The 133rd Pennsylvania Volunteers Regiment at Fredericksburg.

Company F of the 133rd Regiment is formed - Daniel L Klennelsee

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Two weeks ago a meeting was held in Ebensburg, to raise a company to go forth in defence of the rights most dear to Northern freemen. You recollect the proceedings of that meeting - thirteen men then and there signed the muster-roll of Capt. John M. Jones' company. Well, patriotic young men flocked to the standard of the Union, and in one week a full company was ready to enter the service of Uncle Sam. On last Tuesday, we organized, were sworn into the service of the Federal Government, and elected our commissioned officers. The next morning, at half past five o'clock, amid the adieux and God-speeds of friends, we left the Mountain Village for the term of nine months.

At every station along our journey, we were welcomed with hearty hurrahs by the men and the waving of handkerchiefs by the ladies. At one of the stations, a beautiful bouquet was thrown in at the car window, which your correspondent had the good fortune to secure. Thanks to the fair donor, and may her pathway thro' life be sweet and pleasant as the fragrance of her floral offering!

On entering the station of Mexico, such an assemblage of bright eyes, fair cheeks and rosy lips greeted us that many of the boys imagined they had, by some mistake, taken the back-track and were again in Ebensburg!

At two o'clock, we arrived at Harrisburg depot. From thence we marched to the Pennsylvania House, where we partook of dinner; after which we marched to camp. The same evening we received our tents and one day's rations, but nothing else, so the first nights sleep in camp for the greater portion of us was upon the hard ground. Ground, I say, and not soft green grass, for recollect, there is very little in this camp except soldiers, tents and - dust. This latter article, moreover, is a friend that sticketh considerably closer than a poor relation! Let us all petition for a rain - a great, rousing rain - which shall settle the dust of Camp Curtin, and thereby cause the hearts of the soldiers to rejoice.

The rations we receive are excellent, and it is only a want of proper knowledge to prepare them that would render them unpalatable to any one. The boys are anxious to receive their clothing and arms, and learn what it is to be a real soldier. Thus far we have received by way of clothing only overcoats and blankets, but will get the remainder ere long.

The following is the muster-roll of the company - to which no name has yet been given, although we generally go by the title of "Cambria Guards No. 2"

Captain: John M Jones

Lieutenants:

1st, Wm A Scott

2d, F M Flanagan


Sergeants:

1st, James J Will

2d, J O Brookbank

3d, Nathan Bracken

4th, John N Evans

5th, John O Evans


Corporals:

1st, Samuel W Davis

2d, Nathan Sanders

3d, Meshac Thomas

4th, J M Thompson

5th, V S Barker

6th, H J Humphreys

7th, J F Stearls

8th, Peter Urban


Musician: Andrew J Litzinger

Teamster: John J Griffith


Privates:

Aerhart Peter

Bennet Richard J

Berkey George W

Broombaugh John

Burns Patrick A

Blanchard Melville G

Burns Patrick

Conrad Stephen

Carland Henry

Davis William A

Devcraux Thomas T

Deveraux Robert

Evans Hosea J

Evans William M

Evans Andrew E

Evans Thomas J

Evans Hugh E

Evans Elbridge G

Evans David I

Edwards Lewis R

Edelblute James M

Fronk Cyrus H

Fox John

Gibson Wm D

Gallagher Wilson

Hughes John W

Howell Wm W

Horn Henry P

Humphreys Edward J

Jones Richard M

Jones Alexander

Jones Edward Jr

Jones John M

Jones Wm W

Jones Milton

Jones Evan E

Keith Levi

Keith Peter

Kinsel Joseph

Krize Valentine W

Kimball John

Klennelsee Daniel L

Long Daniel

Lewis David D

Longwell James M

Lamer Samual

M'Closkey Ben T G

M'Munnigle Lawrence

M'Dowell Richard B

Mack Joseph

Makin Wm

Michael Evan J

Morgan David

Moore Levi

Melhorn Peter

Miller Joseph

Pryee David D

Powell Daniel

Parker Joseph W

Patterson Edward

Roberts Edwin E

Singer Robert H

Severance Levi

Severance Albion A

Snyder Tobias

Snyder Lewis

Shinefelt Christian

Shoffner Martin

Sutton Francis A

Stiles Elbridge

Thomas David

Thompson John A

Tibbot Wm R

Whitehead James W

Weakland Demetrius

Wiggins John F

Waugeman Robt E B




Yours, &c, CAMBRIAN
"From Our Volunteers", The Alleghanian. (Ebensburg, Pa.), 21 Aug. 1862. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

-Updated March 30, 2015.

On September 22, 1862 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

At the beginning of the Civil War Lincoln had cast the cause as one for Union, not for abolition. Famously he had written that he would free none, some, or all of the slaves, whichever would best keep the United States intact. His thinking had evolved and in the summer of 1862 he had made up his mind to abolish slavery entirely.* All he had been waiting for, he told his cabinet, was a victory that would drive C.S.A. troops out of Maryland. That was Antietam.

Lincoln’s decision was unpopular in virtually all corners.

In the week after the announcement there were more desertions from the Unites States army than there were new enlistments. In the Confederate States of America enlistment increased.

Outside some units from New England, freeing the slaves was a rare motivation for a young man to volunteer his service to the U.S. during the Civil War. "John Brown’s Body" was motivational but John Brown’s body was not. Money, glamour, and nationalism were far greater spurs.

Like others, the men of the 133^rd Pennsylvania got offered a “bounty” to join up, a one-time lump sum payment that took the full meaning of “volunteer” out of volunteer. The excitement of the soldier’s life wore off quickly with the rigors of march, the ennui of camp, the rampant disease, and the submission to authority. The men of the 133rd were farmers for the most part. Self-reliance has always been an American trait; it was more so for the citizens of the United States who never had slaves to serve them. They weren't easily to be made servile to others, either.

Contact with white residents in the C.S.A. generally increased the U.S. soldier’s loathing of their enemy, but contact with the slaves evoked a mixed bag of feelings. Some thought slavery not the unmitigated evil they had imagined when they saw the slaves in person. Others were deeply moved by the acts of cruelty that they observed and their effects, for example the backs of slaves criss-crossed with the scars and keloids from prior lashings. Still others engaged in like acts of cruelty against the slaves. The racism that was at the root of slavery was largely seconded by the feelings of U.S. soldiers, if they still thought the peculiar institution unsavory.

Nathan, and Richard** had probably never heard a southern accent before the war; they almost certainly had never seen a black person. The Confederate States of America were in every way another country to them.

The climate and vegetation of northern Virginia, the 133^rd’s first stop in the C.S.A. at Manassas, was not much different from what the men were used to. The people though were very different. Repeatedly in letters home U.S. soldiers commented on the state of things in the Confederacy. And they were shocked: The people were coarse, poor, and uneducated and the contrast with the more prosperous, more literate people of the U.S.A. was stark, as in this letter from a U.S. private:

The Cuntry hear is the hardest plase that I ever Sea Wea Do Not Sea a Scool house near in one hundred Mills and you ask a man if they Go to Meaten they Say they Don’t know What It is there aint one in 20 that Can tell one Leter from a Nother and every thing els in CordenCee with thear Lurnen.

Like sophistication in the 133rd’s case was a product of self-education in the lessons of life. They were the “Mountain Guards,” educated in and graduated cum laude from the elite incubus of western Pennsylvania. Any corner roughness missed by this finishing school was smoothed away by the U.S. army.

It will be recalled that the Mountain Guards came to penetrate deepest darkest northern Virginia from Paris-on-the-Potomac. Washington acquainted the boys with another form of human existence as alien to them as the Confederacy: a city. This was more to their liking.

“Oil of Gladness.”

“Nockum stiff.”

“How come you so.”

Alcohol had replaced water in Washington.

*This is an abridged version of the E.P. The September 22 order freed the slaves then being held in C.S.A. states if those states did not return to the union by January 1, 1863. On January 1, Lincoln signed a second order freeing slaves held in ten C.S.A. states, but not border states like Maryland.

**I exclude Francis here on the assumption that he was an Irish immigrant and would have been exposed to a more heterogeneous body of humanity.

to be continued.