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Civil War Blog

A project of PA Historian

James Ferguson – An Army Surgeon’s Story to Save His Life

On 29 January 1863, according to the U.S. Register of Deaths of Volunteers, James Ferguson, a Sergeant of the 142nd Pennsylvania Infantry, Company D, died at the Stanton General Hospital, Washington, D.C., of “vulnus sclopet,” an abbreviation of the Latin term, vulnus sclopeticum, for “gunshot wound.”  The treating surgeon who verified the death was John […]

Jacob Keener Jr. – Lykens Resident, Moved to Kansas

Jacob Keener, son of Jacob Keener (1823-1902) and Barbara [Weltmer] Keener (1822-1901) enrolled in the 127th Pennsylvania Infantry, Company D, as a Private, in Harrisburg, on 7 August 1862.  He gave his age as 19, his occupation as farmer, and his residence as Lykens.  He is one of many Civil War veterans who at one […]

Francis Wade Hughes of Pottsville – Confederate Sympathizer?

Francis Wade Hughes (1817-1885) was an attorney in Pottsville at the time of the Civil War and the leader of the county Democratic Party.  A nephew of his, John Hughes, was considered the most famous of all Schuylkill Countians who joined the Confederate war effort.  According to information found in an article that appeared in […]

John D. Hughes – Confederate Soldier from Pottsville

Previously here, the Confederate sympathies of Francis Wade Hughes were discussed.  Hughes was a lawyer in Pottsville at the time of the Civil War.  Several of his brothers, although they were born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, relocated to North Carolina.  At the beginning of the war, one of the nephews of Francis Wade Hughes, John […]

Brave Johnny Hoover of Elizabethville

A photocopy of a crumpled newspaper story has been found in the Project files.  The clipping is entitled “Brave Johnny Hoover” and tells the story of a man from the Lykens Valley who is said to be the youngest soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War.  In addition to being named in the […]