behind AotW

This 1863 recruiting poster for the 183rd Pennsylvania Infantry, the fourth regiment sponsored by Philadelphia’s Union League, is in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP).

Arthur Maginnis, listed as Lieutenant Colonel of the 183rd, had served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 3-month 19th Pennsylvania Infantry at the start of the war, and was commissioned Major of the 3rd Delaware Infantry in December 1861. He commanded them in Maryland until he was wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862 and he resigned in November.

He was briefly Major of the 52nd Pennsylvania (July-September 1863), helped raise the 183rd in late 1863, but did not serve with them, and then recruited for the Fifth Union League Regiment (the 100-day 196th Pennsylvania) and was their Lieutenant Colonel from July 1864 to muster-out in November.

Post-war he owned and operated the Swiftwater Inn, a vacation boarding house in the Poconos, and was a State Fish Commissioner. That’s his Inn below, in an 1882 photograph, also from the LCP.