Category: quickPost/Pix

Dr Joseph Ruff Gibson, recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania medical school, was commissioned Assistant Surgeon, US Army on 16 April 1862, but it took a while for the formal paperwork to catch up with him. Here’s the official oath of office he returned to the Army Adjutant General in August 1862 from Harrison’s…

Captain Thomas McArthur Anderson commanded a battalion of the 12th United States Infantry in action between the middle bridge over the Antietam and the town of Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. Many years later, after a long and arduous Army career, he was Colonel of the 14th US Infantry and commanded Fort Vancouver, Washington (1886…

United States Military Academy graduate J. (Jacob) Ford Kent (May 1861) had a very long, impressive military career and maintained an impressive mustache for even longer. He was first in combat at Bull Run in July 1861 and was wounded and captured there, but was exchanged in time to rejoin his regiment, the 3rd United…

John Benson Williams, US Military Academy Class of May 1861, was First Lieutenant, 3rd United States Infantry at Antietam in September 1862, and commanded Company G there. Antietam was the peak of his young military career, however, as he was sentenced by a Court Martial to be dismissed from the service in February 1863, having…

This is the packet ship Saranak of the Cope Line entering port with a steam tug at Philadelphia, PA in a brilliant watercolor by David Johnson Kennedy of August 1851. Irish-born Antietam veteran Colwell Carr of the First Pennsylvania Reserves was a passenger on that ship from Liverpool to Philadelphia in May 1849. He settled…

Here’s a lovely photograph of 3 couples taken by Le Rue Lemer in Harrisburg, PA, probably in late 1866 or early 1867. That’s Captain Marcus Albert Reno, First United States Cavalry, left front, and his wife Mary Hanna Ross (1843-1874; m. 1863), behind him. Reno commanded a detachment of the First Cavalry at Antietam at…