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Notes for Lewis Donmoyer
(The following was taken from the book: Heinrich Gernhardt and His Descendants. By Jeremiah Meitzler Mohr Gernerd, published by Press of the Gazette and Bulletin, Williamsport, PA 1904)
"In September, 1862, he enlisted in the cause of the Union and joined Co. E, of the Seventeenth Pa. Cavalry. Early in the spring of 1863 his father, mother, wife, and infant son Frank were all down with typhoid fever. He asked several times for a furlough that he might go home to see the afflicted ones so near and dear to him, but was refused, as the army was just then getting ready to move, and orders from headquarters were necessarily very strict that no leave of absence should be given. another letter frome home informed him of the hopeless condition of his wife, that she was constantly calling for him, a summons to which he felt the he must respond, and that his aged parents were in the same critical state. He showed the letter to his colonel, who, moved by sympathy for the distressed soldier, immediately wrote and stated the case to the Department at Washington. The matter was referred to President Lincoln, and that great-hearted man forthwith commanded, "Give that man a furlough." But when the anxious soldier reach home, in February, 1863, his wife and child were both dead, and the next day he had the sorrow to see them laid away in one grave. A few days later both his parents died, and he also saw them consigned to their mother earth. He then returned to his post of duty in the army, a sad son, an afflicted husband and father, and destined never again to see his home and surviving children.
Lewis was in a number of the sanguinary engagements in which the Seventeenth Pa. Cavalry participated, made a number of hairbreadth escapes, having several horses killed under him while in action. On the 31st day of May, 1864 he took part in the bloody struggle at Cold Harbor, and this was his last battle. Here his regiment moved dismounted, and in its first advance was driven back with heavy loss, but on charging again routed the enemy and captured his works. Grant had resolved to seize Cold Harbor, a very important point to give him control of the Chickahominy and the roads to Richmond, and after a sharp struggle carried the position, though in gaining it he lost two thousand men, and in the still greater conflict that followed the next day (June 1st) he failed to get over the Chickahominy. Lewis was among the unfortunate in the struggle for the position, as he was severely wounded by a shot through the arm and elbow. The bones were badly shattered, gangrene set in, and on the 29th Day of June he was mustered out by that Supreme Commander whom no earthly sovereignty or power can hinder."
Lewis Donmoyer is buried in the National Military Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
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