In the camp of the 96th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry near Sharpsburg, Maryland, Private Joseph Workman of Lykens, Pennsylvania sat down to write a letter home to his father on September 27, 1862.

The young soldier, a member of Company G that had been recruited in Wiconisco Township a year earlier, wrote to describe the momentous events he had experienced over the following two weeks. 

Workman and his Coal Region comrades in the 96th Pennsylvania played a crucial role in assuring Union victory at the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862, and then witnessed the Battle of Antietam three days later. 

The letter was recently digitized by the Library of Congress. 

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Camp near Bakersville, Md, 

Sep 27 

Dear Father, I take this opportunity of informing you that I am well at present and hope this may find you all enjoying the same blessing. I received your letter some time ago, but had no time to answer it sooner, for we have been marching most every day since. 

I guess that you have heard of the battle our Division had on Sunday the [14th], we drove the rebels over a high mountain and took a great many prisoners. There were ten wounded out of our company, one of them died the the next day. 

Josiah Workman was wounded in the right arm and in the breast but he could walk around when we left. James Kariker [Kaercher]  was wounded in the side, but I think he will get over it. Joel Burd was wounded in the arm. Robert Weaver was wounded in the leg. That is all from our place. 

From there we marched toward Sharpsburg On Wednesday the 17th there was a very hard battle fought called the Battle of Antietam. We got there at about three o’clock in the afternoon and had to support a battery as soon as we got there. A cannon ball struck Frank Treon’s leg off and wounded Macoy Sargut from Lykens. Frank Treon died in about three hours. The fight lasted until dark and then it stopped. 

The next morning the rebels sent in a flag of truce to burry their dead, so there was no fighting that day, but the next day we expected to have a hard fight but the rebels had all skedaddled except their pickets and them we captured. The rebels have all crossed the river again. You can’t find one in Maryland. 

The rebels lost twenty thousand in that one battle, we lost a great many too. I went over the battle field after the fight and saw an awful sight hundreds of dead rebels were laying all around. there were some of ours too, but no near as many as of the rebels. 

We had to move away from there on account of the stink. We are now laying about four miles from Williamsport and eight miles from Hagerstown. Some say that we will put up our winter quarters around here someplace, but I do not believe it. 

I wish you would let me know how much money you have drawn, and whether you get it every month or every two month. Give my respects to all my friends and relations. 

H. [Keiser] send his respects to you all, tell his folks that he is well. 

I will come to a close for this time expecting to hear from you soon again. 

So much from your son 

J. Workman 

P. S. Direct the same as before.

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Joseph Workman sadly did not live to see the end of the Civil War. On May 10, 1864, Joseph Workman was severely wounded during a charge on Confederate earthworks at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. He was captured by the Confederates and his leg amputated by a Confederate surgeon. 

Workman was transported to the Confederate capital at Richmond where he died of his wounds on June 9, 1864. 

Joseph Workman became brother-in-law to his best friend Henry Keiser just two months before he was mortally wounded. Keiser, who Workman mentioned in his September 27, 1862 letter to his father, married Sarah “Sallie” Workman in Harrisburg, PA on March 9, 1864. It fell to Keiser to inform his wife of the wounding and capture of her brother in the days after the charge on May 10. They would never see him alive again. 

Joseph Workman is buried at the Calvary United Methodist Cemetery in Wiconisco, Pennsyvlania.

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Read more about the 96th Pennsylvania and the Civil War

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

Henry Royer’s address at the dedication of the 96th Pennsylvania monument at Gettysburg | 1888

The 96th Pennsylvania’s witnessed its first bloodshed at the military execution of a deserter

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

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