In the summer of 1865, the Pennsylvania soldiers who had volunteered for the US Army were returning home after achieving victory in the Civil War after four long years of bloody conflict – a war that left more than 700,000 dead.
One unit, however, found itself with new orders as many other units were mustered out of the service and the veterans returned to their homes.
The 202nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was sent to Schuylkill County in June 1865 and its various companies distributed to neighboring communities like Pottsville and Mauch Chunk, with the regiment’s headquarters at Tamaqua.
Their commander, Brevet Brigadier General Charles Albright, had brought the unit to the Coal Region to assist local mine operators in a show of force meant to intimidate mineworkers who had been engaging in strikes and stoppages for higher wages throughout 1865.
With the close of the Civil War, the war-time demand for anthracite slackened and the price of coal plummeted. When operators slashed wages, their workers would revolt and refuse to work. Throughout the conflict, mine operators and business leaders with connections in Harrisburg and Washington had leveraged those relationships to bring Federal troops into the Coal Region.
These troops – Pottsville alone had more than 1,000 soldiers garrisoned in and around the city in 1863 and 1864 – were nominally in the region to put down anti-draft activity in the mining towns and villages of Schuylkill, Carbon, and Luzerne counties. Mine operators also used these soldiers in their own efforts to keep their men at work, to arrest those who led strikes, and generally intimidate the working class, especially those in the Irish-speaking enclaves and patch towns of the region.
But the men of the 202nd Pennsylvania, who had been used to protect railroads and fight partisans in Virginia in 1864 and 1865, were thoroughly ready to leave the service and return to their homes.
These soldiers sent a letter to the editor of the Pottsville Standard, a Democratic newspaper that opposed the Union war effort and emancipation while supporting mineworkers in their efforts for higher wages.
The letter demonstrates their feelings about being used against their fellow Pennsylvanians in such a manner.
Another Military Outrage.
The cowardly “loyalists,” of Schuylkill county, some months ago, induced the authorities to send some Regiments of Soldiers to Pottsville. There was no earthly necessity for bringing the United States Troops into Schuylkill, no more than there was for the pitiful leaguers last year bringing them up into Columbia, but it was done to gratify the malevolence of the cowardly disloyal abolitionists of the Thomas Dunn stripe in both instances.
In each case the soldiers were ashamed of their position and the Government disgraced.
Now, hear what the 202nd Regiment, located at Tamaqua, says to the Editor of the Pottsville Democratic Standard:
HEAD’QUAR’S 202nd REGT PA. VOLS.
TAMAQUA, PA, JUNE 23, 1865.
EDITOR OF DEMOCRATIC STANDARD:-
The soldiers of the 202nd beg a short space in your valuable paper to inform your many readers and friends, a few thoughts on our unpleasant position among our “Keystone brothers.”
You know we are soldiers, and obedience is our duty; but honor is not always our reward. We know we are not wanted or needed here – we can see danger with as keen an eye as our commander, and have been as faithful to our duty whenever danger was before us, but this “hobby horse” of war among our native mountains we cannot see.
Sixteen dollars a month perhaps will not wake men look as far into danger, as two or three hundred; but with honest and patriotic soldiers we suppose that could make no difference, and we have every reason to think there are no other kind of soldiers in the 202nd.
But we are sick, disgusted, demoralized and “played out” with this kind of soldiering; we are ashamed of our calling and want to go home, or down to Dixie, or Mexico, or some place where we can do duty and see some point in it more than big pay, extra pay or bounty.
We are weary of mock show and are sighing for reality; we have been the terror of old mothers long enough, and have delighted all the little folks of several counties with our deadly charges to hear them laugh: but the merry laughter of the children and the terror-stricken looks of the timid old dames, as they gaze on our polished bayonets and think of the bloody battle are both played out.
We are Pennsylvanians, we left homes, and families and business behind, and went forward to serve our country in her dark hours; but now that that dark cloud has past away and all our comrade regiments have been sent home, we ask to follow them; at least, we ask, humbly ask and pray the government to release us from disgraceful duty.
We are working men, no loafers; and we scorn to guard peaceable working citizens in our own State, and neglecting our own work at home.
In conclusion, let us say to all, that we are not proud of this trip; we will never name it among the adventures of our soldier career, and we beg of you to spare children the shame of knowing their our fathers once stood guard over the good people of the coal mining districts of Pennsylvania.
Ever Yours,
ALL OF THE SOLDIERS OF THE 202ND.
The 202nd Pennsylvania was mustered out of the service on August 3, 1865.
In their absence, the mine operators worked with the Pennsylvania Legislature to craft a law creating a “Coal and Iron Police” that would be used as an armed force in the Coal Region, and in other industrial regions of the Keystone State, until 1931.
Read more about the Civil War in the Coal Region
The Murder of Frank Langdon | Audenried, Pennsylvania, 1862
“A very thrifty, interesting place” – A visit to Tamaqua during the Civil War
An 1863 assassination attempt on a US Army commander near Pottsville, PA
“Revolutionary Disloyalty” – A coal miners’ rebellion in Schuylkill County during the Civil War
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