Ebay Find: Two USCTs Send Pay Home to Quaker Farmer in Gap

Adams Express Company Cash Envelope from Isaac Parker to Joshua Brinton (Ebay)

Reverse of Envelope from Isaac Parker to Joshua Brinton (Ebay)

Adams Express Company Cash Envelope from Henry Harley to Joshua Brinton (Ebay)

Once again, an item being auctioned on Ebay led me on a rather fascinating research trail.  This time it is a pair of envelopes used to forward cash via the Adams Express Company.  In both cases, soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, United States Colored Troop, sent money to a Quaker farmer near Gap. 

The 3rd USCT was organized in the summer of 1863 in Philadelphia, and largely recruited from central Pennsylvania.  Among those who enlisted were two African-American men from Lancaster County:

• Isaac Parker, born c.1836 and mustered in as a corporal in Company B on June 30, 1863.  Parker shows up in the 1860 census as a farm laborer in Salisbury Township.  He is listed with presumably his wife and daughter: Mary Parker, age 20, and Sarah Parker, age 6.  Going back to the 1850 census, it is likely that Isaac Parker matches the sixteen year-old by that name who resided in West Caln Township in Chester County with Loyd Parker (age 63) and Margaret Parker (age 32).  Isaac Parker appears adjacent to the Brinton family in the 1860 census (see below), so it is likely that Parker labored on Brinton's farm.  
• Henry Harley, born c. 1841 in Lancaster County (according to his USCT service record) and mustered in as a private in Company B on June 30, 1863.  I haven't been able to find anything else about him before the war, but he appears in the 1870 census as living in a black community and working as a laborer in Fernandina, Florida.  This census notes that he could read but not write.  

After training at Camp William Penn, the 3rd USCT moved south and went right into combat as part of the siege of Fort Wagner on Morris Island.  The regiment spent most of 1864 in Jacksonville, Florida, manning garrisons and going out on details.

While serving in South Carolina and Florida, both Parker and Harley sent some of the pay back to Lancaster County.  To do so, they paid the Adams Express Company to carry their cash to a Quaker farmer near Gap named Joshua Brinton.  Parker's envelope contained $15 and was sent from Morris Island on October 19, 1863.  Harley's envelope contained $120 and was sent from an unknown location on October 5, 1864.

Gravestone of Isaac Parker
Beaufort National Cemetery

Sadly, Parker died on April 25, 1864, in Beaufort, South Carolina, presumably in a military hospital there.  He was buried in what is now the Beaufort National Cemetery.  I had the opportunity to visit the cemetery a year ago and take the pictures displayed in this post. 

Much more information is known about Joshua Brinton (1811-1892), the recipient of the cash for Parker and Harley.  His farm was approximately one mile northeast of Gap near the small community of Limeville (see map below).  The 1903 Biographical Annals described him as " an excellent farmer but not an excellent manager for the reason that his too generous nature induced him too often to expend his means in aiding his friends when he should have applied them to use nearer at home. Lacking only a wise economy, he was a consistent member of the Society of Friends and an unusually warm upholder of its principles and methods."  He is credited in the March 8, 1861, Liberator with donating five dollars to relief for sufferers in Kansas.  I believe that Brinton is a direct descendant of William Brinton, who built what is now the William Brinton 1704 House museum in West Chester, which would make him a distant cousin of Gen. George Brinton McClellan. 

Gravestone of Horace Passmore
Beaufort National Cemetery

In a sad coincidence, Brinton's brother-in-law also served and died around the same time and place as Parker.  Brinton married Mary E. Passmore on November 23, 1848, in Philadelphia.  Mary's younger brother, Horace Passmore, enlisted in Company A, 97th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, on August 22, 1861.  The 97th Pennsylvania operated in South Carolina in 1862 and 1863, and Passmore would have experienced grueling conditions around Charleston and Fort Wagner in the summer of 1863.  Passmore died of chronic diarrhea on November 18, 1863, a little over a month after the regiment moved to Fernandina, Florida.

PA Service Card for Horace Passmore, 97th Pennsylvania

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Census listing Isaac Parker and Joshua Brinton, Salisbury Township, 1860

Detail of 1864 Salisbury Township Map showing farm of Joshua Brinton near Limeville

Gravestone of Horace Passmore at Beaufort National Cemetery

Church Records Speak -- Lancaster's Slaveholders, "Elmer Ellsworth ___", 79th Pa Connections, Faith and Gender

Trinity Lutheran Church, Lancaster
(From Memorial Volume, 1861)

While it may seem that the Civil War has been studied from virtually every angle, one important but largely missing perspective is the experience of religious communities such as churches and synagogues on the local level.  Over the past ten years, I've thoroughly enjoyed researching Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (see here) -- one of Lancaster's more physically and historically prominent churches -- and have been lucky in the abundant high-quality primary source material that I have been able to glean.  This has better enabled me to better understand the war's effect on individuals at the local level, as well as take historical persons more seriously (sometimes a problem in Civil War studies) due to our shared institutional connection.

Since earlier this year, I've even been working with members of First Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh (the one at the base of the US Steel Building) to reproduce this line of research inquiries and see what we find.  A comparative lack of newspaper primary sources and turn-of-the-century industrial biographies for First Lutheran Church and Pittsburgh vs. Holy Trinity and Lancaster has made us turn to (1) published sources related to famous pastors Passavant and Krauth and (2) church records as staring points.  Studying church records prompted me to go back and do something during a recent weekend in Lancaster that I had not done before (at least not comprehensively): examine Holy Trinity's baptism, marriage, and burial records.  In this post, I'll give some thoughts based on my preliminary scan of these records.

Slavery in Lancaster

(This paragraph refers to an LCHS Journal Article: Ebersole, Mark. ‘German Religious Groups and Slavery in Lancaster County Prior to the Civil War.” Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society. Vol. 107, No. 4. Winter, 2005-2006. 158-187.)

I'll start by saying that it's rather jarring to someone with your last name (Schlauch, or its many Anglicized forms such as Slough and Slaugh) and connected to the same church listed as "one of the largest chattel-holders of the county" with eleven slaves.  It turns out that there's no perceptible genealogical relationship, as my Schlauch line only came from Germany to Lancaster in 1871 (Andreas Schlauch, from Baden Baden), but the somewhat surprising fact remains that some of Lancaster's and Holy Trinity's leaders in the mid-1700s owned African Americans as slaves.  Ebersole describes this essentially as a adaptation by select Germans of a more largely English practice.  While it may not have had the industrial scale of later forms of slavery in the cotton South, slavery in Lancaster still evidently involved the separation of families for profit and slaves and a system that some slaves tried to flee.  Clearly, it's a complex subject with a range of primary and secondary sources that I still need to study.

At Holy Trinity in the late 1700s and early 1800s, free and enslaved African Americans had some level of participation in church life through baptism, marriage, and burial (hence, the helpfulness of church records).  In the years after emancipation began as a gradual process in 1780, laymen and pastors of Holy Trinity supported the founding of African-American churches in Lancaster and later joined the Africa colonization movement.  Despite giving some prominent examples of slaveholders, Ebersole writes that "for the most part, the Moravian, Reformed, and Lutheran churchmen also stayed aloof from the English culture, and from all slavery practices, upon their arrival in the New World."  It will be interesting in future research to identify differences in opinion between members of the congregation, as well as the German-born Rev. Gottlob F. Krotel and the Pennsylvania-born Rev. F. W. Conrad,  Furthermore, what can we infer from the exclusion of African-Americans at Trinity-connected Woodward Hill Cemetery, or from the Ladies' Kansas Relief Meeting at Holy Trinity that so irked the Democratic Intelligencer (12/4/1860)?

I don't recognize too many family connections between the mid-1700s slaveholders and those active with Holy Trinity in the Civil War Era, with one exception: records exist of George Hopson Krug's grandfather Valentine Krug leaving slaves to George's father Jacob in his will.  The Krug family was known for its tannery, and George H. Krug was an important lay leader at Holy Trinity until his death in 1869.  At Holy Trinity in 1842, Krug's daughter, Rebecca, married a young Navy officer named William Reynolds, whose father was in the same Democratic Lancaster social circles (think James Buchanan) as Rebecca's father.  William went on to lead a remarkable career in the Navy, and his younger brother John Fulton Reynolds achieved even greater fame as a general in the Army of the Potomac.

Baby Names 

Col. Elmer Ellsworth

One rather interesting way to assess the patriotism of the people affiliated with Holy Trinity at this time is to look at trends at baby names.  And we're really talking about one trend: many people named their child after Elmer Ellsworth, the Union martyr who died one month into the war while trying to seize a Confederate flag in Alexandria, Virginia.  A total of nine(!) children (out of roughly 10-12 per month) baptized at Holy Trinity in the succeeding months would bear some version of his name (one baby born in April 19 was even apparently named retroactively).  Especially because the original Elmer Ellsworth was known pretty much solely as a martyr, these children seem to be a way for families to signal their willingness to sacrifice for the Union cause.  Here is a list:     

• Elmer Ellsworth Filler (b. 4/19/1861), son of Henry and Juliana Filler (sponsor).   
• Elmer Ellsworth Shreiner (b. 6/15/1861), son of Henry Michael and Mary Shreiner (sponsor). 
• Ellsworth Leibley (b. 6/20/1861), son of Jacob and Elizabeth Leibley (sponsor).  
• Elmer Ellsworth Winour (b. 7/15/1861), son of George Washington and Fanny Winour. Sponsored by Amelia Sensendorfer.  
• Charles Ellsworth Peterman (b. 8/2/1861), son of George and Frances Peterman (sponsor). 
• Ellmer Ellsworth Steigerwalt (b. 9/5/1861), son of Michael F. and Martha Steigerwalt (sponsored by both parents).   
• Charles Ellsworth Bowman (b. 9/23/1861), son of William and Catherine Bowman (sponsor).
• Ellsworth Holtz (b. 8/9/1862), son of George Washington and Mary Ann Holtz (sponsored by both parents).
• Edward Elmer Ellsworth Cogley (b. 12/13/1861), son of Joseph and Sarah Ann Cogley (sponsored by grandmother).

A couple other names show up in the records, but none with the concentration of Elmer Ellsworth:

• George B. McClellan Killian (b. 4/18/1863), son of Henry K. and Pricilla Killian (sponsored by both parents).  I wonder how ardent abolitionist F. W. Conrad felt baptizing this child.  
• Abraham Lincoln Mishler (b. 11/9/1865), son of Isaac and Catherine Mishler.  Sponsored by mother.

At least two children were also named after the Rev. Dr. Gottlob "George" F. Krotel, who had earned the admiration of much of the congregation before his departure to Philadelphia in 1861.

• George Krotel Bender (b. 8/17/1861), son of Benjamin S. and Hetty Bender (sponsor).  
• George Frederick Krotel Erisman (b. 2/23/1863), son of Emanuel J. and Mary Erisman (sponsor not listed). 

79th Pa Connections

79th PA Monument, Chickamauga

From the baptismal records, I also recognized a few 79th Pennsylvania connections, which I note here for future biographical or genealogical research or investigations of the social networks from which the Lancaster County Regiment was raised:

• Capt. Jacob Gompf: Jacob Augustus (b. 10/14/1860) baptized 3/14/1861 with mother Susan as sponsor.  
• James P. Dysart (brother of 79th PA captains): Henry Scherff (b. 11/26/1860) baptized 4/18/1861).  Sponsored by grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Henry Scherff.
• Capt. Edward Edgerly: Edward Everett Edgerly (b. 9/3/1859).  Son of Edward and Rosanna Edgerly. Sponsored by grandparents John and Rosanna Stehman.  
• Lieut. William P. Leonard.  Three children with wife Harriet baptized on 6/10/1867.  Daughter Emma Virginia (b. 6/24/1846) baptized on July 15, 1846.
• William F. Dostman (b. 10/8/1841), son of John Peter and Catherine Dostman (sponsor).  
• Horace Binney Vondersmith (b. 5/6/1844), son of Daniel B. and Clara Elizabeth Vondersmith.  Both parents sponsored.
• Robert M. Dysart and Lyman G. Bodie: both listed in death records for mid/late-1860s which I did not copy.

Note that Dostman and Vondersmith are the color bearers depicted in the 79th Pennsylvania's Chickamauga monument.  In the battle, Dostman was fatally wounded by an exploding shell and Vondersmith carried the flag forward.  As an aside, Vondersmith's father, Daniel B. Vondersmith, had become infamous during the 1850s when he fled the United States on charges of fraud in a pension forging scheme.  He later returned to serve jail time before being pardoned.  Later in life, he could be found as the cashier for a traveling circus.  His son, meanwhile, earned a sterling reputation as Lancaster's fire chief.  I'll have to document the lives of the father and son Vondersmith in a future post.

And connections to other notables:

• Oliver J. Dickey (Republican politician): Mary Elvira (b. 9/10/1858) baptized 11/10/1860.  Sponsored by mother Elizabeth.
• Rebecca Reynolds Krug (b. 6/23/1861), daughter of John H. and Henrietta Krug.  Named after her aunt, wife of future Admiral William Reynolds.  Baptized 8/12/1861. Sponsored by grandfather George H. Krug.  Rebecca Reynolds Krug and Rebecca Krug Reynolds seemed to have a mother-daughter relationship (see latter's obituary). 
• Emlen Franklin (Col., 122nd PA): Emlen Augustus (b. 2/23/1864) baptized on 12/3/1865, son of Emlen and Clara Amelia Franklin.  Both parents were sponsors.  
• George Unkle (correspondent and Pvt., 9th PA Cavalry): Ann Elizabeth Unkel (b. 2/11/1845), daughter of George and Ann Adelaid Unkle.  

Future Questions -- Gender and Faith

One thing that stuck out is approximately one-third to one-half of the baptisms only seem to have the mother as the sponsor.  What does this say about church membership and gender roles?  Is this specific to Holy Trinity or to Lutherans?  Was there a lost generation of men in churches in the mid-1800s?  Were maternal lines more important in determining a family's religious life?  Or is there some other reason to explain the trend?  I'll have to pay attention to these questions as I look at other churches' records and dig up Lutheran newspapers to see if any editorialists comment on a trend.

I'm glad I finally took the time to flip through Holy Trinity's records.  It's given a few interesting data points to help characterize the Union cause and will help to fill in some holes about 79th Pa personalities.  I haven't even touched on the weightier themes of the interplay between competing Lutheran ideologies and competing national ideologies regarding the Lutheran identity, race, patriotism, and church life.

Look for a future posts with a more biographical focus on members of Holy Trinity to enhance our capacity to imagine and study how the war affected communities and individuals.

Living History Prep: Researching Pennsylvania in May 1864

My wife and I beside French Creek at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, June 2013 (Tintype by Jim Pfeiffer)

Once or twice a year, my wife and I have the opportunity to participate in a living history event in which reenactors partner with a historical site to interpret a specific historical event.  My wife savors the opportunity to assemble a high-quality wardrobe, and I generally enjoy doing some of the background research about a particular person, place, and time.  Neither of us are big fans of "first-person" portrayals where we pretend to be a person in the 1860s, but we're happy to do it if it enables us to do something special with costumes, material culture, biography, and history.

This year, we are planning to return to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site on May 16-18, 2014, in Elverson, Pennsylvania (~20 miles east of New Holland).  The theme of the event is "Enduring the Storm: Hopewell 1864," which excites me as an opportunity to research how Northern communities fared in 1864 -- a time of the war that I've read much less about in newspapers.  So, I recently had the Daily Evening Express microfilm sent out to Pittsburgh to do some research.  I scanned the editions of the newspaper covering May 16-18, 1864, to share with other reenactors and to spark ideas about what to interpret at the event.  Here are links to the PDFs:

• Monday, May 16, 1864
• Tuesday, May 17, 1864
• Wednesday, May 18, 1864

Going over these newspapers, a few themes emerge that might be worthwhile pursuing as topics to research further and possibly incorporate into the event:

1.  Emancipation as a moral imperative.  Instead of talking about emancipation as a military necessity, the possibility of an antislavery amendment brought moral arguments against slavery into pages of the Daily Evening Express, a Republican newspaper.  The Express ran an essay entitled "The Demon of Slavery" by Henry Ward Beecher on its front page, and editorialized that the war's objective was now "the merciless mandated, 'Slavery must die!'"  Among Lancaster's mainstream Republican community, emancipation was pretty much an afterthought in the rush to war, and then really came up in the context of confusing policy situations in which military found itself in 1862.  By 1864, we see that ending slavery went hand-in-hand with winning the war.
2. Details from the Battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania.  Initial reports had indicated a victory with heavy losses in these first meetings between Grant and Lee, with more clashes expected.  More local news -- casualty lists from the Lancaster companies and accounts of the Pennsylvania Reserves in battle -- began to trickle in a couple days after the national news.  The five Pennsylvania Reserves companies or two 45th Pennsylvania companies suffered moderate casualties.  
3. Soldiers fairs.  News about local soldiers fairs and support for an upcoming fair in Philadelphia filled newspapers for much of the first half of 1864.  In addition to raising the morale of and materially aiding local soldiers, they seem to have served to re-energize the Northern populace and provided a welcome distraction as the war dragged on.  
4. Inflation and prices.  Trade organizations for hotel keepers and shoemakers made attempts to publish suggested prices as the war raised prices of materials.
5. Veterans home on furlough.  Most had already come home and were back in the field, but a few had their furlough in May.  Company G, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, was home during this time.  Sadly, one of its veterans was killed when jumping off a train at Elizabethtown. 
6. Administration of veterans' bounties. Veterans who reenlisted were promised bounties from municipalities (that received credit for their reenlistment against their draft quota).  Families were slow to receive that money, much to the indignation of soldiers who wrote letters of protest.  
7. Preparing for the election of 1864. Newspaper editors talked about the Virginia campaigns and military strategy in the context of campaign strategy.  The Union Party (Lincoln's party) would have its convention in the first week of June.  With its editorial, "The President and the War," the Express made clear its unwavering support for Lincoln saying, "The country may rely, with unfaltering trust, upon the supreme devotion of the President to the defence of the Government and the suppression of the rebellion.  He has never, in a single instance, given the slightest ground for the imputation of being governed by personal ambition, or by any other motive than devotion to the public good."

We'll see how these themes develop over the upcoming weeks and if any would be amenable to interpretation at Hopewell.  One of the next steps will be to portray a historical persona.  Last year, I portrayed Lancasterian William A. Heitshu, who married Mary Geiger, daughter of an iron master with operations in the region.  Geigertown, a crossroads two miles west of Hopewell Furnace, was named after their ancestors, and my wife and I pretended to be visiting the village on our respective business and personal matters.  The completion of the Reading and Columbia Railroad gave an excuse to talk about pig iron markets and the pig iron supply chain with some of the other reenactors.  Like I said, pretending to be historical persons is silly on some level, but it often gives an excuse for a fun train of research questions.  We'll see how our impressions develop this year, and I'll try to give an occasional update as I research the issues facing residents of Lancaster, Berks, and Chester Counties in May 1864.    

A Slave in Lancaster County on the Eve of the Civil War?

"Historical Geography" map about Slavery, 1888 (See discussion at Civil War Memory)

While researching Samuel Evans, native of Columbia and Quartermaster of the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves, for his correspondence after the Battle of South Mountain published in the Columbia Spy, I stumbled across a very interesting note in that newspaper. In light of a post by Kevin Levin mentioning slavery in the North, I thought I'd raise the issue here to ask for any research advice.

In the April 11, 1857, Columbia Spy <link>, there’s a note that according to the 1857 Septennial Census one enslaved person still resided in Lancaster County. It explained that anyone who was a slave in 1780 would continue being a slave according to Pennsylvania’s emancipation law, implying that this person was at least 77 years old in 1857.  I have no further information about this person and almost no familiarity with researching these types of records.  However, once I had a name, I bet it wouldn't be terribly difficult to find more pieces to the story. 

Does anyone have any suggestions about where to begin researching?  Or know what the 1857 Septennial Census is?  If so, please post a comment below, or contact me at vince <at> lancasteratwar.com. 

My next step would be to check out Daily Evening Express issues from around April 11, 1857,  to see if J.M.W. Geist had anything to say on this topic, but I don't expect to have that opportunity anytime soon.

Sypher Dispatches: Florence, a Truce Party, and back to Columbia

Florence, Alabama (Wikipedia)

This post contains the sixth, seventh, and eighth letters of Lancaster journalist and adventurer J. R. Sypher.  Read an introduction here. 

After chasing away Confederates from the opposite side of the Tennessee River and a somewhat daring raid in which some boats were burned and captured, the 79th Pennsylvania's next mission was a march to the town of Florence, Alabama, about twenty miles downriver from Rogersville.  Advance elements took the city on May 16, and the main body arrived the next day. 

Occupying Florence--in which the Lancaster County boys under acting Provost Marshall Capt. Morris D. Wickersham represented themselves well--seemed to appeal to 79th Pennsylvania.  As a sidenote, Wickersham actually spent much of the rest of his life in Mobile, Alabama, as a lawyer and minor politician there.  Sypher noted, teasing Wickersham (whom he likely knew well through education causes in Lancaster):

This morning Captain Wickersham was sent in with two companies to picket and guard the town, and when it was seen how good looking and well-behaved the Lancaster soldiers were, to say nothing personal of the officers, the ladies of Florence really put on their nice things, not rough home-spun, and appeared in the streets and at the door-ways, it is feared to a damaging extent, for many of the boys say they would "like to remain awhile."

Otherwise, the most noteworthy news item was the exchange of the notorious Confederate Cavalryman John Hunt Morgan's son for the son of Union Gen. Ormsby Mitchel.  Gen. Negley graciously allowed J. R. Sypher to accompany the truce party, and his letter describes what he saw within Confederate lines. 

Monument in Lawrenceburg, TN
(Wikipedia)

The week-long expedition ended on a very sour note, though, as the regiment received orders to march hurriedly northward.  They stopped at one o'clock in the morning to bivouac on the Tennessee-Alabama line.  The next day took them on a wilderness road to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, and another day's march in the rain got them to Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, and a camp they called Camp Duchman after the regiment's aged (and mostly irrelevant) lieutenant colonel.  The command finally reached their old camping grounds at Camp Morehead in Columbia on May 21 or 22. 

Sypher, who had probably been spending time with his brother's artillery section, returned to the Lancaster County Regiment and was outraged to see men of the 79th Pennsylvania without shoes, which launched him into a tirade about a Army quartermaster and feelings about Jewish speculators similar to that what Gen. Grant had when he expelled Jews from the Western Theater later that year. 

Other topics in Sypher's letters include:

• Unkind words for Negley's staff officers' handling of the march.
• Outrage at the 5th Kentucky Cavalry (Col. Haggard), which was "especially notorious and obnoxious as slave catchers".
• Comical indignation at being mistaken for a chaplain.
• Policies by Tennessee's Governor Andrew Johnson to punish those who destroy Unionists' property
• A review of Capt. Standart's Ohio battery
• The forced opening of Columbia's churches so that Union soldiers could attend

Since there are three letters, I won't embed them here but instead will provide the links:

1. May 17, 1862, Florence, Ala., in the May 24, 1862, Daily Evening Express
2. May 22, 1862, Columbia, Tenn., in the May 31, 1862, Daily Evening Express
3. May 28, 1862, Nashville, Tenn., in the June 5, 1862, Daily Evening Express

Sypher Dispathes: 'Little Wee Blue-Bellied Yankees'

Newspaper Cart and Vendor in Camp (Alexander Gardner, Library of Congress)

The following post features the second and third letters written by Lancaster's civilian adventurer and journalist J. R. Sypher in a grand tour of the Western Theater in May and June1862.  See this post <link> for an introduction to his tour.

Five days after leaving Lancaster, Josiah Sypher finally reached the encampment of Gen. Negley's division on May 7, 1862.  A letter he wrote the following day describes his journey from Louisville to Columbia, Tennessee, essentially retracing the route that the 79th Pennsylvania marched between October 1861 and March 1862.  Sypher's comments touch on the state of the railroads, the desire among soldiers for newspapers, and conditions in Nashville and Columbia.  Sypher had just missed the excitement following the capture of Capt. Kendrick's detail and the expedition to Pulaski by a battalion from the 79th Pennsylvania, which I posted about two weeks ago. 

His next letter, dated May 12, recounts the forward movement of some infantry, artillery, and cavalry commanded by Gen. Negley from Columbia to Pulaski.  After Negley and his bodyguard, a section of artillery coincidentally commanded by Sypher's brother, Lieut. A. J. Sypher, led the march followed by the 79th Pennsylvania mounted on wagons and the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Enslaved African-Americans along the route made an impression upon J. R. Sypher, a staunch if not Radical Republican who took the time to "converse with a large number of these peculiarly situated people."  See his second letter posted below for an interesting description of those conversations, and Sypher's impression of their view of the world and of the Yankees ("wee men wid blue bellies, so small that you couldn't hardly shoot 'em.").  Sypher concludes by focusing on the vexing question of what the Union Army will do with the slaves in occupied territory, "the most important interrogatory of the age," and describing how he struggled to give an answer to an old man "whose soul was panting for freedom."            

Map of Tennessee from Columbia to Pulaski (Extracted from 1863 Map)
<View here>

With apologies for a corrupted image files late in the letter, here is Sypher's letter from May 8 published in the May 14, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)


And from the May 19, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link) 

The Lutherans Make a Statement on the War, Slavery, and Emancipation

Trinity Lutheran Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
The General Synod met here in 1862.
An 1866 meeting of the Pennsylvania Ministerium
is depicted in the image above (from a stereoview, vws).

As one of the few national church bodies not to have separated by the Civil War's outbreak in 1861, the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod convened in Lancaster at Trinity Lutheran Church from May 1 to May 8, 1862.  Without any dissenting Southerners present, the 100 or so Lutheran leaders finally forged a consensus to take a stand on the war's meaning, the morality of slavery, and the emerging question of emancipation. 

The report of the proceedings makes it sound like many of the pastors who converged on Lancaster had already drafted their own remarks and opinions on the war, and it was up to the twenty-one man "Committee on the State of the Country" headed by Lutheran social welfare activist William A. Passavant merge them into one voice.  After five days of deliberations Passavant’s committee produced a set of five resolutions on secession, war, and slavery. The first two resolutions passed quickly and unanimously. The third resolution, declaring the rebellion to be “the natural result of the continuance and spread of domestic slavery in our land,” endorsed Lincoln’s proposal of April 1862 to fund a system of “constitutional emancipation” in any state willing to initiate such a system.  It read:

Resolved, That while we recognize this unhappy war as a righteous judgment of God, visited upon us because of the individual and national sins of which we have been guilty, we nevertheless regard this rebellion as more immediately the natural result of the continuance and spread of domestic slavery in our land, and, therefore, hail with unmingled joy the proposition of our Chief Magistrate, which has received the sanction of Congress, to extend aid from the General Government to any State in which slavery exists, which shall deem fit to initiate a system of constitutional emancipation.

Trinity Lutheran Church
Lithograph, 1861

As anticipated, it sparked a day’s worth of debate, the detailed minutes of which are presented at the end of this post. Some attendees criticized for being too weak, claiming constitutional emancipation validated the ownership of people as property. Others spoke against endorsing such a specific means of ending slavery, saying that the Lutherans had no more right to prescribe specific policies for Congress as Congress had to prescribe how the Lutherans interpret the Augsburg Confession. Interestingly, the abolitionist Samuel Simon Schmucker of the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg suggested leaving out the subject of emancipation entirely due to the “unhappy effects” making statements on slavery had always had on other Synods.

The discussions reached a crescendo when Union-sympathizing Pastor Herman Eggers of Nashville, Tennessee, talked about the state of opinion in the South and asserted to loud applause: “A Church was not worth calling a church if it could not express its whole opinion on slavery—such a Church was nothing but a doughface. We have Union men in the South—some—and we want them to know what this Synod has to say, though no doubt it will hurt many of them. The Church in the South, as a Christian body, is dead, and requires a thorough regeneration, ‘to become a new man,’ before it can live again.”

Ultimately, the resolutions survived several attempts to amend and passed intact. A committee of five men took the resolutions directly to President Lincoln, who responded to the Lutherans with the following remarks on Tuesday, May 13:

GENTLEMEN: I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical Lutherans of the United States. I accept, with gratitude, their assurances of sympathy and support of that enlightened, influential, and loyal class of my fellow-citizens in an important crisis, which involves, in my judgment, not only the civil and religious liberties or our own dear land, but in a large degree the civil and religious liberties of mankind, in many countries and through many ages. You well know, gentlemen, and the world knows, how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced upon me, on my advent to this place, by the internal enemies of our country. You all know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the public agents have brought into employment to sustain a Government against which there has been brought not one complaint of real injury, committed against society at home or abroad. You all may recollect that, in taking up the sword thus forced into our hands, this Government appealed to the prayers of the pious and good, and declared that it placed its whole dependence upon the favor of God. I now humbly and reverently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgement of that dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please the Divine Being who determines the destinies of nations that this shall remain a united people, they will, humbly seeking the Divine guidance, make their prolonged national existence a source of new benefits to themselves and their successors, and to all classes and conditions of mankind. [DEE 5/16/1862]

The 1862 Lutheran General Synod convention represents one more example of Northerners’ awakening to emancipation as a real possibility that occurred over the course of that year. It parallels recent letters from our Lancaster soldier-correspondents in Tennessee who have begun to witness that the military mission is difficult to untangle from slavery, and that the current policy is unsustainable (links: Sypher, Witmer).  The May 10, 1862, Philadelphia Press cited the Lutherans' actions in Lancaster as evidence of a shifting tide in Northern opinion. 

The stance on slavery also had unintended consequences for the Lutherans, which was very divided by two distinct visions for the Lutheran Church in the New World in years following the Second Great Awakening. Pietists wanted to see a Lutheran Church emphasizing revivalism and spirituality in close union with other Protestants, while confessionalists stressed a stricter adherence to the Lutheran Confessions. In the next two General Synod meetings, in 1862 and 1864, the confessionalist-leaning Pennsylvania Ministerium walked out and was locked out of proceedings. In 1866, the Pennsylvania Ministerium met again at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster to announce the formation of a confessionalist national Lutheran church body. The "General Council" resulted, although it ultimately failed to meet expectations due to its inability to woo more conservative Midwestern Lutherans (e.g., the Missouri Synod).

Many angles--religious, political, and social--make this convention extremely fascinating for its place in the Union war effort and its place in shaping the course of Lutheranism.  For more information and its consequence for the Lutherans, see:

• Newspaper proceedings: The Lancaster Daily Evening Express covered the debate extensively, although its record is unmicrofilmed.  The Lutheran Missionary and Lutheran Observer both reprinted its coverage, and represent the two different views mentioned above about Lutheranism in America.  The Philadelphia Press reprinted the resolutions on May 9, 1862 (link). 
• The Lutheran Church in the Civil War by Charles W. Heathcote (1919)
• Two relevant assessments worth reading are Mark Noll's article, "The Lutheran Difference," and The Rise and Fall of American Lutheran Pietism by Paul Kuenning (1988).  (I prefer Noll's more even assessment to Kuenning's indictment of Confessional Lutherans as political quietists).
• The Life and Letters of William A. Passvant on Google Books.
• "Pastor Eggers' Reflections (1859-1862)", First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Nashville, Tennessee.

From the May 15, 1862, Lutheran Missionary: (alternate link)

'Troublous Times': Trinity Lutheran Church and the Civil War

Thank you to everyone who attended my presentation this morning.  Over the next week, I'll post more content related to the presentation, but for now here's a link to a couple posts in which I've written in more detail about Trinity Lutheran Church and the Civil War.

• Happy 250th Birthday, Trinity Lutheran Church
• Lancaster and the Civil War Through the Lens of Trinity Lutheran Church
• Rev. Gottlob F. Krotel's Civil War
• Rev. F. W. Conrad's Civil War
• Army Surgeon John F. Huber's Civil War

Also, here's a <link> to the presentation handout which contains an outline and the following primary sources, which consists of:

1. Resolutions Adopted by the General Synod of the Lutheran Church at the 1862 Conference
2. Reply to General Synod Resolutions by President Lincoln
3. “A Visit to the Antietam Hospitals and Battle-field” by Charles A. Heinitsh and/or John B. Kevinski
4. “A Week Among the Soldiers in the Hospitals” by Rev. F. W. Conrad
5. A Letter from Dr. John F. Huber
6. Opening to Rev. F. W. Conrad’s “America’s Blessings and Obligations”
7. A Letter from D. P. Rosenmiller aboard the USS Essex
8. From “A Historical Sketch of Trinity Lutheran Church”
9. Recommended Reading

Please let me know if you have any questions by posting in the comments section below or sending me an email at vince@lancasteratwar.com.  In case you couldn't tell, I really enjoy talking about these topics and connecting anyone interested to resources that are relevant to them.

Rev. F. W. Conrad's Civil War

Rev. F. W. Conrad
(Trinity Archives)

Considering the short list of distinguished pastors until 1861 whose time in the pulpit of Trinity Lutheran Church could be counted in decades, Pastor F. W. Conrad's mere two years as Gottlob Krotel's successor seem like a hiccup in the church's chronology.  Through his actions, preaching, and lectures, Conrad would, however, play an important role connecting the congregation to the war, most uniquely through an October 1862 aid mission to the Antietam battlefield on behalf of the Patriot Daughters of Lancaster. 

Born in 1816 in Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Conrad represented a very different type of Lutheran than what Trinity Lutheran Church was used to.  Specifically, as a student of Samuel Simon Schmucker at Gettysburg Seminary, Conrad fit into the tradition of "American Lutheranism" that emphasized personal piety, union with other Christian denominations, revivals, and abolitionism more than the "Old Lutherans," who advocated a stricter and more explicit adherence to the Lutheran Confessions. 

Patriotism and abolitionism heavily flavored Conrad's wartime sermons, and he tended to make conservative Democrats wherever he preached very unhappy.  In an 1870 historical sketch of Trinity, the Intelligencer recounted Conrad's pastorate,

Rev. Frederick W. Conrad, a political stump orator from Dayton, Ohio, followed Dr. Krotel, preaching his first sermon in March 1862.  His penchant for preaching political sermons, a la Beecher, and driving fast horses, a la Bonner, soon disgusted the greater portion of his congregation, and would have disgusted all of them, had it not been for the angry passions stirred up by the great rebellion.  At the end of he war, finding that his vocation was gone, he resigned and left town, greatly to the relief of the congregation, and our citizens generally.  [1/12/1870]

Our knowledge of Conrad's attitudes on the war comes from:

• "America's blessings and obligations : a discourse delivered in Trinity Lutheran Church, Lancaster, Pa." (Thanksgiving 1863 sermon)
• A series on the leadership characteristics of George Washington written by F. W. Conrad for publication in the Express in early 1863.  
• "The Hand of God in the War." Sermon delivered in Chambersburg.  (Referenced here.)

His Thanksgiving 1863 sermon presents pretty standard rhetoric espousing America's virtues as "extraordinary blessings":

1. "the Age in which we live" 
2. "the Country which we inhabit" 
3. "the Government under which we dwell"
4. "the Gifts of his Providence"
5. "the religious privileges we enjoy"

The sermon concludes with a pretty high view of the consequences of America's fall:

To what, I ask, shall her fall be likened? but to that of Lucifer, the Son of Morning, from the towering heights of heaven, down to the unfathomable depths of hell; and as he fell not alone, but corrupted and involved in his fall, millions of other angelic beings, so too will America not fall alone, but influence and involve in her ruin the nations of the earth, and the fall of America will be the fall of the World.

Moving from word to deed, Conrad picked up where his predecessor Pastor Krotel left off in his work with the Patriot Daughters.  When the Rebels invaded Maryland--resulting in the bloody Battle of Antietam was fought--Conrad, who had connections having served a parish in the area, was one of four men to escort a large shipment of donations to hospitals and the Lancaster companies in the Pennsylvania Reserves.  I published Conrad's very interesting account in a post last August, and you can read it here.  Here's an excerpt:

We now made a reconnoisance of the battlefield, and then proceeded direct to the camp of the Reserves. We soon overtook our wagon which stalled at a steep hill. We first detailed a squad of soldiers, to make up the deficiency of our animal force, but finding their pushing unavailing, we found our forlorn hope in two little mules. They seemed to realize that much was expected from them, and they carried the load up the hill in gallant style. By this time the Lancaster boys found out who were about, and what was coming. The wagon was at once besieged, the portion allotted to the Reserves unloaded in double quick style, greetings were exchanged, questions asked and answered, messages delivered, loved ones remembered, and general joy prevailed. On being told that what we brought was not half of what was sent, two wagons were dispatched to bring on what had been left at Harrisburg and Hagerstown, and on Thursday morning they returned with all of it.

Tombstone of Pvt. Josiah A. H. Lutz
East Petersburg Mennonite Cemetery

One of those soldiers whom Conrad would have likely met was recent enlistee Josiah A. H. Lutz of Company B, 1st Pennsylvania Reserves.  In one of the sadder stories the war produced, the sixteen year-old Lutz, whose parents were dead and who enlisted to support his younger sister financially, was wounded in the hip in the Pennsylvania Reserves' charge at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862.  He died on December 22 in a Washington hospital, and his cousin retrieved the body for burial.  Pastor Conrad records performing the burial service at the East Petersburg Mennonite Cemetery.  (Credit: Research by Gary Hawbaker.) 

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Conrad naturally led efforts to raise money to support the battle-damaged Gettysburg Seminary and College.  A committee from Trinity Lutheran Church collected $299.75.

In early 1864, possibly with a split among Lutherans on the horizon, "American Lutheran"-leaning Conrad left "Old Lutheran"-leaning Trinity for a congregation in Chambersburg, although Conrad did leave on fairly good terms with certification by Trinity's vestry that he adhered to the Lutheran Confessions in his teaching.  During the Confederate raid on the city, Conrad's house was intentionally targeted and ransacked.  He continued to anger conservative Democrats there, and even earned a lengthy tirade entitled "Desecration of the Pulpit" in the Valley Spirit on November 16, 1864, which can be viewed at the linked page as part of the Valley of the Shadow project.    

References:

• Biography in American Lutheran Biographies (p. 144)
• George Heiges' 1979 LCHS Journal history of Trinity Lutheran Church
• I also have saved images of a letter sold on Ebay a couple years ago written by Conrad to his brother-in-law at the beginning of the war.

'Cotton was only king when it floated in that banner'

CDV of James S. Negley
as a major general, c. 1863
(Source)

Still waiting for their first opportunity to prove their worth on the battlefield, the events of April 26, 1862, yielded temporary satisfaction to the men of the Lancaster County Regiment.  On that day, the events of which 79th Pennsylvania soldier-correspondent Corp. Elias H. Witmer recorded in a flowery letter, the regiment marched to restore the Stars and Stripes to the top of the courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee.

Their brigade commander, Gen. James S. Negley, addressed the assembly and reached out to any civilians wishing to live under the old flag and Constitution.  He concluded by pointing at the American flag and remarked that "cotton was only king when it floated in that banner."

In his letter, Witmer continues to explore his thoughts on slavery for readers in Lancaster.  Adopting the mantle of a mudsill (see this post for explanation), he hints that the idea of emancipation is growing on him: "I am free to confess that my opinion of the South and her 'idol pets' has not changed so much that I would turn rebel to the government if the funeral knell of slavery would be sounded over every foot of slave territory in the world."

Finally, the regiment received a flag from General Negley, apparently the second received from him.  After the flag flap of November 1861, it seems that the regiment was content with a generic United States flag rather than the beautiful battle flags most other Pennsylvania units carried.

From the May 5, 1861, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)
(By the way, you'll notice a change in how newspapers look over the next few months, as the May-October 1862 Express somehow evaded the microfilmer's scanner.  Fortunately, the Lancaster County Historical Society has the bound volume covering that period, and I was able to make photographs six or seven years ago.)       

Lancaster NOT at Shiloh: Letters from 'E.H.W.'

General Buell's army crossing the Duck River near Columbia, Tennessee, where the 79th Pennsylvania was left on detached duty during the Battle of Shiloh (HW 5/3/1862)

Checking in with the 79th Pennsylvania's regular soldier-correspondent, Corp. Elias H. Witmer, we find that missing the Battle of Shiloh due to being on detached duty outside of Nashville caused much angst among the soldiers of the Lancaster County Regiment.  It's hard to separate hyperbolic indignation from fact, but Witmer certainly took umbrage at silly insinuations of cowardice by "ye shallow-pated demagogues of Lancaster" that the 79th Pennsylvania had been intentionally excluded from battle. 

After that excitement calmed, we have a second letter from the Mountville storekeeper written a week later on April 21.  Its main topic was fugitive slaves--a naturally complicated situation that would demand policy attention by Union forces in that part of Tennessee.  Acknowledged the polarized nature of discussions about slavery, Witmer--who apparently went to war with a negative opinion of slavery--declined to judge what he saw saying, "If I would write favorable about the slaves, my friends would say, he has changed his opinion on slavery, and if I would write unfavorable some would say he is prejudiced." 

He continued to complain about the restraint Union forces showed to hostile civilians and express little hope of reconciliation within a generation.  Of Southern women, he wrote:

The women are evidently the worst enemies to the government; they display a prejudice and hatred unequaled by the men in arms; they believe that our mission is the emancipation of slaves, which would doom them to labor.  They despise the sunburnt brow of honest industry; they look in scorn upon the dignity of labor, and consider the subjects of that great lever of our national greatness as the rubbage of society.

Witmer concludes with comments about pay problems in the 79th Pennsylvania and the allotment roles designed to transfer money to soldiers' families.  I have other information about this, including a letter from the wife of a soldier, which warrants its own post (time permitting).  

From the April 19, 1862, Daily Evening Express (alternate link):


From the April 30, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

From the Mississippi Flotilla: 'The Rebels to be Bagged'

Back to the Sypher brothers, A. J. Sypher (previous letter)--an officer about the ironclad gunboat USS St. Louis--was quickly gaining on his brother James Hale Sypher in terms of battle count, as the Mississippi Flotilla looked forward to their next fight after forcing the surrender of Island No. 10.  His letter exudes confidence in the ability of the gunboats as they took on Fort Wright and Fort Pillow between April and June 1862.  

Other content includes the story of an escaped slave and his rejection and subsequent acceptance by the fleet and the correspondence of a Virginia soldier and his mother.

In another month, look for more letters from the USS St. Louis, this time penned by Daily Evening Express correspondent and gentleman adventurer J. R. Sypher, who was on a grand officially-sanctioned tour of the Western Theater to visit with the 79th Pennsylvania and his brothers.

Also, be sure to read my post about the letters written by another Lancasterian, Francis Kilburn, from a mortar boat and Craig Swain's interesting post about the operation of a mortar boat. 

From the April 23, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

Settling In South of Nashville: Camp Andy Johnson

Lithograph of the First Union Dress Parade in Nashville, March 4, 1862 (Library of Congress)

After marching through Nashville on March 7, 1862, the 79th Pennsylvania and the rest of McCook's division spent the next couple weeks positioned a couple miles south of the city at Camp Andrew Johnson.  Here they spent time on an active picket line guarding against Rebels threatening from the direction of Franklin, Tennessee.  On March 9, the 1st Wisconsin--another regiment in the 79th PA's brigade--was attacked and suffered a few casualties including one killed. 

Their interactions with Southern civilians continued.  Sergt. William T. Clark of Company B recorded in his diary entry of March 12:

Two men came up in a carriage who had escaped from Memphis where the Rebels are drafting men for their Army. A black man came who wanted to go to his master who lived in Nashville & who had hired him to the Tennessee & Alabama R.R.Co. His wife lived with her master 27 miles from Nashville & near where he had been working. At Franklin he saw 100 Rebel Calvary who said they would attack us tonight.

(As an aside, see this excellent post  by William G. Thomas for a discussion of the role of slaves as railroad laborers in the South.)

View of the Capitol, Nashville
(Library of Congress)

Opportunities also arose for the men of the 79th Pennsylvania to go back and explore the city of Nashville.  According to Sergt. Clark, four men from each company could receive a pass to visit the city each day.  On Sunday, March 23, Clark took his turn to attend worship at First Presbyterian Church and visit the impressive Capitol building as well as the City Cemetery, where several notables including Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer were buried.  Clark remarked, "In this cemetery, side by side lays all that remains of what was once Loyal & Rebel soldiers."

Pvt. Flavius J. Bender of Mount Joy, Lancaster County, and Company C, 77th Pennsylvania--also in McCook's division--similarly experienced Nashville and recorded his thoughts in two letters published in the Church Advocate, a religious newspaper based in Lancaster. 

From the March 27, 1862, Church Advocate: (alternate link)


From the April 17, 1862, Church Advocate: (alternate link)


Finally, I add a letter discussing the same subjects--with a little more editorializing--by Jacob Cassell, Quartermaster of the 77th Pennsylvania. From the March 26, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

Adam C. Reinoehl's Civil War

I happily take a break today from the Lancaster County Regiment to republish the letters of Adam C. Reinoehl to the Lancaster Daily Evening Express during his service with the 76th Pennsylvania.  Welcome to any readers visiting this blog through Prof. Louise Stevenson's Civil War class at Franklin and Marshall College, the institution from which Reinoehl graduated as the valedictorian of the Class of 1861.

Wartime photograph almost certainly
of Adam C. Reinoehl
See Note [1] below.

As not only one of the most prolific of Lancaster's many Civil War soldier-correspondents, Adam C. Reinoehl also had some of the more unique experiences in his service with the 76th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (the "Keystone Zouaves") between 1861 and 1865.  The regiment spent most of the war around Hilton Head, South Carolina, where Union forces encountered issues of slavery, emancipation, and African-American soldiers in very raw form.  The 76th Pennsylvania was even brigaded with the 54th Massachusetts in the famous July 1863 attacks on Fort Wagner, in which Reinoehl was wounded for the first time and which are chronicled in the movie Glory.

After the war, Reinoehl carried on Thaddeus Stevens-style Radical Republicanism as a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature for three-terms.  He also remained one of Lancaster's most active Civil War veterans, helping to lead efforts to erect the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, working on soldiers' orphans issues, and organizing Grand Army of the Republic posts in Lancaster County.   

By my count [2], Reinoehl penned twenty-nine letters to the Daily Evening Express, usually spaced in one-month intervals.  He wrote under a pen name, which I'm guessing was more to provide a literary flair than preserve anonymity, as the letters' author's identity would have been pretty obvious in Lancaster (although perhaps it provided a buffer against a negative reaction by someone in the War Department).  Reinoehl curiously signed his letters, "Demas," presumably alluding to the Apostle Paul's companion in mission who later deserted Paul "because he loved this world" (2 Timothy 4:10) and is held up for as an example not to emulate for Christians.  I wonder if Reinoehl chose the name as a playful way of recognizing how he--the valedictorian of Franklin and Marshall College's Class of 1861--got caught up in the spirit of the times and enlist in the army to abandon the higher calling of academic life.

Uniform of soldier in Keystone Zouaves (76th Pennsylvania) sold by Heritage Auctions

For a fuller biography of Reinoehl, I defer to Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War (L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893):

Brevet Major Adam Cyrus Reinoehl was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1840. In 1856 his parents settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Entering Franklin and Marshall College at Lancaster, he graduated in 1861, receiving the valedictory oration,the highest honor of the class. On commencement day, on taking formal leave of the Board of Trustees, he commented on the action of that body at their meeting held on the previous night, when they dismissed from the faculty Professor Koeppen, a learned, faithful, but somewhat eccentric gentleman, greatly beloved by the students. The president of the college arose and ordered him to stop, but, disregarding the interruption, the valedictorian continued. The president called on the band to play, but the orator proceeded until his voice was lost in the music. The exercises were abruptly ended. The public insisted that the valedictory should be delivered, and the owners of the hall refusing to hire it, in the evening Charles Eden tendered the balcony of his ice-cream saloon, adjoining Fulton Hall, from which the oration was delivered in the presence of several thousand ladies and gentlemen, who crowded the streets in the vicinity.

After teaching school for two months and twenty-three days in Ephrata Township, he enlisted in the Seventy-sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Keystone Zouaves. Entering the service as a private in Company D, he took part in all the campaigns and battles of the regiment. The Seventy-sixth was ordered to Port Royal, South Carolina, in the fall of 1861, and was actively engaged in the sieges and engagements in the Department of the South. In April, 1862, the regiment was ordered to Tybee Island, and was present at the siege and capture of Fort Pulaski. Reinoehl served as private of Company D in the campaign against Charleston on James Island, June, 1862, and in the battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina, October 22, 1862. On the 10th of December, 1862, he was promoted to regimental quartermaster-sergeant, and January 24, 1863, he was promoted to sergeant-major. The Seventy-sixth was in Strong's brigade, which charged and captured the rebel batteries on Morris Island, South Carolina, July 10.

On the morning of July 11, 1863, the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, with four companies of the Seventh Connecticut and Ninth Maine, charged Fort Wagner, and were repulsed. The Seventy-sixth lost one hundred and eighty-seven killed, wounded, and missing. Sergeant-Major Reinoehl was shot through the left arm with a Minnie-ball, and was permanently disabled.

Returning to his regiment after a furlough, he remained in the service, and re-enlisted April, 1864, for three years, and while on veteran furlough, having been recommended for promotion by Colonel Strawbridge, received from the hands of Governor A. G. Curtin, at Harrisburg, a commission as first lieutenant of Company B, April 27, 1864. He commanded the company during the campaign of the Tenth Corps, in the Army of the James and Army of the Potomac, at Cold Harbor, at the explosion of the mine, and in the siege of Petersburg. On the 4th of August, 1864, he was promoted to adjutant. On the 27th of October, in a charge on the rebel works at Darbytown Road, Va., the outer defenses of Richmond, he was severely wounded in the left thigh by a ball from a shrapnel shell, and was removed to his home at Lancaster. Disabled for months, he resigned, and was honorably discharged Feb. 6, 1865. March 13, 1865, he was brevetted captain " for gallant and meritorious service in the assault on Fort Wagner, S. C.," and was brevetted major "for gallant and meritorious service in the attack on the enemy's works on Darbytown Road, Va., Oct. 27, 1864."

In 1866 he was admitted to the bar of Lancaster County. In 1868 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature, and subsequently re-elected in 1870 and 1871, serving three terms. In 1872 he was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth by Gov. John W. Geary, and was continued by Gov. John F. Hartranft, until he resigned, in 1873, to resume the practice of his profession. On retiring he was tendered letters highly complimentary of his services by Gov. Hartranft and Hon. M. S. Quay, Secretary of the Commonwealth. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the Soldiers' Orphans' Commission of the State of Pennsylvania by the department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1889 Major Reinoehl was elected district attorney of the county of Lancaster, his term expiring Jan. 1, 1893. He married Miss Lucy Davis, Nov. 24, 1870. They have four children,-Walter Allan, Mary Acheson, Gertrude Laughlin, and Albert Riegel. He is an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.

Reinoehl died on December 14, 1900, in an incident described as suicide in a New York Times account.  Another biography is available here.

Adam C. Reinoehl Tombstone at Lancaster Cemetery (vws)

I have compiled Reinoehl's letters (except the May-October 1862 letters [2]) as a pdf available to view and download at this link <https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5luPkqpDDWkZTViNWQzNTctZjY4NC00Zjg3LTk0ZTktN2RmYjBjZDFhZTBl>.

Or, you can view them here:



Further Reading and Research:

• Search "Reinoehl" in the digitized Lancaster Intelligencer, a staunch conservative Democratic newspaper which had many colorful things to say about the Republican Reinoehl.  
• Find the letters from "Demas" written to the New Era in the 1880s(?) as part of the Tucquan Club, a fraternal organization for prominent Lancaster men that went camping along the Susquehanna River. 
• Find Reinoehl's account of the Battle of Fort Wagner appearing in the March 31, 1886, Philadelphia Weekly Press.  This also appeared in the April 10, 1886, New Era (I have a paper copy, but not an electronic copy). 
• Regimental history and roster of the 76th Pennsylvania.
• Illustration of 76th Pennsylvania zouave uniform in Don Troiani's Civil War. 
• Learn about Lieut. W. Wilberforce Nevin, valedictorian of F&M's Class of 1853 and son of future F&M president.  

Notes:

1. I recently stumbled upon this image sold by Heritage Auctions a couple years ago.  It is a mid-war image of a sergeant major of the Keystone Zouaves taken in Lancaster by Jamison and Benson photographic gallery in Lancaster.  Given that there's only one sergeant major in the 76th Pennsylvania (which was Reinoehl after he was wounded at Fort Wagner and subsequently returned home) and that none of the 76th PA companies were recruited in Lancaster, this image almost certainly has to be Reinoehl.  
2. Thanks to Richard Sauers' index in the PA Save the Flags Collection at USAMHI for expediting the process by which I found these letters.  The May-October 1862 editions of the Daily Evening Express are not microfilmed but available as part of newspaper bound volumes at the Lancaster County Historical Society.  I do have pictures of those letters, but they need some processing (maybe transcription) before I can post them.