier, spoke in the most lauda- tory terms of his gallant bearing in the terrible conflicts of the 1st, 2d, and 3d of June, 1864.
At the expiration of his term, on the Sth of September, with his regiment, he was mustered out of service. Colonel Glenn is in person six feet in height, of fair complexion, and of nervous temperament, a condition indicative of ceaseless vigilance, which signally characterized him. He was married on the 17th of February, 1850, to Eleanora Forebaugh.
HARLES M. BETTS, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifteenth cav- alry, was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of August, 1838. His boyhood was passed upon a farm, and in attending the public schools. He received, in addition, instruc- tion at an academy in his native county, and at Burlington, New Jersey. Having a taste for mercantile life, he went to Philadel- phia in 1857, where he became clerk in a wholesale lumber estab- lishment. In November, 1861, he was appointed chief clerk in the Quartermaster's Department of General Franklin's division, then stationed near Alexandria, Virginia, and served in that capacity through the entire Peninsula campaign. At Harrison's Landing he left that army, and in response to the President's call for fresh troops, enlisted as a private in the Fifteenth Pennsyl- vania (Anderson) cavalry, which rendezvoused at Carlisle. He was soon after promoted to Sergeant, and when the enemy invaded
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CHARLES M. BETTS.
Maryland on the Antietam campaign, he was sent as acting First Lieutenant of a detail made to picket the southern border of Pennsylvania, and to cooperate with the troops of Mcclellan. He was subsequently commissioned First Sergeant at Louisville, Kentucky, whither the regiment had been ordered.
Upon the reorganization of the command at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in March, he was commissioned Captain of Com- pany F, which he led in the stirring campaign of 1863, and near the close of the year, in a fight with the Cherokee Indians at Gatlinsburg, received a severe wound in the left arm, by which he was incapacitated for duty for a period of two months. In May, 1864, he was commissioned Major, which gave him the leadership of a battalion. As the armies of the Union advanced, the duties of the cavalry were greatly increased, requiring inces- sant activity. At the opening of the campaign of 1865, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and given the active command of the regiment. With Stoneman's column he went upon an im- portant expedition into North Carolina, and after rapid riding and the successful accomplishment of the object, he was put upon the trail of Jefferson Davis, who, after the surrender of Lee and Johns- ton, was endeavoring to escape to the Gulf with large sums of Confederate treasure. "On the morning of the Sth instant," says General Palmer, "while searching for Davis near the fork of the Appalachee and Oconee rivers, Colonel Betts, Fifteenth Pennsyl- vania cavalry, captured seven wagons, hidden in the woods, which contained $188,000 in coin, $1,588,000 in bank notes, bonds, etc., of various Southern States, and about $4,000,000 of Confederate money, besides considerable specie, plate, and other valuables belonging to private citizens in Macon. . .. The wagons also contained the private baggage, maps, and official papers of Gen- erals Beauregard and Pillow." In closing his report of this exciting chase, General Palmer says : " I desire to recommend for honorable mention and promotion, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles M. Betts, commanding Fifteenth Pennsylvania cavalry, for gallant conduct in charging and capturing a South Carolina battalion of cavalry, with its commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, in front of Greensboro, on the morning of April 11th, 1865; also for thoroughly preserving the discipline of his regiment, on an
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
active campaign during which the troops were compelled to live exclusively on the country." At the conclusion of the war, Colonel Betts returned to the mercantile business which he left to enter the service. In stature, he is six feet and nearly two inches in height.
ILLIAM BUEL FRANKLIN, Major-General of volunteers, and Brevet Major-General. United States Army, was born at York, Pennsylvania, on the 27th of February, 1823. He was educated at West Point, where he graduated first in the class of 1843. In the same year he joined the Topographical En- gineers, and was with Kearny in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1845. He was on the staff of General Taylor in Mexico, and was brevetted First Lieutenant for gallantry at Buena Vista. For four years, commencing in 1848, he was As- sistant Professor of Natural Philosophy at West Point. During a part of the year 1852 he was Professor of Natural Philosophy and Civil Engineering in the Free Academy, New York city. In 1857 he was commissioned Captain, and from 1857 to 1859 he was Engineer Secretary of the Light House Board. He was sub- sequently appointed Superintendent of the extensions of the Post Office and Capitol at Washington, and in March, 1861, of the extension of the National Treasury building and Chief of the Bureau of Construction of the Treasury Department.
On the 14th of May, 1861, he returned to military duty as Colonel of the Twelfth infantry, and in the same month was made Brigadier-General of volunteers. In the first battle of Bull Run, he commanded a brigade in Heintzelman's division, and was active and fearless throughout the long hours of that trying day. In the advance up the Peninsula in May, 1862, Mcclellan sent him in command of a division by transport to White House to strike the flank of the enemy's column. On the 15th of May he was given a corps, which he held in front of Richmond during the first three of the Seven Days, easily repulsing the noisy demonstrations of the foe, and on the fourth, the 29th of June, in conjunction with Sumner, checked the enemy in his eager ad- vance on Savage Station. On the 30th he was in chief command at the bridge at White Oak Swamp, holding the enemy at bay,
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WILLIAM B. FRANKLIN.
and preventing him from reaching the Charles City Cross Roads field. For his services in this campaign he was made Major- General of volunteers, and Brigadier-General by brevet in the regular army. In the battle of South Mountain he had the left wing, and having swept the enemy from Crampton's Pass, led on towards Antietam. It was here Mcclellan's intention to have held Franklin in reserve; but being hard pressed on the right, Franklin was sent to the assistance of Sumner, where he was thrown upon the most hotly-contested part of the field. At Fred- ericksburg he commanded the left Grand Division, composed of the First and Sixth corps, led respectively by Reynolds and Smith. He was ordered by Burnside to make a demonstration with a division, and be prepared to support it with another. He made the attack with the First corps, the Pennsylvania Reserves being selected for the assault. It was entirely successful, the Reserves penetrating to the rear of the rebel line, and was sup- ported by two divisions instead of one as directed; but even these were insufficient for more than a demonstration. It would seem that Burnside intended that a demonstration should be made upon the left, and that the main attack should come from the town itself. From the fact that the battle proved a great disaster, a disposition was manifested to censure Franklin for not cordially supporting Burnside. But the facts do not warrant this view. Had Burnside ordered him to attack and break the enemy's left, then there would have been cause for blame.
General Franklin was subsequently transferred to the Depart- ment of the Gulf, and during the summer of 1863 commanded at Baton Rouge. On the 15th of August he was placed in com- mand of the Nineteenth Army corps. He took part in the Red River expedition, being engaged at Sabine Cross Roads, where he was wounded, at Pleasant Hill, and Cane River. On the 13th of March, 1865, he was brevetted Major-General in the regular army, and resigned one year thereafter. He became Vice-Presi- dent and general agent of Colt's Fire-Arm Company at Hartford, Connecticut, in November, 1865, where he is still engaged. He was chosen President of the Commissioners constituted for the erection of a new State House in that city, and is at present Con- sulting Engineer of the Board.
CHAPTER X.
NDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS, Brigadier- General in the regular service, and Major-Gen- eral of volunteers, was born in Philadelphia, on the 2d of November, 1810. He was the son of Samuel Humphreys of that city, Chief Constructor of the Navy. He was educated at West Point, graduating in 1831. Entering the service as Bre- vet Second Lieutenant in the Second artillery, 11 he served until April, 1832, as Assistant Professor of Engineers at West Point. He then took the field and was engaged against the Indians in Florida, where he displayed that resolution and intrepidity which was destined to make his name illustrious. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in August, 1836, but in September following resigned. On the 7th of July, 1838, he was reappointed First Lieutenant of Topographi- cal Engineers. From 1845 to 1849 he was assistant to the Chief of the Coast Survey, having in the meantime been promoted to . Captain. In August, 1853, he was placed over the Bureau of Explorations and Surveys in the War Department. He was pro- moted to Major in August, 1861, and in March, 1862, was Aide- de-camp on the staff of General Mcclellan, with the rank of Colonel. On the 6th of May, 1862, he was made Brigadier-Gen- eral of volunteers. Upon the organization of the regiments from Pennsylvania for the nine months' service, late in the summer of 1862, General Humphreys was given their command, consti- tuting the Third division of the Fifth corps. It was of Hooker's Grand Division, and at a critical period in the battle of Fred- ericksburg he was ordered in as a forlorn hope. It was in front of Marye's Heights, where three veteran divisions had already been thrown back torn and bleeding. A great harvest of death
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