Many of the family and friends of this regiment's members still spoke German or its Pennsylvania Dutch variant more than a century after their ancestors emigrated from Germany in search of religious or political freedom.

[6][7][8][9] Recruited at community gathering places in their respective hometowns, most of the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers enrolled for military service at county seats or other large population centers.

Reenlisting in hometowns following their respective honorable discharges from this service, they mustered in as part of the newly formed 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg during August and September 1861.

Good immediately began recruiting men, including William H. Gausler, who had served with him in the 1st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment and was the former captain of a local militia unit, the Jordan Artillerists.

Under Smith's leadership, their regiment and brigade were now part of the larger Army of the Potomac, and would help to defend the nation's capital through late January when the men of the 47th Pennsylvania would be shipped south.

Eleven days later, the 47th engaged in a Divisional Review, described by historian Lewis Schmidt as massing "about 10,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and twenty pieces of artillery all in one big open field."

Following Brigadier-General Brannan's directive, they sailed for Florida, a state which, despite its secession, remained important to the Union Army due to the presence of Forts Taylor and Jefferson.

[28] Steaming south from January 27 to early February 1862, the men of the 47th traveled from Annapolis to Key West, Florida, where they were assigned to garrison duty at Fort Taylor.

[30] Illness continued to be a constant problem during this phase of duty as evidenced by Army hospital and death ledger notations of men suffering from sunstroke, typhoid fever or other tropical diseases, and dysentery and similar ailments attributable to the poor water quality and unsanitary conditions of soldiers' quarters.

Having been ordered back to Fort Taylor in Key West on November 15, 1862, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers spent the whole of 1863 in Florida as part of the Union Army's 10th Corps, Department of the South.

But despite this, more than half of the soldiers from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers opted to re-enlist for additional three-year tours of duty when their initial terms of service expired, as evidenced by muster rolls of the period.

[53] Steaming for New Orleans aboard the Charles Thomas, the 47th Pennsylvanians arrived at Algiers, Louisiana on February 28, 1864, and were then transported by rail to Brashear City before hopping another steamer to Franklin via the Bayou Teche.

[69] Placed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, they subsequently helped to build a timber dam from April 30 through May 10 to enable federal gunboats to negotiate the Red River's fluctuating water levels.

[72] According to U.S. Army hospital and burial ledgers, several members of the regiment were left behind in New Orleans to convalesce from disease or battle wounds; others were discharged on Surgeons' Certificates of Disability and permitted to return home.

Many of the Pennsylvanians who died during or after the Red River Campaign were interred at the national cemeteries at Chalmette or Baton Rouge but, as with South Carolina, a number of resting places for soldiers from the 47th Pennsylvania still remain unidentified.

[73] Following their return to the Washington, D.C. area, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers joined General David Hunter's forces in fighting Confederate troops at Snicker's Gap, Virginia in mid-July 1864.

Also known as the Battle of Cool Spring, this engagement drove Confederates away from the area around Berryville and, according to multiple historians, helped pave the way for General Philip Sheridan's 1864 successes in the Shenandoah Valley.

According to Samuel Bates in his History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, as the day wore on: The brigade occupied a position in the center of a semi-circle, formed by a channel in the curve of the creek, and in the rear of the line of the works.

When the Army of West Virginia, under Crook, was surprised and driven from its works, the Second Brigade, with the Forty-seventh on the right, was thrown into the breach to arrest the retreat.... A heavy fog prevented objects from being visible at a distance of fifty yards.

Repeatedly forming as it was pushed back, and making a stand at every available point, it finally succeeded in checking the enemy's onset, when General Sheridan suddenly appeared upon the field, who 'met his crest-fallen, shattered battalions, without a word of reproach, but joyously swinging his cap, shouted to the stragglers, as he rode rapidly past them – "Face the other way boys!

"[87]By 1 p.m., wrote Bates, the 19th Corps had pushed the enemy back: The force of the blow fell heavily upon the Forty-seventh, but it stood firm, and was complimented on the field by General Thomas...When the final grand charge was made, the regiment moved at nearly right angles with the rebel front.

Sergeant William Fry of C Company survived his ordeal at Andersonville only to die from the disease he had contracted there while at home in Sunbury, Pennsylvania a few short months after being released.

Five days before Christmas, the 47th Pennsylvanians were ordered to move to Camp Fairview near Charlestown, West Virginia, where they were responsible for preserving the Union Army's control of the railroad system while minimizing the impact of enemy guerrilla forces in the region.

Moved by foot and rail via Kernstown and Winchester, they next settled at Fort Stevens near Washington, D.C. From there, they helped to defend the nation's capital once again, this time following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Serving with the U.S. Army's XIX (19th Corps), at this time, the 47th Pennsylvania marched in the massive military spectacle with their fellow Second Brigade units, 12th Connecticut, 26th Massachusetts, 153rd New York, and 8th Vermont, under the command of Brigadier-General E.P.

We shall ever cherish their friendship, and trust when their term of enlistment shall expire they will receive a hearty welcome to the old Keystone State.Finally, on Christmas Day, 1865, the men of the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry began to honorably muster out at Charleston, South Carolina.

[101][102] Their regimental commanding officers at the time were Brevet Brigadier-General John Peter Shindel Gobin, Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Abbott, and Major Levi Stuber.

Following the muster out at Charleston, South Carolina of the 47th Pennsylvania, many members of the regiment maintained close ties with comrades through participation at local, regional and national Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.)

[111] On July 21, 1866, the Evening Telegraph, a Philadelphia newspaper, reported on the completion of Catasauqua's marble monument, noting that the "exceedingly chaste and appropriate" work of art was 26 feet tall, inscribed with verses from the Bible and venerated the contributions of soldiers from both the 46th and 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Over 100 years after the dedication ceremony's conclusion, one Lehigh Valley media outlet celebrated the monument's centennial anniversary, and described the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry as the largest regiment in the Union Army.