62d Pennsylvania Volunteers

On the 62d Pennsylvania Volunteers website are a Regimental History and Company Rosters that have been corrected and enhanced. Many thanks are due to descendents of volunteers and others interested in the regiment for contributing further biographical information, portraits, and documents that have made this a fuller site.

The soldiers of the 62d Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment were brave, gallant, loyal, and well disciplined. While still in training, they won honors as one of the three best drilled regiments in Porter's Divsion of the Army of the Potomac. During their three years of fighting in the war, however, they achieved no special glory, nor lasting fame, nor particular distinction. They experienced both victories and defeats. They gained ground, held ground, lost ground, even fled in retreat. They felt the ill effects of weather, disease, idleness and uncertainty. They suffered severe casualties. They marched; they waited; they carried out orders. The 62d's three-year term ended several months before the final Union victory. The officers and privates of the 62d Pennsylvania were typical, imperfect soldiers. Among them were the dashingly dauntless and earnest patriots, as well as the stragglers, skedadlers, and shirkers. In that ordinary way, the volunteers of the 62d Pennsylvania became heroes.

I became interested in this regiment because my grandfather, John G. Henderson, had an uncle, John Henderson, who was a private in Company D. He was wounded three times during the war, included at Gettysburg, but was still able to serve until he was mustered out at the end of his three-year enrollment.

This site is now hosted on icyousee.org. Any saved links to pages other than this one that had been found on the Ithaca College server may no longer work. My apologies for any inconvenience. Further apologies for odd appearances or missing links while the transition is being made.

This page authored and maintained by John R. Henderson (jhenderson @ icyousee . org), Lodi, NY.
Last modified: 25 May 2012
URL: http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/pa62d/pa62d.html