Pennsylvanians in the Civil War

George B. McClellan (1826-1885) born in Philadelphia, transformed the Army of the Potomac into a disciplined and highly organized fighting force and briefly served as General-in-Chief of the Union armies. Although criticized for excessive caution in the field, he led Union forces through the Peninsula Campaign and at Antietam before Lincoln relieved him in 1862. He later challenged Lincoln for the presidency in 1864.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.38.17 

McClellan's farewell order to the Army of the Potomac, issued as command passed to Ambrose Burnside in November 1862

George Gordon Meade (1815-1872) raised in Philadelphia and later buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery, assumed command of the Army of the Potomac only three days before Gettysburg. His army defeated Robert E. Lee there, ending the Confederacy's second invasion of the North.  Meade remained in command through the end of the war.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule B - O 86.13.32

Major General George G. Meade's uniform frock coat, worn at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his Army of the Potomac defeated Robert E. Lee.

Winfield Scott Hancock (1824-1886)

born in Montgomery County became one of the Army of the Potomac's most admired Corps commanders. At Gettysburg he helped stabilize the Union position, directed the defense of Cemetery Ridge during Pickett's Charge, and was severely wounded while his troops repelled the Confederate assault.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule B - O 86.20.49

Silver goblet presented to Hancock by citizens of his birthplace, Norristown, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1864.

John Fulton Reynolds (1820-1863)

born in Lancaster was one of the Union Army's most respected commanders. At Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, he recognized the strategic importance of the ground and committed Union troops to the fight before being killed early in the battle.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule B - O 86.9.7

The saddle of Major General John F. Reynolds, who was mounted on it when he was killed at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.

David McMurtrie Gregg (1833-1916)

born in Huntingdon became one of the Union Army's leading cavalry commanders. On July 3 at Gettysburg, his division helped stop J. E. B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry east of the battlefield, preventing an attack on the Union rear during Pickett's Charge.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule B - O 08.38.11

Inkstand used by Union cavalry commander David McMurtrie Gregg, whose division helped stop J. E. B. Stuart east of Gettysburg.

Samuel Wylie Crawford (1829-1892)

born in Franklin County began the Civil War as an Army surgeon at Fort Sumter but soon transferred to combat command. He later led the Pennsylvania Reserves at Gettysburg and was one of the comparatively few officers present both at the war's opening and at Appomattox.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.24.185

Photograph of Brigadier General Samuel W. Crawford and the staff of the 3rd Division, V Corps.

Alexander Hays (1819-1864) born in Franklin, Pennsylvania, Alexander Hays commanded a division of the Union II Corps at Gettysburg, where his troops helped defeat Pickett's Charge. A colorful and aggressive officer, he was killed in action at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule A - O 10.24.45

A depiction of the Union response to Pickett's Charge in which Alexander Hays's division played an important role.

Galusha Pennypacker (1844-1916) born in Chester County entered the army as a teenager and rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming one of the youngest generals in U.S. Army history. He received the Medal of Honor for leading a charge at Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in January 1865, where he was severely wounded.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule B - O 86.44.6

A Civil War naval service medal whose campaign inscription includes Fort Fisher, where Pennypacker earned the Medal of Honor.

David Dixon Porter (1813-1891) born in Chester, Pennsylvania became one of the Union Navy's most important commanders. He worked closely with Ulysses S. Grant during the Vicksburg Campaign and later commanded naval forces in the successful assault on Fort Fisher, finishing his career as only the second full admiral in U.S. Navy history.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule A - O 05.35.6

Philadelphia Sanitary Fair album containing the signatures and portraits of leading Union figures, including Admiral David Dixon Porter.

Frank Furness (1839-1912) born in Philadelphia served as a cavalry officer in the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry before becoming one of the city's most influential architects. He received the Medal of Honor for carrying ammunition across ground swept by enemy fire at Trevilian Station in 1864.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule A - O 86.39.6

A commission from the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry - Furness's regiment - illustrates the military world in which the future Philadelphia architect served.

John C. Pemberton (1814-1881)  Philadelphia-born, resigned from the U.S. Army in 1861 and joined the Confederacy, influenced by his Southern family and military connections. As lieutenant general commanding at Vicksburg, he surrendered the city and approximately 30,000 Confederate troops to Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule A - O 86.24.35

Image of the U.S. Steam Ram Vindicator off Vicksburg evokes the siege that culminated in Pemberton's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant.

Josiah Gorgas (1818-1883) a Dauphin County native became chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau and faced the immense task of supplying Southern armies with weapons and ammunition. Through domestic manufacturing, European purchases, and blockade running, he built an ordnance system that kept Confederate armies supplied despite severe shortages.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.33.2 / O 86.33.3 / O 86.33.8 / O 86.33.9

Confederate financial artifacts illustrate the chronic resource shortages confronting Gorgas as he built and supplied the Confederacy's ordnance system.

Simon Cameron (1799-1889) born in Lancaster County native was a powerful Pennsylvania political leader and Abraham Lincoln's first Secretary of War. He oversaw the War Department during the Union's difficult first months of mobilization before leaving the cabinet in early 1862 and later returning to the U.S. Senate.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.36.4

A July 30, 1865 letter written by former Secretary of War Simon Cameron from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Jay Cooke (1821-1905)

a Philadelphia banker, Cooke helped finance the Union war effort by marketing federal bonds to ordinary Americans on an unprecedented scale. His nationwide campaigns raised hundreds of millions of dollars needed to equip, supply, and pay Union armies.

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Andrew Gregg Curtin (1817-1894)

served as Pennsylvania's governor throughout the Civil War and became known as the "Soldier's Friend." He mobilized troops and resources for the Union, supported soldiers and their families, and played a leading role in establishing the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.24.56

Portrait of Pennsylvania's Civil War 

Governor Andrew G. Curtin.

John Weiss Forney (1817-1881)

a Lancaster-born journalist, served as Secretary of the U.S. Senate during the Civil War while publishing influential pro-Union newspapers in Washington and Philadelphia. Through journalism and politics, he became an important advocate for the Union and the Republican cause.

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John White Geary (1819-1873)

born in western Pennsylvania had already served as mayor of San Francisco and territorial governor of Kansas before the Civil War. He rose to Major General in the Union Army, commanded troops at Gettysburg and in the Western campaigns, and later served two terms as governor of Pennsylvania.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 05.24.24

General John White Geary appears with Joseph Hooker and staff in winter quarters during 1863-64.

Morton McMichael (1807-1879)

a Philadelphia newspaper publisher, an outspoken supporter of the Union and a founding member of the Union League of Philadelphia. His newspaper, the North American, promoted the Union cause, and he later served as Mayor of Philadelphia from 1866 to 1869.

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Montgomery C. Meigs (1816-1892)

raised largely in Pennsylvania and educated for a time at the University of Pennsylvania, served as Quartermaster General of the Union Army. His department supplied, transported, housed, and equipped armies on an enormous scale, making him one of the essential logistical architects of Union victory.

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Edwin M. Stanton (1814-1869)

although born in Ohio, built important professional ties in Pittsburgh before becoming Lincoln's Secretary of War in 1862. A forceful administrator, he oversaw Union mobilization, military communications, and the vast War Department bureaucracy through the conflict and coordinated the federal response after Lincoln's assassination.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 86.39.38

A wartime military commission bearing the signatures of President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

Thomas Alexander Scott (1823-1881)

a Pennsylvania Railroad executive served as Assistant Secretary of War and helped coordinate the enormous movement of Union troops, equipment, and supplies by rail. His knowledge of transportation networks made him one of the war effort's most important civilian logisticians.

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John Pierre Burr (1792-1864)

was a prominent Black Philadelphia abolitionist, community leader, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. The son of Vice President Aaron Burr and Mary Emmons, Burr operated a barbershop and, with his wife Hetty, sheltered freedom seekers in their Philadelphia home before helping them continue northward. He helped organize the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, worked with the Vigilance Committee, supported Black education and civil rights, and served as an agent for William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator. As the Civil War approached its final years, Burr joined Frederick Douglass and other Black leaders in encouraging African American men to enlist in the United States Colored Troops, linking his decades-long struggle against slavery directly to the Union war for emancipation.

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Octavius V. Catto (1839-1871)

a Philadelphia educator and civil-rights leader helped recruit Black soldiers for the Union Army and supported the formation of United States Colored Troops. After the war he became a leading campaigner for equal citizenship and desegregation before being murdered on Election Day in 1871.

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CWMP Collection: 

Schedule A - O 10.24.29

African American soldiers, believed to be the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops, parade at Camp William Penn. Catto helped recruit Black Philadelphians for Union service.

William Still (1821-1902)

a Philadelphia abolitionist, was a leader of the Underground Railroad and helped hundreds of freedom seekers escape slavery. His meticulous records preserved their stories and later became his landmark 1872 book, The Underground Railroad, one of the most important firsthand sources on the movement.

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Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)

a longtime Philadelphia resident was one of the nation's foremost abolitionists and women's-rights advocates. She helped establish the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, spoke widely against slavery, and continued after emancipation to advocate equal rights for African Americans and women.

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Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932)

Philadelphia-raised became one of the most celebrated abolitionist and Union speakers of the Civil War era while still in her teens and early twenties. Her speeches for emancipation and Republican candidates drew large audiences and made her a nationally recognized voice for the Union cause.

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Ann Preston (1813–1872) was a pioneering physician and dean of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. During the Civil War, she helped expand opportunities for women in medicine and supported the training of nurses needed for the war effort. Her work broke barriers in medical education and helped open the profession to women, leaving a lasting legacy in American medicine.

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CWMP Collection:

Schedule B - O 86.24.159

Image of Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia represents the wartime medical environment in which Philadelphia women pressed for expanded roles in medicine and nursing.

Jonathan Letterman (1824-1872)

Canonsburg-born, a Jefferson Medical College graduate, revolutionized battlefield medicine as Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. His organized ambulance corps, triage system, field hospitals, and evacuation procedures became the foundation of modern military emergency medicine.

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CWMP Collection: Schedule B - O 86.3.77

A view of Mower U.S. Army General Hospital in Philadelphia illustrates the vast military medical system transformed by innovations pioneered by Jonathan Letterman.

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914)

treated soldiers with severe nerve injuries at Turner's Lane Hospital during the Civil War. His research helped establish American neurology and produced pioneering descriptions of conditions including causalgia and phantom-limb pain.

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Matthias W. Baldwin (1795-1866) a Philadelphia industrialist founded the Baldwin Locomotive Works which helped make the city a major center of American railroad manufacturing.  A committed Union supporter and abolitionist, Baldwin's locomotives formed part of the rail infrastructure indispensable to Northern transportation and wartime logistics.

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