In December 1863, Pottsville was among the communities in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region that experienced a military occupation by the US Army.
About 1,000 Union soldiers were stationed in the Schuylkill County seat in order to tamp down anti-draft movements by residents of nearby mining villages. In reality, however, these soldiers were mostly present to show force against any attempts of mineworkers to strike for higher wages or better working conditions.
On Christmas Day, one of these soldiers died of disease in Pottsville. The Miners’ Journal of Pottsville published a brief note about the death of Sergeant Hiram Perry.
Hiram Perry, 1st Sergeant of Company B, Captain Rockafella, 1st Battalion Invalid Corps, died on Christmas night.
The deceased belong to Albany, NY, where the remains have been taken for interment. They were escorted to the Depot in the Borough… by the Company of which he was a member.
Sergeant Perry was a young man of fine abilities, excellent education and good prospects in life, his family being one of the first in Albany. His father at present Mayor of that City, is a prominent public man of New York State. The deceased was a favorite with all who knew him.
The Invalid Corps, to which Sergeant Perry was attached, had been renamed the Veteran Reserve Corps. These were soldiers who were too disabled by disease or wounds to fully serve with their units and so often served in garrisons like the one in Pottsville.
The military occupation remained in the Coal Region until the end of the Civil War. Shortly afterword, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law allowing industrial interests – railroads, mines, and iron furnaces – to create their own militarized police forces. The Coal and Iron Police was created.
(Photograph: Members of the Invalid Corps or Veteran Reserve Corps at Washington DC during the Civil War – Library of Congress)
More stories about the military occupation of Schuylkill County during the Civil War
“Revolutionary Disloyalty” – A coal miners’ rebellion in Schuylkill County during the Civil War
An 1863 assassination attempt on a US Army commander near Pottsville
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