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Benjamin Goebel – Tailor in the 127th Pennsylvania Infantry
Posted By Norman Gasbarro on February 25, 2019
On 10 August 1862, claiming to be 43 years old, Benjamin Goebel, a tailor living at Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, enrolled in the 127th Pennsylvania Infantry, and was mustered into Company K, as a Private, at Harrisburg, six days later. No other information about him is given on the Pennsylvania Veterans’ File Card (shown above from the Pennsylvania Archives).
On 28 July 1890, Benjamin Goebel applied for a Civil War pension, which according to the card (above) from Fold3, he was awarded and collected to his death, which occurred in 1905. It most likely can be concluded that since he waited until the rules were sufficiently relaxed that “old age” was an acceptable reason to apply for benefits, that he didn’t have any injuries as a result of the war.
The entry for Benjamin J. Goebel, above, from the 1890 Veterans’ Census, for Tremont, Schuylkill County, shows his service in the 127th Pennsylvania Infantry, but then indicates that he did have a war-related disability – “left foot frozen at Fredericksburg.” No other record has been eto confirm this.
Efforts thus far to locate him in any area newspapers that are on-line have not been successful. Although the Pension Index Card states he died in 1905, no obituary has been located that matches this veteran.
In 1870, Benjamin Goebel, a 55-year-old tailor was living in Tremont, Schuylkill County, with wife Sarah Goebel, and two children: John H. Goebel, about 8 years old and attending school, and Alice Goebel, about 3 years old and at home. Benjamin indicated he was a citizen and had been born in Pennsylvania.
In 1880, still living in Tremont and still a tailor, Benjamin indicated he was a widower and living as a boarder. No other information is known about the wife, except that she was about 39 in 1870 and she died before the 1880 census. Efforts to locate the two children have also not been successful.
Benjamin has not yet been located in the 1900 census.
Additional information is needed to tell more of this veteran’s story. If any reader has obtained his military records or pension application pages from the National Archives, or knows anything more about his family, please share by adding a comment to this blog post.
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