On September 14, 1862, Private James Kaercher of Lykens, Pennsylvania, stood among the ranks of the 96th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry as they charged Crampton’s Gap, a crucial pass in Maryland’s South Mountain. The 18-year-old soldier, who had enlisted the previous year to help preserve the Union, was struck down in the heat of battle.

A Confederate bullet tore through his body, wounding him grievously as his regiment surged forward, breaking the Southern defensive line and helping to secure a vital victory for the US Army. The Battle of South Mountain turned the tide of the Maryland Campaign and put Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia on the defensive, setting the stage for the Battle of Antietam.

Born and raised in the Coal Region, James Kaercher joined Company G, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry in September 1861, answering Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Like many young men from the anthracite coal fields, he left behind his community in Wiconisco Township to fight for the Union cause in the Civil War.

The 96th Pennsylvania, made up largely of men from Schuylkill County, with men from other adjacent counties as well, quickly gained a reputation as a hard-fighting unit, although they were just as likely to fight other Union soldiers or amongst themselves than they were to fight the enemy.

By the late summer of 1862, they had already seen brutal combat in Virginia, including the bloody Peninsula Campaign. But it was in Maryland, at the Battle of South Mountain, that James Kaercher’s fate was sealed.

General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army attempted to hold South Mountain’s mountain passes to shield their movements from US forces under General George McClellan.

At Crampton’s Gap near the village of Burkittsville, Confederate prepared to fight along stone walls and ridges, prepared to resist the Union advance toward the mountain pass.

On the afternoon of September 14, 1862, the 96th Pennsylvania, part of General William Franklin’s VI Corps, charged across open fields and up rocky slopes, surging toward the enemy line. As bullets whizzed through the trees, Kaercher and his comrades pressed forward, driving the Confederates into full retreat.

It was a hard-won victory, but one that came at a steep cost.

During the frantic attack, Kaercher was shot and severely wounded. As his regiment moved forward, he was left behind, bleeding on the battlefield, awaiting aid.

Read a full account of Company G, 96th Pennsylvania at Crampton’s Gap

Soldiers later carried the young soldier from the battlefield to a makeshift field hospital in Burkittsville, where he remained for nearly two months. Surgeons did what they could, but they were unable to assist the teenager other than to make him as comfortable as possible.

When his condition worsened, Kaercher was transferred to a larger military hospital in Frederick, Maryland. There, Union doctors fought to save him.

However, on February 8, 1863, five months after he was wounded, Private James Kaercher succumbed to his wounds at the hospital in Frederick.

Kaercher was initially buried at Frederick’s Mount Olivet Cemetery. After the Civil War, his remains and those of hundreds of other Union soldiers, were moved to Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Today, James Kaercher rests at Antietam National Cemetery, his gravestone standing among thousands of other Union dead. His story is a reminder of the incredible cost paid by young soldiers from Pennsylvania’s Coal Region.

The Battle of South Mountain was a key moment in the Maryland Campaign, helping pave the way for the Union victory at Antietam just three days later. But for Kaercher, his comrades, and his family, the battle marked the beginning of a slow and painful farewell to a young soldier.

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Read more about the 96th Pennsylvania

“We gave them hell” – Company G, 96th Pennsylvania in the Battle of South Mountain

Podcast – Killed at Spotsylvania Court House: A Pennsylvania Family’s Story

Meet Henry Keiser – A Soldier Who Kept A Diary For Nearly Every Day of the Civil War

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