Meet Civil War veteran Henry Maurer.
A native of Dauphin County, he grew up in the southwestern Coal Region between Gratz and Wiconisco Township. In 1863, he joined Company B, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry and participated in William Tecumseh Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” Before joining the army, he worked at the anthracite coal mines at Bear Gap in Wiconisco.
Maurer returned from war and went to work as a machinist in the iron works at Steelton, Pennsylvania.
A Harrisburg Telegraph photographer captured this amazing scene in May 1940. Maurer holds up a newspaper announcing the fall of Belgium to Nazi forces and that British and French forces were trapped on coast of the English Channel during World War II.
“At 93, Henry Maurer… is grieved to find Memorial Day headlines again tell of wars and conflict instead of only tribute to the dead and achievements of peace,” wrote the Telegraph in the caption under the image.
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By 1942, Maurer watched as several of his grandsons marched off to war to fight for the United States like he did in the 1860s.
And at age 99, he was there to greet them when they returned home in 1946.
Henry Maurer passed away in December 1947, just a few weeks shy of his 101st birthday. He was last Civil War veteran from Dauphin County.
Read more about Coal Region Civil War veterans
Luzerne County Civil War veteran recounts his survival in the infamous Andersonville Prison
How Schuylkill County Civil War Veterans Opposed Confederate Monuments in 1903
Meet Henry Keiser – A Soldier Who Kept A Diary For Nearly Every Day of the Civil War
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