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Godfrey Sammet – White Supremacist,1866
Posted By Norman Gasbarro on July 18, 2018
During the Civil War, Godfrey Sammet, served in the 192nd Pennsylvania Infantry, Company H, as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was a tailor from Halifax, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
According to military records, he was mustered into service on 2 March 1865 and honorably discharged on 24 August 1865.
Godfrey Sammet was born in Germany on 22 October 1828, the son of John G. Sammet and Dorothy [Mayer] Sammet. He was brought to the United States at the age of four by his parents. He married Susan Glace about 1851. She was born in Germany on 1 November 1817 and died in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, 2 June 1892. They had at last five children together.
Godfrey Sammet died on 28 August 1913 and is buried at Long’s Cemetery, Halifax. His daughter, Sarah E. Sammet (1858-1917), was later buried with him in the same plot.
Previously, he was profiled here in a post entitled Godfrey Sammet – Dies After Breaking Ground for Halifax School, 1913.
After the war, Godfrey Sammet openly supported the white supremacist views of Heister Clymer by signing a call for denial of equal rights to African Americans, both those who were previously slaves and those who were previously freemen. The statement was published in the Harrisburg Patriot of 24 July 1866 and included his name, regiment, company and rank.
Heister Clymer was a white supremacist candidate for Pennsylvania Governor on the Democratic Party ticket in 1866, and was previously profiled here on 26 April 2016.
The call for a meeting of Union Soldiers was printed in the Harrisburg Patriot, 24 July 1866, along with an up-to-date list of Clymer supporters who openly supported Heister Clymer‘s white supremacist views and wanted to deny “negro equality and suffrage” even to those who had been free men before the war.
The undersigned honorably discharged Union soldiers, believing that we battled in the late war for the Union of these States, and had successfully maintained it, view with alarm the persistent efforts of radical men who seem determine, practically to destroy the Union we went forth to save. They would have the community believe that Union soldiers are willing to give up in the hour of victory the great object to which their sacrifices and toll and blood were given….
Therefore we unite in requesting all the honorably discharged officer, soldiers and seamen of Dauphin County who favor the wise and constitutional policy of President Johnson, who oppose the doctrine of negro equality and suffrage, and desire the election of the Hon. Hiester Clymer, to meet in Mass Convention at the Democratic Club Room, Walnut Street, below Third, Harrisburg, at 7 1/2 o’clock, on the evening of the 25 July 1866, for the purpose of electing fourteen delegates to the Convention of Union Soldiers, which is to assemble in this city [Harrisburg] on Wednesday, 1 August 1866.
The Dauphin County veterans who signed the racist petition calling for the meeting were from a variety of regiments and social levels. Included in the list were some residents of Upper Dauphin County, the area north of Peter’s Mountain – all of which is included in the geographic area of the Civil War Research Project.
Godfrey Sammet was only one of many honorably discharged Union soldiers who openly supported the white supremacist gubernatorial campaign of Heister Clymer in 1866. The full list of those with a connection to Upper Dauphin County will be presented over time.
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