Please note that there a wide variety of questions regarding this post, including whether the John Biery shown buried here was the veteran described below.
Various censuses report his birth location as Switzerland and Pennsylvania. Which may be true I cannot say, but Pennsylvania is mentioned more often. The son of David & Sarah Biery, in 1860 he was a clerk living with his family in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with light hair and light eyes. He later married Mary lnu., ten years his senior, and in 1880 was living with Mary in Union Deposit, Dauphin County. No obituary could be found in any online newspaper archive from anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.
An apparent Civil War veteran, according to the Pennsylvania Archives' ARIAS file a John M. Biery enlisted at the stated age of eighteen in Reading, Berks County, June 11, 1861, and mustered into federal service at Harrisburg [but see below] on July 27, 1861, as a private with Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves (32nd Pa), and eventually promoted to sergeant. He then re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer January 1, 1864, and on July 4, 1864, transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Upon the dissolution of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, the 3rd and 4th Pennsylvania Reserves formed a temporary battalion that operated in West Virginia before joining the 54th Pennsylvania, so Biery did not directly transfer to the 54th. ARIAS lists no discharge date, but if he remained with the regiment full term, he would have honorably discharged with his company on July 15, 1865.
There are a series of question marks here:
1. His military pension indexes show that on August 15, 1883, his father David applied for a surviving father's pension, which should mean that John was dead by then. That, of course, is at wide variance with the death date on the tombstone, leaving us to ask if the death date on the tombstone simply is off by at least thirteen years or the grave is for a different John Biery. Much less likely possibilities are that David Biery was committing fraud or he truly thought his son was dead, which means that John had gone missing but also that Mary was either dead or divorced and any minor children were dead as well. Unlikely as this may seem - and it is - that scenario is not unprecedented.
2. According to the compiled military service index record found in Fold3.com, when Biery transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, he served in Co. M, a company that appears in no documentation for that regiment. No John Biery or any variant spelling is found in any other of the regiment's company registers. The pension indexes make no mention of the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, although that is not unusual for a parental application.
3. Sgt. John M. Biery, Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves, is presented in both the company register and muster roll as a thirty-seven-year-old with an enlistment date of June 4, 1861, not June 11. Those may be clerical errors and enlistment/muster date variations between ARIAS and the company registers are not unusual, but the data mismatch still raises questions. No muster-in date or location is present in the company register, but the regiment mustered into federal service at Washington DC, which was, contrary to what ARIAS contends, Biery's more likely muster location.
His compiled military service probably would answer several of these questions, but their reading must await the post-covid-19 reopening of the National Archives.
Various censuses report his birth location as Switzerland and Pennsylvania. Which may be true I cannot say, but Pennsylvania is mentioned more often. The son of David & Sarah Biery, in 1860 he was a clerk living with his family in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with light hair and light eyes. He later married Mary lnu., ten years his senior, and in 1880 was living with Mary in Union Deposit, Dauphin County. No obituary could be found in any online newspaper archive from anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.
An apparent Civil War veteran, according to the Pennsylvania Archives' ARIAS file a John M. Biery enlisted at the stated age of eighteen in Reading, Berks County, June 11, 1861, and mustered into federal service at Harrisburg [but see below] on July 27, 1861, as a private with Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves (32nd Pa), and eventually promoted to sergeant. He then re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer January 1, 1864, and on July 4, 1864, transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Upon the dissolution of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, the 3rd and 4th Pennsylvania Reserves formed a temporary battalion that operated in West Virginia before joining the 54th Pennsylvania, so Biery did not directly transfer to the 54th. ARIAS lists no discharge date, but if he remained with the regiment full term, he would have honorably discharged with his company on July 15, 1865.
There are a series of question marks here:
1. His military pension indexes show that on August 15, 1883, his father David applied for a surviving father's pension, which should mean that John was dead by then. That, of course, is at wide variance with the death date on the tombstone, leaving us to ask if the death date on the tombstone simply is off by at least thirteen years or the grave is for a different John Biery. Much less likely possibilities are that David Biery was committing fraud or he truly thought his son was dead, which means that John had gone missing but also that Mary was either dead or divorced and any minor children were dead as well. Unlikely as this may seem - and it is - that scenario is not unprecedented.
2. According to the compiled military service index record found in Fold3.com, when Biery transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, he served in Co. M, a company that appears in no documentation for that regiment. No John Biery or any variant spelling is found in any other of the regiment's company registers. The pension indexes make no mention of the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, although that is not unusual for a parental application.
3. Sgt. John M. Biery, Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves, is presented in both the company register and muster roll as a thirty-seven-year-old with an enlistment date of June 4, 1861, not June 11. Those may be clerical errors and enlistment/muster date variations between ARIAS and the company registers are not unusual, but the data mismatch still raises questions. No muster-in date or location is present in the company register, but the regiment mustered into federal service at Washington DC, which was, contrary to what ARIAS contends, Biery's more likely muster location.
His compiled military service probably would answer several of these questions, but their reading must await the post-covid-19 reopening of the National Archives.
Please note that there a wide variety of questions regarding this post, including whether the John Biery shown buried here was the veteran described below.
Various censuses report his birth location as Switzerland and Pennsylvania. Which may be true I cannot say, but Pennsylvania is mentioned more often. The son of David & Sarah Biery, in 1860 he was a clerk living with his family in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with light hair and light eyes. He later married Mary lnu., ten years his senior, and in 1880 was living with Mary in Union Deposit, Dauphin County. No obituary could be found in any online newspaper archive from anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.
An apparent Civil War veteran, according to the Pennsylvania Archives' ARIAS file a John M. Biery enlisted at the stated age of eighteen in Reading, Berks County, June 11, 1861, and mustered into federal service at Harrisburg [but see below] on July 27, 1861, as a private with Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves (32nd Pa), and eventually promoted to sergeant. He then re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer January 1, 1864, and on July 4, 1864, transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Upon the dissolution of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, the 3rd and 4th Pennsylvania Reserves formed a temporary battalion that operated in West Virginia before joining the 54th Pennsylvania, so Biery did not directly transfer to the 54th. ARIAS lists no discharge date, but if he remained with the regiment full term, he would have honorably discharged with his company on July 15, 1865.
There are a series of question marks here:
1. His military pension indexes show that on August 15, 1883, his father David applied for a surviving father's pension, which should mean that John was dead by then. That, of course, is at wide variance with the death date on the tombstone, leaving us to ask if the death date on the tombstone simply is off by at least thirteen years or the grave is for a different John Biery. Much less likely possibilities are that David Biery was committing fraud or he truly thought his son was dead, which means that John had gone missing but also that Mary was either dead or divorced and any minor children were dead as well. Unlikely as this may seem - and it is - that scenario is not unprecedented.
2. According to the compiled military service index record found in Fold3.com, when Biery transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, he served in Co. M, a company that appears in no documentation for that regiment. No John Biery or any variant spelling is found in any other of the regiment's company registers. The pension indexes make no mention of the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, although that is not unusual for a parental application.
3. Sgt. John M. Biery, Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves, is presented in both the company register and muster roll as a thirty-seven-year-old with an enlistment date of June 4, 1861, not June 11. Those may be clerical errors and enlistment/muster date variations between ARIAS and the company registers are not unusual, but the data mismatch still raises questions. No muster-in date or location is present in the company register, but the regiment mustered into federal service at Washington DC, which was, contrary to what ARIAS contends, Biery's more likely muster location.
His compiled military service probably would answer several of these questions, but their reading must await the post-covid-19 reopening of the National Archives.
Various censuses report his birth location as Switzerland and Pennsylvania. Which may be true I cannot say, but Pennsylvania is mentioned more often. The son of David & Sarah Biery, in 1860 he was a clerk living with his family in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with light hair and light eyes. He later married Mary lnu., ten years his senior, and in 1880 was living with Mary in Union Deposit, Dauphin County. No obituary could be found in any online newspaper archive from anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.
An apparent Civil War veteran, according to the Pennsylvania Archives' ARIAS file a John M. Biery enlisted at the stated age of eighteen in Reading, Berks County, June 11, 1861, and mustered into federal service at Harrisburg [but see below] on July 27, 1861, as a private with Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves (32nd Pa), and eventually promoted to sergeant. He then re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer January 1, 1864, and on July 4, 1864, transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Upon the dissolution of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, the 3rd and 4th Pennsylvania Reserves formed a temporary battalion that operated in West Virginia before joining the 54th Pennsylvania, so Biery did not directly transfer to the 54th. ARIAS lists no discharge date, but if he remained with the regiment full term, he would have honorably discharged with his company on July 15, 1865.
There are a series of question marks here:
1. His military pension indexes show that on August 15, 1883, his father David applied for a surviving father's pension, which should mean that John was dead by then. That, of course, is at wide variance with the death date on the tombstone, leaving us to ask if the death date on the tombstone simply is off by at least thirteen years or the grave is for a different John Biery. Much less likely possibilities are that David Biery was committing fraud or he truly thought his son was dead, which means that John had gone missing but also that Mary was either dead or divorced and any minor children were dead as well. Unlikely as this may seem - and it is - that scenario is not unprecedented.
2. According to the compiled military service index record found in Fold3.com, when Biery transferred to the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, he served in Co. M, a company that appears in no documentation for that regiment. No John Biery or any variant spelling is found in any other of the regiment's company registers. The pension indexes make no mention of the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, although that is not unusual for a parental application.
3. Sgt. John M. Biery, Co. F, 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves, is presented in both the company register and muster roll as a thirty-seven-year-old with an enlistment date of June 4, 1861, not June 11. Those may be clerical errors and enlistment/muster date variations between ARIAS and the company registers are not unusual, but the data mismatch still raises questions. No muster-in date or location is present in the company register, but the regiment mustered into federal service at Washington DC, which was, contrary to what ARIAS contends, Biery's more likely muster location.
His compiled military service probably would answer several of these questions, but their reading must await the post-covid-19 reopening of the National Archives.
Gravesite Details
Spelled Beiry on neighboring stone
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