Co. Samuel Black, the son of Irish immigrants, recruited the 62nd Pennsylvania Volunteers. The forming of the regiment began in Pittsburgh on July 4^th, 1861. Within a month the unit was formed and totaled 1,260 officers and men. Twelve companies comprised the unit, with seven recruited from Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, two from Clarion county, and one each from Armstrong, Jefferson, and Blair Counties. The companies from Pittsburgh and Allegheny Counties were:

Co. A — The Federal Guards

Co. B - The McKee Rifle Guards

Co. F - The Eighth Ward Guards

Co. G - The Kramer Guards

Co. H — The St. Clair Guards

Co. K - The Eighth Ward Guards

Co. L — The Chambers Zouaves

The companies from Clarion County were: Co. C — The Lyon Guards, and Co. E — The Reimersburg Guards. Armstrong County was represented by Co. D — the Finley Guards, Jefferson County had Co. I — the Jefferson Guards, and Co. M were known as the Blair County Sharpshooters.

On the 24^th of July the regiment left Pittsburgh and traveled east to Camp Cameron in Harrisburg. After a short stay in Pennsylvania the men were posted at Camp Rapp in Washington City, (DC). On September 11 the unit was once again moved to Fort Carcoran on the Potomac and assigned to the 2^nd Brigade of General Fitz John Porter. By early October the men were encamped at Minor’s Hill, Camp Betty Black. Here they spent the winter of 61/62. During this period the 62^nd was issued a French Zouave uniform for the excellence in military drill, however this uniform was soon replaced by the standard dress of the Union Army. The Zouave dress was never worn into battle. During the winter several men died of camp fever, as did many in the Union Army.

In mid-March of 1862 the 62^nd was moved by transports to Fort Monroe Virginia where it would participate in General McCellan’s Peninsula Campaign for the purpose of taking the Confederate Capital at Richmond. Upon arrival on the Peninsula, the men from Southwestern Pennsylvania had to accustomed themselves to the hot humid weather and the dusty clay roads of Virginia; which during rain storms, turned into muddy quagmires. On April 4^th the men experienced their first encounter with the Rebels at Yorktown. One man was killed and three wounded in this engagement.

On May 8^th Porter’s Division moved up the York River to the area around West Point. Upon arrival the Fifth Corps was formed under the command of General Porter. Thus the 62^nd Pennsylvania found its home in the Fifth Corps until the regiment mustered out in July of 1864. After the formation of the Fifth Corps, General Charles Griffin assumed command of the 2^nd Brigade, of which the 62^nd was assigned.

On May 27^th the 62^nd, in the rain, trudged up the muddy road toward Hanover Court House, now held by 12,000 Southern troops. During this fight the regiment charged into a stand of timber held by the enemy and drove them from the field. Approximately six men were wounded and the 62^nd captured many prisoners and arms. By evening of this day the Firth Corps retired to Gaine’s Mill. Through June 25^th the unit served on picket duty and road construction. The regiment was only lightly engaged at Mechanicsville on June 26^th. On June 27^th the 62^nd saw its first major engagement on the Peninsula during the Battle of Gaines Mill. The men were posted in support of Martin’s Battery and opposed a Brigade of Confederates from A.P. Hill’s Division. In defense of the guns, along with the 9^th Massachusetts, the 62^nd charged the enemy. During the charge Col. Black was killed. After many charges and counter charges, the regiment was ordered, once again, to attack. Again the determined men from Pittsburgh moved against the Rebels, but were hit by a deadly volley and forced to retire. During this charge Lt. Col. Sweitzer was wounded and captured. Capt. Hull of Co. A was promoted to Lt. Col. and assumed command of the regiment. During this fight the unit lost a total of 51 causalities, 22 killed, 2 died of wounds, 14 others wounded, 7 wounded and captured, and 6 missing. Thomas Espy of Co. H was one who died of his wounds. The GAR Post 153 in Carnegie Pennsylvania was named in his honor. After this fight the regiment encamped at White Oak Swamp on June 28^th. They broke camp on the 29^th and moved to Malvern Hill, arriving by mid-morning on June 30^th.

The unit took its position on Malvern Hill by nightfall of June 30^th. The 62^nd, as part of Griffin’s brigaded, was posted in front of the Crew House in support of Union Batteries in their front. Until the battle opened, the men had lain for hours in the hot sun with enemy shells exploding over their heads. The attack opened at approximately 10:00 a.m. and continued for hours with each army attacking and counter attacking. During the fighting the 62^nd had five color bearers of the state flag shot down. The battle finally ended at 9:00 p.m., the result being a complete repulse of Robert E. Lee’s army. The regiment had 7 men killed out-right and seven wounded.

The Fifth Corps left the Peninsula on August 14^th and arrived at Newport News on August 18^th. They then moved up Acquia Creek by transport then by rail to Fredericksburg. During the Second Battle of Bull Run the regiment was slightly engaged but mostly remained in reserve with Porter’s Corps.

Early September of 1862 found the men back in their old winter camp at Minor’s Hill. During the Battle of Antietam the regiment was only lightly engaged, as was most of the Fifth Corps. November 17^th saw yet another chance in the command of the Army of the Potomac. On this day General Burnside replaced General McCellan. In December the 62^nd found itself involved in the Union disaster known as the Battle of Fredericksburg. On Sunday, December 13^th, the sun rose at 7:17 and illuminated a thick fog, which shrouded the town and surrounding ridges, creating an eerie mist. As the fog lifted, the battle of Fredericksburg commenced. By 3:30 p.m. the 62^nd was in the thick of the battle. Within minutes, the men advanced up the bloody slope over the dead and dying under a heavy fire, until it reached a point within thirty or forty yards of the stone wall fronting Marye’s Heights. With the Union Army unable to advance and take the Southern position, the men of the 62^nd, as did many others from the army, lie in the snow and slush all night. By the end of this senseless encounter, the butcher’s bill for the regiment totaled seventy in killed, wounded and missing. During January the men participated in Burnside’s "Mud March" then spent the next four months in winter camp.

Spring of 1863 launched another season of campaigning for both armies. In April of 1863, with the roads drying and the temperatures warming, the commanders of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac began planning their strategies and tactics designed to kill each other, in hopes of bringing this war to an end. The Battle of Chancellorsville began on the morning of May 1^st and lasted for three days. The 62^nd, as was most of the Fifth Corps, was only lightly engaged. The regiment’s total loses for this engagement was only fifteen men and officers; the most significant loss being the wounding of General Charles Griffin, commander of the first division, Fifth Corps. The 62^nd was part of Sweitzer’s Brigade, of this division. General Griffin would not resume command until July 4^th at Gettysburg. General Barnes assumed command of his division and led it to Gettysburg.

After Chancelorsville, during the better part of May, both armies were resting and refitting in and around Fredericksburg and Falmouth. Again, Lee and Hooker were planning their moves. By June 5^th one of the first moves in the chess match for the invasion of Pennsylvania was completed. Lee began moving his army north toward Maryland and eventually Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter Hooker would begin moving in an attempt to figure out just what Lee was up to. By June 17^th both armies were marching north during a heat wave. The forced marches caused many men on both sides to drop out due to exhaustion. Some died. By June 27^th Lee’s army was in Pennsylvania, with two of his corps in Chambersburg and one in Carlisle. On this same day, the Army of the Potomac was playing catch-up on the dusty roads of Maryland. By June 30^th the armies were close at hand. Major General Reynolds, commanding the left wing of the Union Army, was encamped five miles south of Gettysburg near Emmitsburg. Four Union Corps were within eight miles of town, and the three others, including the Fifth, were about twenty miles to the south. Lee’s Army was much closer to Gettysburg: Hill’s Corps was in Cashtown, Longstreet behind him in Greenwood, and Roades and Early’s divisions of Ewell’s Corps were encamped on the Harrisburg Road.

On June 30^th the 62^nd was still marching north. By 2:00 p.m. they marched into Union Mills, a small village in northern Maryland. They had marched twenty-five miles this day and the men were tired and foot sore. As the night of June 30 wore on and passed into a new month, the scouts of Buford’s Union Cavalry moved quietly along the damp fog shrouded ridges west and north of Gettysburg looking for signs of Southern troops moving in the direction of this crossroads town. On July 1^st the 62^nd marched out of Union Mills at 9:00 a.m. toward Hanover Pennsylvania. As the Fifth Corps moved along the roads dust hung in clouds over the column stifling the breath of the men. Two hours before the men marched out of Union Mills a cloud of dust was seen by the scouts of Buford’s cavalry posted on the Chambersburg Pike, west of Gettysburg. The 7,500 men of General Heath’s Division of the Army of Northern Virginia caused the dust. Around 7:00 a.m. the first shot of the Battle of Gettysburg was fired opening a three-day engagement. The 62^nd Pennsylvania entered Hanover, thirteen miles east of Gettysburg at 4:00 p.m. unaware that a great battle had begun. About this same time the tattered remnants of the Union’s First and Eleventh Corps were retiring through the clogged and battle scared streets of Gettysburg, as the men headed south of town to rally on Cemetery Hill. Back in Hanover, as the men from the regiment were resting, the Fifth Corps commander received orders to proceed to Gettysburg with all speed. The corps marched out of Hanover at 7:00 p.m. and moved east on the Hanover Road. They marched all night and arrived just outside of Gettysburg around 7:00 a.m. The sun rose in a Blaze of red pushing the temperature to seventy-four degrees by 7:00 a.m. The Fifth Corps moved left of the Hanover Road eventually moving further south in support of Meade’s Army. They finally were posted on Power’s Hill where they sat in a reserve position to support Meade’s Army.

Around 1:00 p.m. without Meade’s orders, General Sickles moved his 10,000 man corps west from Cemetery Hill breaking the Union line. He posted his men in Devil’s Den and the Peach Orchard, then his line made a 90-degree turn at the orchard and extended north down the Emmetsburg Road to the Codori Farm. This movement isolated his corps and threatened the Union left. Between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. the Rebels attacked Sickles Corps. The Fifth Corps was sent to the left to support Sickles. As Sickles’ line began to fall back the men of the 62^nd advanced from Powers Hill toward the Wheatfield Road. Upon reaching the road they moved by the right flank in the direction of the Peach Orchard, but were moved off the road to the left onto Stony Hill, which boarders the Wheatfield on its northern edge. Sweitzer placed his brigade in line of battle from right to left with the 4^th Michigan on the right, the 62^nd in the middle, and the 32 Massachusetts on the left. The regiments hurriedly prepared for battle, but there was little time before the enemy attacked. The regiment sustained casualties while in this position, but it was not long on Stony Hill. Barnes, the division commander, concerned that he was going to be flanked ordered Sweitzer’s and Tilton’s brigades to retire from the hill. They did so in perfect order, firing as they withdrew. Sweitzer moved his brigade off the hill and across the Wheatfield Road into Trostle’s Woods, which borders the north edge of the road. Here they waited. It was now around 6:00 p.m. and the hot summer sun was low in the sky, beginning its decent to the west, behind South Mountain. Two hours of battle smoke turned the sun into a dull red ball as the men stood across the road facing the Wheatfield, which two hours prior had golden stocks of waist high wheat glistening in the sun. The men of the 62^nd watched the fighting in the Wheatfield as Caldwell’s Division routed the Southern troops and cleared the field. But shortly after this success, a Confederate counterattack was launched which threatened Caldewell’s men. General Barnes ordered Sweitzer into the Wheatfield to support Caldwell.

With his command readied, Col Sweitzer’s brigade steeped out of the woods, crossed the road, and entered the Wheatfield, its once waist high stalks now trampled and blood stained and strewed with the dead and wounded of the men who had just passed through it. With the sun sinking in a cloud of sulfurous smoke, Sweitzer’s brigade flag, a white pennant bearing a red maltese cross and a blue band along its pole edge was barely visible to the troops that followed behind it. The brigade line stretched almost 300 yards from flank to flank, with the 62^nd in the center, the 4^th Michigan on the right, and the 32^nd Massachusetts on the left. The Confederate counterattack that resulted in Sweitzer being called in to support Caldwell was now in full force. Sweitzer was now trapped at the southern most part of the Wheatfield near the stonewall. The fighting became one of survival and turned to hand to hand combat. It was now between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m. It had been roughly twelve hours since the 62^nd had marched into Gettysburg. Now dusk began to fall over the Wheatfield and still the fighting continued. The color-bearer of the national colors was killed, and the bearer of the state colors was wounded. As the fighting became more severe the brigade withdrew from the field.

The regiment had twenty men killed and many more wounded and captured. The 62^nd along with the men of the other two regiments of Sweitzer’s Brigade sacrificed themselves in an effort to save the men of Caldwell’s Division. The 62^nd remained on the field of Gettysburg until around 5:00 p.m. of July 5^th, when they, along with the Fifth Corps, moved out along the muddy Emmetsburg Road in pursuit of Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia. Once again, the men of the 62^nd Pennsylvania Volunteers proved their character and fighting ability, but would be forgotten to the historians.

They would serve another year of active duty in the Army of the Potomac. They would spend an uneventful winter in Virginia at its Licking Run Camp. They began the 1864 Overland Campaign in the thickets of Chancellorsvillle and end in front of Petersburg. For three years these men contributed to and suffered from the carnage of a brutal war. They killed other Americans, cared for their wounded, buried their dead, and experienced the emotions of victories and defeats. The 62^nd served under McCellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, and Grant. The regiment fought gallantly at Yorktown, Hanover Court House, Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Laurel Hill, Spottsylvania Court House, and Betheada Church. The unit mustered out of service in July of 1864.

Thank you for your time spent reading this brief history. I am continuing to research the regiment and would be very interested in contacting individuals who had relatives in this unit. I can be reached by e-mail at edelon305@cs

Ernie Spisak