History
The 58th was recruited during August and September 1861. The Army had originally planned to raise an additional regiment, the 114th, but failed to raise the required number of men. The companies were from the following counties:
Company A Philadelphia
Company B Philadelphia - Captained by Theodore Blakeley
Company C Philadelphia - Captained by Daniel Linn
Company D Philadelphia - Captained by Newton R. Bunker
Company E McKean, Erie, and Tioga Counties - Captained by John C. Backus and Philetus M. Fuller
Company F McKean, Erie, and Tioga Counties - Captained by Lucius Rogers and John M. Collins
Company G Clinton County - Captained by Olney V. Cotter
Company H McKean County - Captained by Asa Howe Cory
Company I Luzerne and Northumberland Counties - Captained by John Buyers
Company K Philadelphia - Captained by Cecil Clay
John Richter Jones was selected as colonel of the regiment, Carlton B. Curtis as lieutenant colonel and Montgomery Martin as major. The 58th was mustered in on February 13, 1862.
In early March, the regiment was sent to Fort Monroe. On May 10, it was attached to a force sent to capture Norfolk, Virginia. Until September, the regiment was assigned to garrison duty around Hampton Roads, and was then transferred to South Carolina. During this time, it fought only in small skirmishes and raids, losing few men. During a raid on Kinston, South Carolina on May 21, 1863, Jones was killed. Curtis was promoted to colonel, Martin to lieutenant colonel, and Captain Henry Metcal to major. In June, the 58th was sent to North Carolina, where it was broken up into various detachments and spread along the Pamlico River.
In late April 1864, the regiment was re-assigned to the Army of the James as part of the 3rd Brigade, First Division, XVIII Corps. Other than some skirmishing during the initial advance on Richmond, Virginia, the regiment did not see much action. Along with the rest of the corps, it fought at the Battle of Cold Harbor. After the battle, the entire corps was moved to the lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia. During the Siege of Petersburg, the regiment was assigned mostly to picket, guard, and fatigue duty. It did fight in the Battle of Chaffin's Farm on September 28, 1864, where it lost six officers and 128 enlisted men.
After serving in the Appomattox Campaign, the regiment was broken up into various detachments and assigned to the lower counties of Virginia. It was mustered out at City Point, Virginia on January 26, 1866.
Read more about this topic: 58th Pennsylvania Infantry
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)