Independent Battery B, Pennsylvania Light Artillery

The order for recruiting the Pennsylvania Seventy-seventh Regiment, provided for eight companies of infantry, and one of artillery.

The artillery unit was recruited in Franklin County, in August 1861, by Captain Peter B. Housum; but not having the required strength, it was consolidated with one recruited for similar service in Erie County, by Captain Charles F. Muehler, and was mustered into service for a three-year enlistment at Pittsburgh, on October 11, 1861.

Muehler was given command of the unit, until his resignation on November 16, 1862; he was replaced by Captain Alanson Stevens, on January 5, 1863.

[1] The battery was attached to Negley's Brigade, McCook's Command, Army of the Ohio, to December 1861.

Artillery, 5th Division, II Corps, Army of the Ohio, to November 1862.

Artillery, 3rd Division, Left Wing, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to January 1863.

Artillery, 3rd Division, XXI Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to October 1863.

Artillery, 3rd Division, IV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to April 1864.

Battery "B", Pennsylvania Light Artillery mustered out of service on October 12, 1865.

Moved down the Ohio River with the 77th Pennsylvania, in November 1861, to Louisville, Ky.; then to General McCook's Headquarters at Camp Nevin, Kentucky, for instruction and drill.

Buell's Campaign in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee June to August.

Passage of Cumberland Mountains and Tennessee River, and Chickamauga Campaign, August 16-September 22.

Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church, and Allatoona Hills, May 26-June 5.

While in Texas the battery was part of a 50,000-man force garrisoned at the U.S.-Mexican border, placed as a deterrent to the French imperialist attempt to take over Mexico.

Monument to Independent Battery 'B', Pa. Volunteers, at Chickamauga Battlefield Military Park, circa 1897.
Private William P. Haberlin, of Pa. Independent Battery "B", killed in action on Dec. 16, 1864, at Nashville, Tennessee. Handwritten poem found with photograph reads: "Now to the field again I'll go, for the union to defend, until Jeff Davis is made to know, his kingdom is about to end. And now if I would not live, to hear f[r]eemen shout for joy, this miniature to you I give, in memory of a soldier boy. William P. Haberlin." (Library of Congress collection)