On Labor Day 1900, the surviving members of the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment gathered in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, to remember their Civil War service and honor their fallen comrades.

Among the veterans who shared recollections with the Pottsville Republican was Josiah “Jesse” Wildermuth, who served in Company H of the 48th from 1861 to 1864. The Orwigsburg native was wounded twice during the war. His first wounding became the story he told the Republican’s readers in September 1900.

The 48th Pennsylvania faced its first true test in combat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. On August 29, 1862, the Schuylkill County regiment attacked Confederate forces near an unfinished railroad cut and took heavy casualties in a battle that became a devastating defeat for the United States Army. The 48th lost 42 men killed, 56 wounded – Wildermuth among them – and 57 missing or captured.

As the regiment went into action, Wildermuth watched a Confederate bullet strike his comrade Private William Nagle in the head, killing him. Moments later, a shot hit Wildermuth in the foot as the 48th fell back to escape being surrounded. He limped to a field hospital, then miles farther east to avoid capture as the entire army retreated toward Washington. His account offers a close, firsthand look at what a wounded soldier endured in one of the war’s worst battles.

Wildermuth’s account of the Second Battle of Bull Run:

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THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN

AS SEEN BY A COMRADE.

We lay on the side of a hill in a field, at rest, for 2½ or 3 hours, when the command was given, “attention, unsling knapsacks, forward march!” and formed as the regiment in the centre of the brigade. We advanced up the hill, passed our batteries, then down towards a clump of woods, the Rebs shelling us until we got to a fence, which we crossed and entered the woods, when the musketry opened on us and the first man to fall was W. Nagle, on my left, shot in the head and fell on his face, supposed to be a sharpshooter in a tree.

We could not stop to look long, but had to advance and made a charge and drove the Rebs out of a railway ditch and some distance on the other side, but they were too much for us. We fell back into the ditch, held that until by some blunder an opening was left, and they got in our left and rear and had us nearly surrounded.

When our general saw it he immediately gave the order to retreat by the right flank and while doing so, and passing the old wood roads, the Rebs would call out “Halt, you Yankee S.-O.-B.,” but the writer did not halt and consequently got a dose of lead in the left foot, which threw him, but he got up again, ran a short distance and fell, and so on until he was on the open field again. Then the excitement died off and he had to be carried to the field hospital where his foot was dressed.

The next afternoon the Rebs commenced to throw shells near the hospital, and the report came that our troops were falling back, and all those that could walk should start for Centreville, or it would be Rebel prison. I got Fred to get me a pair of palings from a fence, which I used as crutches, and started, although it went slow and I got a very sore arm. I kept going till 9:00 o’clock at night, until I was about one mile from Centreville, then I laid down with my head against a tree and slept till morning, the army passing me all night. The tree saved me from being tramped to death.

Next morning I started again although I could hardly walk, but I got there at last, and managed to get some doctor to dress my wound, which now was very much inflamed. Whilst my wound was being dressed the order came for all those that could walk were to start for Fairfax Station. I started, and I might say, hopped it all the way. I got there by dark and right into a box car, where they had placed straw.

After we had a load we started and went to Alexandria. Next day I was sent with others to Judiciary Square Hospital, Washington, D. C., where I was laid up for three months. When I was able to go around on crutches I got a furlough and came home for 30 days. After I returned I was transferred to Broad and Cherry St. Hospital, Philada., where I was until in April, 1863, before I could join my regiment again.

JOSIAH WILDERMUTH.

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Wildermuth survived his wound and another received in fighting near Knoxville, Tennessee in 1863. He was discharged in 1864 and returned home to Schuylkill County. Wildermuth would live on to become one of the last survivors of the 48th Pennsylvania. He died on February 5, 1927 at the age of 85. He is buried in Pottsville’s Odd Fellows Cemetery.

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Read more about the 48th Pennsylvania at the Second Battle of Bull Run

Account of Captain James Wren, 48th Pennsylvania at Second Bull Run – John Hoptak

Account of Captain Henry Pleasants, 48th Pennsylvania at Second Bull Run – John Hoptak

Account of Captain Oliver Bosbyshell, 48th Pennsylvania at Second Bull Run – John Hoptak

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