Our Honored Dead: Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in the American Civil War

In OUR HONORED DEAD, Mr. Fox, after an extensive chapter documenting Civil War era Pittsburgh and Allegheny City as they appeared in the 1860s, follows to the front over 60 Pennsylvania and one West Virginia regiments, consisting of companies recruited in Allegheny County. Seven additional chapters follow, comprised of the initial three-month regiments, the emergency militias of 1862 and 1863, the three year infantry regiments, the Pennsylvania 8th and 9th Reserves, the nine-month, and 100-day infantry regiments; the cavalry regiments, and the heavy and light artillery batteries. Each vignette details the unit's command staff, as well as each captain of an Allegheny County company with mini-biographies for many of the officers. The regiment's organizational status as well as its service history is also included. Each vignette then concludes with a breakdown of each company's Honor Roll of killed in action or died while in service, in addition to published references for each regiment through spring 2007. Many of these histories run for several pages, especially in the case of regiments with several local companies. Prior to this publication, much of the information could only be found by researching through several primary and secondary sources. Particularly helpful to the neophyte, as well as to veteran historians, are pre-chapter prologues detailing the role and organization of infantry, cavalry and artillery arms in the Union Army during the war. Following the main body of the book are ten appendixes consisting of the following diverse topics: the first being a section of Statistics of Allegheny County units, e.g., the highest casualties per regiment or battle, the oldest and youngest men to serve, most famous woman veteran, and the last surviving veterans. After this, nine additional appendixes include: Allegheny County Medal of Honor recipients, county African-American soldiers serving with the 54th Massachusetts, Union generals from the county, local Catholic nuns who served in the field, the Allegheny Arsenal payroll from 1862 including nearly 1,000 names, area Civil War monuments, over 100 steamships built in Allegheny County and vicinity, a case study of the 1890 Special Census, and Pennsylvania Civil War repositories. These fascinating Civil War subjects have, to date, never been available in one source for the historian. CIVIL WAR LIBRARIAN Rea Andrew Redd writes, Arthur Fox has set forth a clear, complete and very well referenced description of Allegheny County's soldiers....Readers coming for the first time to mid-19th century history will be pleased to find an entertaining and informative discussion of the county's canals, railroads, newspapers, politics, fire fighting and law enforcement efforts, taverns, horse racing, industries (including the ironworks and the arsenal) and many other things, that form the socio-political environment of the county's' soldiers ...It is an absolutely wonderful resource. From it I learned something quite interesting about the older brother of David Kier, the protagonist in my book SONS OF THE COMMONWEALTH, wrote author Dr. Sam Kier. A comprehensive bibliography comprised of dozens of regimental histories and hundreds of Civil War sources through 2007 conclude this ground-breaking study. This volume, also extensively supplemented with 26 maps, 60 photographs/illustrations, and the first ever publication of the little known color 1859 Palmatary lithograph of Pittsburgh, only recently discovered in the Duquesne Club, will make an indispensable companion to PITTSBURGH DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, and a welcome addition to Civil War historians' book shelves in the continuing story of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County during the 1860s.