Josiah F. Klingaman's "Sketch of My Army Life"

(Written in 1928 Regarding his Role in the Civil War)

To Whom It May Concern:

While sitting around with nothing to do but wait for my 88th birthday anniversary, I decided to write a sketch of my Army life.
I was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, August 6, 1840, near the Mason and Dixon line, this being the boundary of Pennsylvania and the northern limits of slavery; all south were slave states, all north, free states. It was along this line that the Civil War began. Early in 1861, they began to recruit soldiers and place them along this line. About this time, Colonel Lou Wallace with the 11th Indiana Suave Regiment was stationed at Cumberland, Maryland, 20 miles south of where we were living.
On the 12th day of June, he took his regiment across the Potomac River near Romney, Virginia, and got in a hard fight with the Rebels. He then brought his Regiment back to Cumberland immediately.
"The Rebels Are Coming!"
The next day, brother Silas and I were out in the field plowing, a mile from home, when we saw the women come running from the house, waving their bonnets and shouting, and crying and shouted, "The Rebels are coming, get your guns!" We knew what it meant and slipped the harness off our horses, let them run in the field, and ran home for our guns. When we reached there, Father was molding bullets and filling the powder horns.
Silas and I ran all over the neighborhood, notifying the people to get their guns and come to Pocahontas, our small hometown, and in less than two hours, we had 27 men well armed and ready for war.
Near evening, we started for Cumberland where Lou Wallace was stationed. Also the Buck Tail Regiment. Each man wore a buck tail on his hat. In less than 24 hours, several thousand men were there. The Rebels did not follow Colonel Wallace, so he allowed us to go home that night, with orders to be ready to turn out on short notice. We walked a distance of 20 miles that night.
Enlistment and Sick Call
Those were exciting war times, and I hope they will never come again. Shortly after celebrating my 21st birthday, I enlisted for three years in Co. C 54th Pa. Volunteers, Inft. We went to Somerset, the county seat, where our company of 100 men was made up, and drilled for a week, then we were taken to Harrisburg, where the Regiment was made up of ten companies, 100 men in each company.
We went into winter quarters at Harrisburg. In November, I took sick one night while on camp guard, and in the morning reported to my Captain. He took me where there were a lot of sick soldiers in a hospital that was being built, where a lot of carpenters were working and pounding. Every little while, they would carry out a dead body, so I told my Captain I did not want to stay there, and asked him to take me to a hotel, and let me pay my own bill.
He took me to several, but they would not keep me. They were afraid I had smallpox. I informed them that I had had the smallpox five years before, but they would not believe me. Then we found a private home where they kept sick soldiers, and the lady took me in on the one cot she had left. The Captain sent the Doctor from the camp, who examined me, and said I had the measles. I had earache for a week, and there is where I lost my hearing. I was in that home five weeks, paid my own bill, and the Government owes me that today.
In the Nation's Capitol
In March, we were taken to Washington, D.C., where we drilled for two months. We had a splendid band from Allentown, Pa., that had been organized for nine years before the war. Our Regiment was selected to escort General Cochren's funeral. We had 1,000 men in line and marched up Pennsylvania Avenue. With our shoes shined and white gloves, we made a good showing, and the newspapers gave us a great send off.
From Washington, in the spring of 1862, we were taken to Great Cacapon, Virginia, on the Potomac and Great Cacapon Rivers, and on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the Rebel country.
We reached there at night, and I was put on picket duty in a field of stumps, and I imagined that every stump was a rebel. I stood beside a stump with my fingers on the trigger of my gun, half scared to death when I heard something walk, but could not see it. It came closer, and when within two feet of me, I saw it was a sheep.
I moved and he jumped four feet in the air and baaed, and scared me nearly to death. My hair stood stiff on my head, and I could scarcely keep my hat on. He ran away, and I did not see him again. I was glad when daylight came. Sometime after that the same thing happened, only it was a dog instead of a sheep.
Wounded in The Shenandoah Valley
About May 1, 1864, a small army of 14,000 men under General Francis Siegel started up the famous Shenandoah Valley, which was fought over 81 times during the war. We reached New Market and were in a fight on the 15th day of May when I was wounded.
The wounded were taken in ambulances and Army wagons to the rear four miles to Mount Jackson, where there was a large rebel hospital. We were taken upstairs and laid with our heads against the wall, two rows on each side of the building. There was a porch on the side, and I walked out to see them unload the wounded.
One of the first ones I saw was my brother, John, who was shot through the leg; then my bunkmate, Dr. J. C. Yutzy, who was shot three times. He bled so much that he wanted water, so I filled his canteen, and he drank three pints.
I told the doctor that I had a bullet in my arm and wanted it cut out. He wanted to give me chloroform, but I refused, as I was afraid it would make me sick, so he cut out the bullet and gave it to me, and I have it today.
I then took the doctor to see Dr. Yutzy, and he dressed his three wounds, and that was the last time I saw him for six years, as the rebels took him to Libby Prison, where he was for nine months.
Seven hundred of the wounded were taken in wagons back to Martinsburg, 70 miles away. It took us three days to reach there, as we had to stop several times a day to bury those who died along the way.
Back to Western Maryland
Upon reaching Martinsburg, we took a train to Cumberland, where we stayed in a hospital overnight, then took the train to Clarasville (Clarysville), which is between Cumberland and Frostburg, and where there were 1,500 soldiers.
From the hospital, I recognized a cousin of mine driving a lumber team, and told him to tell my folks where John and I were, and the next day some of them came to see us. I was now eleven miles from where I was born, on the National pike that I knew so well, where I used to drive lumber teams before the war.
This Pike was built by the U.S. Government early in the Forties, about the time I was born. The Pike was 100 feet with broken stone a foot thick, all broken with a hammer. Every mile, there was a post. There were many six-horse teams hauling goods from Baltimore to Wheeling, and on farther west, also four-horse stagecoaches. Thousands of cattle were driven on this Pike from Ohio and Indiana to Baltimore. Even hogs and turkeys were driven on it.
The Battle of Snicker's Gap
On the 17th day of July, 1864, I left the hospital with a lot of soldiers in my care, and took them back to the Regiments where they belonged. The Army had marching orders when we reached there, and we left that evening, and marched all night, and got into the Battle of Snicker's Gap next day.
The battle lasted all day, each side holding their ground during the night, with little fighting the next day. The rebels buried our dead by digging a little trench and laying the men in it with a little dirt thrown over their bodies, and with the head and feet out.
Captain Long and I were walking over the battlefield, and suddenly he stopped and said, "There lies Old Pete, as dead as a mouse." It was Pete Harsh, one of his men, and a man I knew before the war, an uncle to Simon Shaulis of Waterloo, Iowa. We took him by the feet and pulled him out of his grave.
A little farther on, we found Colonel Morris of the 14th West Virginia Regiment, a fine soldier. The rebels had stolen his sword and cut the epilets (epaulets) off his coat. We also pulled him out of his grave. Other men followed, digging deep trenches.
Years afterwards, I told Simon Shaulis and his mother how I pulled his uncle and her brother out of their grave. They knew he had been killed in the war, but had never heard the particulars.
On the battlefield of Gettysburg, there were as many as 2,000 men buried in one grave. Long trenches were dug, and the men buried in them.
My Regiment was in 39 battles. I can remember the dates and names of all of them.
The Battle of Winchester
The battle of Winchester was fought on July 24, 1864, just six days after the battle of Snicker's Gap. At that time, my bunkmate was John Nobel, and a noble fellow he was.
We had a shelter tent. He carried one half, and I the other. At night we would use our guns for tent poles, and put up our tent in that way, button in together and sleep that way. We were now in Sheridan's Army of 110,000 men.
On the morning of July 24th, we made a charge on the Rebel breast works. My bunkmate was at my right side and was shot through the head, falling dead at my feet. He had been put in our Regiment from another Regiment to serve his unexpired time of a few weeks, and this was his last day of three years service. Poor fellow, it grieved me very much to lose my bunkmate.
Wagon Detail
Soon after this, I was detailed to drive a six-mule regimental baggage team to haul the officers' baggage. No one was allowed to ride in these wagons.
One night, the wagon ahead of me had a light which blinded me, so I could not see the road, and as I was making a sharp curve, I pulled a little too hard on one line and upset my wagon. The hospital steward of our regiment had crawled in the wagon to steal a ride and had fallen asleep. He woke up in a hurry, and such a scared man I never saw.
Discharge
This was about August 1st, and about ten o'clock on the evening of September 1st, the wagon boss brought a man to take my place and told me to go to Boliver Heights to wait for my discharge and that my three years service had expired, lacking a few days.
I did not lose much time in getting to Boliver Heights, for the next day there was another battle to take place, and General Sheridan did not want any of his men to go into battle when his time was so near expired.
But the Rebels had found out that a battle was to be fought, and they pulled out at two o'clock in the morning, but Sheridan got after them and caught them at Fisher's Hill. He took many prisoners and everything that moved on wheels, and that put another star on General Sheridan's shoulders. It was one of the greatest victories during the war.
We lay at Boliver Heights three days waiting for our papers. There were only nine left in my Company to be discharged, out of 100 men. We went to Baltimore and then to Harrisburg, Pa., and received our discharge and pay. We had not been paid for one year.
We left Harrisburg on the train at nine o'clock in the evening, arriving at Johnstown the next morning. We left on a stage for Somerset, and arrived there in the evening, left the next morning on another stage for Cumberland, Md. We came within three miles of our home, so we walked the three miles.
We saw Father at the sawmill first, then went to the house where sister Ann was preparing supper. Mother and my other sisters soon came in from the potato patch, where they were digging potatoes. Many of the neighbors came in that evening to welcome us home.
I have written this for my friends who have written to me so regularly, and whose letters I have appreciated very much.

My present address is:
J. F. Klingaman
1925 N. Van Ness Ave.
Hollywood, Calif.

This was my Army address:

J. F. Klingaman, Co. C, 54th Regiment
Penn. Volunteer Infantry
First Brigade, Second Division
Eighth Army Corps

(Note: Josiah F. Klingaman was born August 6, 1840, in Greenville Township, Somerset County, Pa., son of George and Sallie (Albright) Klingaman. He died December 22, 1928, the year he wrote this account, in Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California, and was buried in Waterloo, Iowa.)

Also, please see 54th Pennsylvania Volunteers, by Jeff Evans

Obituary of his wife, Sallie Bueghley Klingaman

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This page last updated August 21, 2007

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