46th Regiment
The Logan Guards
The Logan Guards was a militia unit organized in 1858 in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. It gained fame in April 1861, when President Lincoln issued an urgent appeal for troops to protect Washington in response to the firing by rebels on Fort Sumpter in Charleston, South Carolina. The President's call was issued late on April 16, 1861. The Logan Guards and four other companies of Pennsylvania militia were the first troops to arrive in the nation's capital. They marched out of Lewistown listening to William Hopper, a lone fifer, play "The Girl I Left Behind Me".
As militiamen, the Logan Guards served only ninety days. In August 1861, in response to calls for troops to serve three years, many of the Logan Guards organized a new company under the command of future Brevet Brigadier General J. Ard Mathews. Still calling themselves the Logan Guards, upon arriving in Harrisburg, the new company was designated as Company A of the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteers and left for the war on September 16, 1861. The 46th Pennsylvania was recruited from throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
One company came from Beaver County, another from Bethlehem, and two came from the recently settled Potter County. Another was raised in Pittsburgh and the rest came from healthy small cities like Harrisburg, Reading, Scranton, Shamokin, and Lewistown. The regiment re-enlisted in 1864, although only one quarter of the men who started out with it were still in its ranks when they were finally discharged on July 16, 1865. Will Hopper died of wounds received at Chancellorsville.
In 1861, every regiment brought with it a band, providing the music that kept men in step while on the march. Many of the musicians acted as buglers and issued calls which regulated army life. The officers of the 46th Pennsylvania recruited as its musical arm an entire band from Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, led by Richard Stanley, Principle Musician. Click here to see a roster of the 46th PA band.
They accompanied the regiment through all of its early campaigns while it did guard along the Potomac, when it marched through the Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1862, during and after the first Battle of Winchester, and on its second campaign into central Virginia during the summer of 1862. The band made news in June 1862, when it serenaded the troops under Major General Nathaniel Banks as they re-crossed the Potomac River to begin their second campaign. When not engaged in making music, band members served as stretcher-bearers and surgeon assistants.
Their services were never more needed than they were on August 9, 1862, when outside Culpepper, Virginia, the 46th Pennsylvania and other regiments in its brigade were severely mauled during the Battle of Cedar Mountain where then Major J. Ard Mathews nearly lost his right arm. One week later, in an effort to lighten the loads, which the army had to carry while on the move, the regimental bands were discharged from the service. Numerous members of the 46th Regiment Band went on to serve in brigade bands, which were then organized. The 46th PA Volunteer Infantry went on to fight to the end of the war on many battlefields, some famous and some not. The 46th accompanied Sherman on his march to the sea. The 46th Regiment paid the price of admission for its place among Fox's "Fighting 300" regiments.
The Logan Guard
C/O Richard Long
PO Box 52
Houtzdale, PA 16651
email: [email protected]
webmaster: [email protected]
