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He married Elizabeth Collins, née Poist, five years his senior, and fathered George (b. 05/??/60) and Florence (b. ? - married a Strauss). In 1860, he was a shoemaker living with his family in Washington Borough, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with dark hair and gray eyes.
A Civil War veteran, he enlisted and mustered into federal service at Philadelphia August 13, 1861, as a private with Co. I, 23rd Pennsylvania Infantry. He went AWOL and was tried by regimental court-martial November 21, 1861, losing one month's pay. In company with a small group of Lancaster County comrades, he deserted shortly after the battle of Gettysburg (he said on July 6, 1863) and that they did so with the captain's permission, an unlikely event. He went to Columbia to visit his family. Because desertion had grown to such epic proportions in the Union army, Abraham Lincoln had issued an amnesty proclamation for all deserters. Thus years later, he claimed, he reported to Camp Curtin under the protection of that proclamation. Problem is that his knowledge of history had failed him. Lincoln had issued that proclamation on March 10, 1863, and the deserters had to report back by April 1, long before George's illegal vacation. Arrested, he was confined on October 21, 1863, and eventually wound up at Camp Distribution, Alexandria, Virginia, where he claimed that a tree limb had fallen on him and had broken his right collar bone. (That he suffered a broken collar bone is not in question. How he broke it, is.) He returned to the regiment December 26, treated in the post hospital, and admitted to Carver U.S. Hospital, Washington DC, on February 27, 1864. Furloughed April 8, he returned to Carver on May 8, and discharged the service from there August 13, 1864, by reason of the broken clavicle. The War Department retroactively granted him an honorable discharge by surgeon's certificate and removed the outstanding desertion charge. His compiled military service record contains a prisoner of war record, but that event never occurred.
Elizabeth died November 21, 1875 (buried in Washington Borough, Lancaster County), and he married German-born Louisa Weber January 27, 1881, in Columbia. He applied several times for a pension increase based on his broken collar bone, but the pension office denied him each time even though his discharge paper documented the injury. In 1894, he weighed a hefty 204 lbs. and died allegedly from "asthma
He married Elizabeth Collins, née Poist, five years his senior, and fathered George (b. 05/??/60) and Florence (b. ? - married a Strauss). In 1860, he was a shoemaker living with his family in Washington Borough, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with dark hair and gray eyes.
A Civil War veteran, he enlisted and mustered into federal service at Philadelphia August 13, 1861, as a private with Co. I, 23rd Pennsylvania Infantry. He went AWOL and was tried by regimental court-martial November 21, 1861, losing one month's pay. In company with a small group of Lancaster County comrades, he deserted shortly after the battle of Gettysburg (he said on July 6, 1863) and that they did so with the captain's permission, an unlikely event. He went to Columbia to visit his family. Because desertion had grown to such epic proportions in the Union army, Abraham Lincoln had issued an amnesty proclamation for all deserters. Thus years later, he claimed, he reported to Camp Curtin under the protection of that proclamation. Problem is that his knowledge of history had failed him. Lincoln had issued that proclamation on March 10, 1863, and the deserters had to report back by April 1, long before George's illegal vacation. Arrested, he was confined on October 21, 1863, and eventually wound up at Camp Distribution, Alexandria, Virginia, where he claimed that a tree limb had fallen on him and had broken his right collar bone. (That he suffered a broken collar bone is not in question. How he broke it, is.) He returned to the regiment December 26, treated in the post hospital, and admitted to Carver U.S. Hospital, Washington DC, on February 27, 1864. Furloughed April 8, he returned to Carver on May 8, and discharged the service from there August 13, 1864, by reason of the broken clavicle. The War Department retroactively granted him an honorable discharge by surgeon's certificate and removed the outstanding desertion charge. His compiled military service record contains a prisoner of war record, but that event never occurred.
Elizabeth died November 21, 1875 (buried in Washington Borough, Lancaster County), and he married German-born Louisa Weber January 27, 1881, in Columbia. He applied several times for a pension increase based on his broken collar bone, but the pension office denied him each time even though his discharge paper documented the injury. In 1894, he weighed a hefty 204 lbs. and died allegedly from "asthma
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He married Elizabeth Collins, née Poist, five years his senior, and fathered George (b. 05/??/60) and Florence (b. ? - married a Strauss). In 1860, he was a shoemaker living with his family in Washington Borough, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with dark hair and gray eyes.
A Civil War veteran, he enlisted and mustered into federal service at Philadelphia August 13, 1861, as a private with Co. I, 23rd Pennsylvania Infantry. He went AWOL and was tried by regimental court-martial November 21, 1861, losing one month's pay. In company with a small group of Lancaster County comrades, he deserted shortly after the battle of Gettysburg (he said on July 6, 1863) and that they did so with the captain's permission, an unlikely event. He went to Columbia to visit his family. Because desertion had grown to such epic proportions in the Union army, Abraham Lincoln had issued an amnesty proclamation for all deserters. Thus years later, he claimed, he reported to Camp Curtin under the protection of that proclamation. Problem is that his knowledge of history had failed him. Lincoln had issued that proclamation on March 10, 1863, and the deserters had to report back by April 1, long before George's illegal vacation. Arrested, he was confined on October 21, 1863, and eventually wound up at Camp Distribution, Alexandria, Virginia, where he claimed that a tree limb had fallen on him and had broken his right collar bone. (That he suffered a broken collar bone is not in question. How he broke it, is.) He returned to the regiment December 26, treated in the post hospital, and admitted to Carver U.S. Hospital, Washington DC, on February 27, 1864. Furloughed April 8, he returned to Carver on May 8, and discharged the service from there August 13, 1864, by reason of the broken clavicle. The War Department retroactively granted him an honorable discharge by surgeon's certificate and removed the outstanding desertion charge. His compiled military service record contains a prisoner of war record, but that event never occurred.
Elizabeth died November 21, 1875 (buried in Washington Borough, Lancaster County), and he married German-born Louisa Weber January 27, 1881, in Columbia. He applied several times for a pension increase based on his broken collar bone, but the pension office denied him each time even though his discharge paper documented the injury. In 1894, he weighed a hefty 204 lbs. and died allegedly from "asthma
He married Elizabeth Collins, née Poist, five years his senior, and fathered George (b. 05/??/60) and Florence (b. ? - married a Strauss). In 1860, he was a shoemaker living with his family in Washington Borough, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5' 8" tall with dark hair and gray eyes.
A Civil War veteran, he enlisted and mustered into federal service at Philadelphia August 13, 1861, as a private with Co. I, 23rd Pennsylvania Infantry. He went AWOL and was tried by regimental court-martial November 21, 1861, losing one month's pay. In company with a small group of Lancaster County comrades, he deserted shortly after the battle of Gettysburg (he said on July 6, 1863) and that they did so with the captain's permission, an unlikely event. He went to Columbia to visit his family. Because desertion had grown to such epic proportions in the Union army, Abraham Lincoln had issued an amnesty proclamation for all deserters. Thus years later, he claimed, he reported to Camp Curtin under the protection of that proclamation. Problem is that his knowledge of history had failed him. Lincoln had issued that proclamation on March 10, 1863, and the deserters had to report back by April 1, long before George's illegal vacation. Arrested, he was confined on October 21, 1863, and eventually wound up at Camp Distribution, Alexandria, Virginia, where he claimed that a tree limb had fallen on him and had broken his right collar bone. (That he suffered a broken collar bone is not in question. How he broke it, is.) He returned to the regiment December 26, treated in the post hospital, and admitted to Carver U.S. Hospital, Washington DC, on February 27, 1864. Furloughed April 8, he returned to Carver on May 8, and discharged the service from there August 13, 1864, by reason of the broken clavicle. The War Department retroactively granted him an honorable discharge by surgeon's certificate and removed the outstanding desertion charge. His compiled military service record contains a prisoner of war record, but that event never occurred.
Elizabeth died November 21, 1875 (buried in Washington Borough, Lancaster County), and he married German-born Louisa Weber January 27, 1881, in Columbia. He applied several times for a pension increase based on his broken collar bone, but the pension office denied him each time even though his discharge paper documented the injury. In 1894, he weighed a hefty 204 lbs. and died allegedly from "asthma
Gravesite Details
23rd Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company I.
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