Samuel M. Kern — POW and Private (2024)

The son of a farmer, Samuel M. Kern followed in his father’s footsteps, as soon as he was old enough to pick up his father’s tools and help him till the soil of their family farm in Perry County, Pennsylvania. He likely would have continued that agrarian existence had the United States not devolved into discord, disunion, and finally civil war during the mid-nineteenth century.

But it did, and Samuel Kern’s life journey would be altered, tragically, as a result.

Formative Years

Born in Perry County, Pennsylvania in 1840, Samuel M. Kern was a son of Michael Kern (1810-1890) and Mary Catharine (March) Kern (1816-1857), who was known by her middle name, Catharine. In 1850, Samuel resided in Jackson Township, Perry County with his parents and siblings: Anna Bella (1841-1906), who had been born on 29 September 1841; David (1844-1900), who had been born on 7 October 1844; and Hannah Jane (1848-1932), who had been born on 18 October 1848. Both parents and all of the children were natives of Perry County, like Samuel. The family’s patriarch, Michael Kern, supported the family on a farmer’s income.

* Note: Two other siblings, Daniel, who was born circa 1843, and Catharine (1846-1848), who was born in 1846, were not listed on the 1850 census. Catharine is known to have died in 1848; researchers surmise that Daniel also died during the 1840s.

More siblings soon followed when William was born on 26 November 1850, Henry Andrew (1853-1934) was born on 26 March 1853, and George Martin (1856-1924), was born on 18 January 1856. All were natives of Perry County.

Tragedy evidently struck the family shortly thereafter, however, because the family’s matriarch was not among the family members who were listed on the 1860 federal census. According to her gravestone at the Blain Union Cemetery in Perry County, Catharine Kern died on 4 February 1857.

The enumerator of that 1860 federal census noted that the surviving Kerns were residents of Perry County’s Madison Township that year and that their family included patriarch Michael Kern and children Samuel M., Anna, David, Hannah, William, Henry, and George. Joining Michael Kern in the farming business that year was son Samuel, who was also documented as still attending school, but not able to read—a paradox that might have been an indicator that the Kerns spoke a language other than English in the family’s home—possibly German or Pennsylvania Dutch, as so many other families of future 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers did. Samuel’s designation as illiterate, however, could also have simply been a mistake made by the census taker since all of the other children, except George, were documented as being enrolled in school, but were not designated as “unable to read.”

What is known for certain is that the 1860 federal census enumerator valued Michael Kern’s personal estate as $1,500 that year (the equivalent of roughly $56,450 in 2024 dollars). Despite having lost their matriarch, the family appeared to be doing well (at least financially).

A year later, as the dawn of the American Civil War was breaking, Samuel M. Kern had become an established, twenty-one-year-old farmer and was residing in the community of Bloomfield in Perry County.

Civil War Military Service

On 20 August 1861, at the age of twenty-one, Samuel M. Kern became one of the early responders to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to help defend the nation’s capital from the ongoing threat of invasion by troops of the Confederate States Army. After enrolling for military service in Bloomfield, Perry County, Pennsylvania, he officially mustered in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County on 31 August as a private with Company D of the newly formed 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Military records at the time described him as a famer who lived in the community of Bloomfield.

* Note: Company D was led by Henry Durant Woodruff,a native of Waterbury, Connecticut who had been reared and educated in Windsor, New York until the age of eighteen when he relocated to Perry County, Pennsylvania. A citizen member of the local militia in Bloomfield and, professionally, a teacher and then innkeeper until 1861, Henry Woodruff had not only performed his own Three Month’s Service during the opening weeks of the American Civil War, but had actually raised the unit he commanded—Company D of the 2nd Pennsylvania Infantry, composed of residents from Bloomfield and other parts of Perry County. Commissioned a captain with the 2nd Pennsylvania on 20 April 1861, he and his men served under General Robert Patterson at Winchester, Virginia.

Knowing full well that the war was not over when he honorably mustered out that summer, he promptly recruited another company of men, and took them to Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, where they officially mustered in as Company D of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Following abrief light infantry training period,Captain Woodruff, First Lieutenant Samuel Auchmuty, Private Samuel M. Kern, and their fellow members of Company D were sent by train with the 47th Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. where they were stationed at “Camp Kalorama” on the Kalorama Heights near Georgetown, about two miles from the White House, beginning 21 September. Henry D. Wharton,a Musician with C Company, provided the following update on 22 September for readers of theSunbury American:

After a tedious ride we have, at last, safely arrived at the City of ‘magnificent distances.’ We left Harrisburg on Friday last at 1 o’clock A.M. and reached this camp yesterday (Saturday) at 4 P.M., as tired and worn out a sett [sic] of mortals as can possibly exist. On arriving at Washington we were marched to the ‘Soldiers Retreat,’ a building purposely erected for the benefit of the soldier, where every comfort is extended to him and the wants of the ‘inner man’ supplied.

After partaking of refreshments we were ordered into line and marched, about three miles, to this camp. So tired were the men, that on marching out, some gave out, and had to leave the ranks, butJ. Boulton Young,our ‘little Zouave,’ stood it bravely, and acted like a veteran. So small a drummer is scarcely seen in the army, and on the march through Washington he was twice the recipient of three cheers.

We were reviewed byGen. McClellan yesterday [21 September 1861] without our knowing it. All along the march we noticed a considerable number of officers, both mounted and on foot; the horse of one of the officers was so beautiful that he was noticed by the whole regiment, in fact, so wrapt [sic] up were they in the horse, the rider wasn’t noticed, and the boys were considerably mortified this morning on discovering they had missed the sight of, and the neglect of not saluting the soldier next in command to Gen. Scott.

Col. Good,who has command of our regiment, is an excellent man and a splendid soldier. He is a man of very few words, and is continually attending to his duties and the wants of the Regiment.

…. Our Regiment will now be put to hard work; such as drilling and the usual business of camp life, and the boys expect and hope for an occasional ‘pop’ at the enemy.

On 27 September—a rainy day, the 47th Pennsylvania was assigned to the 3rd Brigade ofBrigadier-General Isaac Stevens, which also included the 33rd, 49th and 79th New York regiments. By that afternoon, the 47th Pennsylvania was on the move again. Ordered onward by Brigadier-General Silas Casey, the Mississippi rifle-armed 47th Pennsylvania infantrymen marched behind theirregimental banduntil reaching Camp Lyon, Maryland on the Potomac River’s eastern shore. At 5 p.m., they joined the 46th Pennsylvania in moving double-quick (one hundred and sixty-five steps per minute using thirty-three-inch steps) across the “Chain Bridge” marked on federal maps and continued on for roughly another mile before being ordered to make camp.

The next morning, they broke camp and moved again. Marching toward Falls Church, Virginia, they arrived at Camp Advance around dusk. There, about two miles from the bridge they had crossed a day earlier, they re-pitched their tents in a deep ravine near a new federal fort under construction (Fort Ethan Allen). They had completed a roughly eight-mile trek, were situated fairly close to the headquarters ofBrigadier-General William Farrar Smith(also known as “Baldy”) and were now part of the massiveU.S. Army of the Potomac(“Mr. Lincoln’s Army”). Under Smith’s leadership, their regiment and brigade would help to defend the nation’s capital from the time of their September arrival through late January when the men of the 47th Pennsylvania would be shipped south.

Once again, Company C musician Henry Wharton recapped the regiment’s activities, noting, via his 29 September letter home to theSunbury American, that the 47th had changed camps three times in three days:

On Friday last we left Camp Kalorama, and the same night encamped about one mile from the Chain Bridge on the opposite side of the Potomac from Washington. The next morning, Saturday, we were ordered to this Camp [Camp Advance near Fort Ethan Allen, Virginia], one and a half miles from the one we occupied the night previous. I should have mentioned that we halted on a high hill (on our march here) at the Chain Bridge, called Camp Lyon, but were immediately ordered on this side of the river. On the route from Kalorama we were for two hours exposed to the hardest rain I ever experienced. Whew, it was a whopper; but the fellows stood it well – not a murmur – and they waited in their wet clothes until nine o’clock at night for their supper. Our Camp adjoins that of the N.Y. 79th (Highlanders.)….

We had not been in this Camp more than six hours before our boys were supplied with twenty rounds of ball and cartridge, and ordered to march and meet the enemy; they were out all night and got back to Camp at nine o’clock this morning, without having a fight. They are now in their tents taking a snooze preparatory to another march this morning…. I don’t know how long the boys will be gone, but the orders are to cook two days’ rations and take it with them in their haversacks….

There was a nice little affair came off at Lavensville [sic, Lewinsville], a few miles from here on Wednesday last; our troops surprised a party of rebels (much larger than our own.) killing ten, took a Major prisoner, and captured a large number of horses, sheep and cattle, besides a large quantity of corn and potatoes, and about ninety six tons of hay. A very nice day’s work. The boys are well, in fact, there is no sickness of any consequence at all in our Regiment….

Sometime during this phase of duty, as part of the 3rd Brigade, the 47th Pennsylvanians were moved to a site they initially christened “Camp Big Chestnut” in reference to the large chestnut tree located within their campsite’s boundaries. The site would eventually become known to the Keystone Staters as “Camp Griffin,” and was located roughly ten miles from Washington, D.C.

On 11 October, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers marched in the Grand Review at Bailey’s Cross Roads. In a mid-October letter home,Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin(the leader of C Company who would be promoted in 1864 to lead the entire 47th Regiment) reported that companies D, A, C, F and I (the 47th Pennsylvania’s right wing) were ordered to picket duty after the left-wing companies (B, E, G, H, and K) had been forced to return to camp by Confederate troops. In his letter of 13 October, Henry Wharton described their duties, as well as their new home:

The location of our camp is fine and the scenery would be splendid if the view was not obstructed by heavy thickets of pine and innumerable chesnut [sic] trees. The country around us is excellent for the Rebel scouts to display their bravery; that is, to lurk in the dense woods and pick off one of our unsuspecting pickets. Last night, however, they (the Rebels) calculated wide of their mark; some of the New York 33d boys were out on picket; some fourteen or fifteen shots were exchanged, when our side succeeded in bringing to the dust, (or rather mud,) an officer and two privates of the enemy’s mounted pickets. The officer was shot by a Lieutenant in Company H [?], of the 33d.

Our own boys have seen hard service since we have been on the ‘sacred soil.’ One day and night on picket, next day working on entrenchments at the Fort, (Ethan Allen.) another on guard, next on march and so on continually, but the hardest was on picket from last Thursday morning ‘till Saturday morning – all the time four miles from camp, and both of the nights the rain poured in torrents, so much so that their clothes were completely saturated with the rain. They stood it nobly – not one complaining; but from the size of their haversacks on their return, it is no wonder that they were satisfied and are so eager to go again tomorrow. I heard one of them say ‘there was such nice cabbage, sweet and Irish potatoes, turnips, &c., out where their duty called them, and then there was a likelihood of a Rebel sheep or young porker advancing over our lines and then he could take them as ‘contraband’ and have them for his own use.’ When they were out they saw about a dozen of the Rebel cavalry and would have had a bout with them, had it not been for…unlucky circ*mstance – one of the men caught the hammer of his rifle in the strap of his knapsack and caused his gun to fire; the Rebels heard the report and scampered in quick time….

On Friday morning, 22 October 1861, 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.”

In his letter of 17 November, Henry Wharton revealed still more details about life at Camp Griffin:

This morning our brigade was out for inspection; arms, accoutrements [sic], clothing, knapsacks, etc, all were out through a thorough examination, and if I must say it myself, our company stood best, A No. 1, for cleanliness. We have a new commander to our Brigade, Brigadier General Brannen [sic], of the U.S. Army, and if looks are any criterion, I think he is a strict disciplinarian and one who will be as able to get his men out of danger as he is willing to lead them to battle….

The boys have plenty of work to do, such as piquet [sic] duty, standing guard, wood-chopping, police duty and day drill; but then they have the most substantial food; our rations consist of fresh beef (three times a week) pickled pork, pickled beef, smoked pork, fresh bread, daily, which is baked by our own bakers, theQuartermasterhaving procured portable ovens for that purpose, potatoes, split peas, beans, occasionally molasses and plenty of good coffee, so you see Uncle Sam supplies us plentifully….

A few nights ago our Company was out on piquet [sic]; it was a terrible night, raining very hard the whole night, and what made it worse, the boys had to stand well to their work and dare not leave to look for shelter. Some of them consider they are well paid for their exposure, as they captured two ancient muskets belonging to Secessia. One of them is of English manufacture, and the other has the Virginia militia mark on it. They are both in a dilapidated condition, but the boys hold them in high estimation as they are trophies from the enemy, and besides they were taken from the house of Mrs. Stewart, sister to the rebel Jackson whoassassinated the lamented Ellsworth at Alexandria. The honorable lady, Mrs. Stewart, is now a prisoner at Washington and her house is the headquarters of the command of the piquets [sic]….

Since the success of the secret expedition, we have all kinds of rumors in camp. One is that our Brigade will be sent to the relief of Gen. Sherman, in South Carolina. The boys all desire it and the news in the ‘Press’ is correct, that a large force is to be sent there, I think their wish will be gratified….

On 21 November, the 47th participated in a morning divisional headquarters review overseen by the 47th Pennsylvania’s founder, Colonel Tilghman Good, followed by brigade and division drills all afternoon. According to Schmidt, “each man was supplied with ten blank cartridges.” Afterward, “Gen. Smith requested Gen. Brannan to inform Col. Good that the 47th was the best regiment in the whole division.”

As a reward for the regiment’s impressive performance that day—and in preparation for the even bigger adventures and honors that were yet to come, Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan ordered his staff to ensure that brand new Springfield rifles were obtained and distributed to every member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

1862

Next ordered to move from their Virginia encampment back to Maryland, Private Samuel Kern and his fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers left Camp Griffin at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 January 1862. Marching through deep mud with their equipment for three miles in order to reach the railroad station at Falls Church, they were then transported by rail to Alexandria, Virginia, where they boarded the steamship City of Richmondand sailed to the Washington Arsenal. While there, they were reequipped with weapons and ammunition before being marched off for dinner and rest at the Soldiers’ Retreat in Washington, D.C.

The next afternoon, they hopped aboard cars on theBaltimore & Ohio Railroad, and headed for Annapolis, Maryland. Arriving around 10 p.m., they were assigned quarters in barracks at the United States Naval Academy. They then spent that Friday through Monday (24-27 January 1862) loading their equipment and other supplies onto the steamshipUSS Oriental.

By the afternoon of Monday, 27 January, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers had commenced boarding theOriental. Ferried to the big steamship by smaller steamers, the enlisted men boarded first, followed by the officers. Then, per the directive of Brigadier-General Brannan, they steamed away for the Deep South at 4 p.m. The 47th Pennsylvanians were headed for Florida which, despite its secession from the United States, remained strategically important to the Union due to the presence of Forts Taylor and Jefferson in Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers subsequently arrived in Key West in early February 1862. Once there, they made camp on the beach, re-erecting their Sibley tents, and were then assigned to garrisonFort Taylor. During the weekend of Friday, 14 February, they introduced their presence to Key West residents by parading through the streets of the city. That Sunday, a number of soldiers from the regiment attended local church services, where they met and mingled with residents from the area as part of the first of many community outreach efforts to build support for the army’s efforts to preserve the nation’s Union.

Drilling daily in heavy artillery tactics, they also strengthened the fortifications at this federal installation, felled trees and built new roads.

Sometime during this phase of service, several members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers contracted typhoid fever, and were confined to the post hospital at Fort Taylor. In point of fact, it would be disease and not Confederate troops that would ultimately prove to be the deadliest foe for the 47th Pennsylvania.

Next ordered toHilton Head, South Carolinafrom mid-June through July, they camped near Fort Walker before relocating to theBeaufort District in the U.S. Army’s Department of the South, roughly thirty-five miles away. Frequently assigned to hazardous picket detail north of their main camp, Private Samuel Kern and other members of the 47th Pennsylvania were put at increased risk from enemy sniper fire when sent out on these special teams. According to historian Samuel P. Bates, during this phase of their service, the men of the 47th “received the highest commendation from Generals Hunter and Brannan” for their “attention to duty, discipline and soldierly bearing.”

Detachments from the regiment were also assigned to the Expedition to Fenwick Island (9 July) and the Demonstration against Pocotaligo (10 July).

During the second week of July, according to Schmidt, the regiment’s third-in-command—Major William H. Gausler—and F Company’sCaptain Henry S. Hartereturned home to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley to resume the 47th Pennsylvania’s recruiting efforts. After arriving in Allentown on 15 July, they quickly re-established an efficient operation, which they would keep running through early November 1862. During this time, Major Gausler was able to persuade fifty-four new recruits to join the 47th Pennsylvania while Harte rounded up an additional twelve.

On 12 September,Colonel Tilghman Goodand his adjutant,First Lieutenant Washington H. R. Hangen, issued Regimental Order No. 207 from the 47th Pennsylvania’s Headquarters in Beaufort, South Carolina:

I. The Colonel commanding desires to call the attention of all officers and men in the regiment to the paramount necessity of observing rules for the preservation of health. There is less to be apprehended from battle than disease. The records of all companies in climate like this show many more casualties by the neglect of sanitary post action then [sic] by the skill, ordnance and courage of the enemy. Anxious that the men in my command may be preserved in the full enjoyment of health to the service of the Union. And that only those who can leave behind the proud epitaph of having fallen on the field of battle in the defense of their country shall fail to return to their families and relations at the termination of this war.

II. All the tents will be struck at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday of each week. The signal for this purpose will be given by the drum major by giving three taps on the drum. Every article of clothing and bedding will be taken out and aired; the flooring and bunks will be thoroughly cleaned. By the same signal at 11 a.m. the tents will be re-erected. On the days the tents are not struck the sides will be raised during the day for the purpose of ventilation.

III. The proper cooking of provisions is a matter of great importance more especially in this climate but have not yet received from a majority of officers of the regiment that attention that should be paid to it.

IV. Thereafter an officer of each company will be detailed by the commander of each company and have their names reported to these headquarters to superintend the cooking of provisions taking care that all food prepared for the soldiers is sufficiently cooked and that the meats are all boiled or seared (not fried). He will also have charge of the dress table and he is held responsible for the cleanliness of the kitchen cooking utensils and the preparation of the meals at the time appointed.

V. The following rules for the taking of meals and regulations in regard to the conducting of the company will be strictly followed. Every soldier will turn his plate, cup, knife and fork into the Quarter Master Sgt who will designate a permanent place or spot for each member of the company and there leave his plate & cup, knife and fork placed at each meal with the soldier’s rations on it. Nor will any soldier be permitted to go to the company kitchen and take away food therefrom.

VI. Until further orders the following times for taking meals will be followed Breakfast at six, dinner at twelve, supper at six. The drum major will beat a designated call fifteen minutes before the specified time which will be the signal to prepare the tables, and at the time specified for the taking of meals he will beat the dinner call. The soldier will be permitted to take his spot at the table before the last call.

VII. Commanders of companies will see that this order is entered in their company order book and that it is read forth with each day on the company parade. All commanding officers of companies will regulate daily their time by the time of this headquarters. They will send their 1st Sergeants to this headquarters daily at 8 a.m. for this purpose.

Great punctuality is enjoined in conforming to the stated hours prescribed by the roll calls, parades, drills, and taking of meals; review of army regulations while attending all roll calls to be suspended by a commissioned officer of the companies, and a Captain to report the alternate to the Colonel or the commanding officer.

At 5 a.m., Commanders of companies are imperatively instructed to have the company quarters washed and policed and secured immediately after breakfast.

At 6 a.m., morning reports of companies request [sic] by the Captains and 1st Sgts and all applications for special privileges of soldiers must be handed to the Adjutant before 8 a.m.

By Command of Col. T. H. Good
W. H. R. Hangen Adj

In addition, First Lieutenant and Regimental Adjutant Hangen clarified the regiment’s schedule as follows:

• Reveille (5:30 a.m.) and Breakfast (6:00 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Guard (6:10 a.m. and 6:15 a.m.)
• Surgeon’s Call (6:30 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Company Drill (6:45 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.)
• Recall from Company Drill (8:00 a.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Squad Drill (9:00 a.m. and 9:15 a.m.)
• Recall from Squad Drill (10:30 a.m.) and Dinner (12:00 noon)
• Call for Non-commissioned Officers (1:30 p.m.)
• Recall for Non-commissioned Officers (2:30 p.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Squad Drills (3:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.)
• Recall from Squad Drill (4:30 p.m.)
• First and Second Calls for Dress Parade (5:10 p.m. and 5:15 p.m.)
• Supper (6:10 p.m.)
• Tattoo (9:00 p.m.) and Taps (9:15 p.m.)

As the one-year anniversary of the 47th Pennsylvania’s departure from the Great Keystone State dawned on 20 September, thoughts turned to home and Divine Providence as Colonel Tilghman Good issued Special Order No. 60 from the 47th’s Regimental Headquarters in Beaufort, South Carolina:

The Colonel commanding takes great pleasure in complimenting the officers and men of the regiment on the favorable auspices of today.

Just one year ago today, the organization of the regiment was completed to enter into the service of our beloved country, to uphold the same flag under which our forefathers fought, bled, and died, and perpetuate the same free institutions which they handed down to us unimpaired.

It is becoming therefore for us to rejoice on this first anniversary of our regimental history and to show forth devout gratitude to God for this special guardianship over us.

Whilst many other regiments who swelled the ranks of the Union Army even at a later date than the 47th have since been greatly reduced by sickness or almost cut to pieces on the field of battle, we as yet have an entire regiment and have lost but comparatively few out of our ranks.

Certain it is we have never evaded or shrunk from duty or danger, on the contrary, we have been ever anxious and ready to occupy any fort, or assume any position assigned to us in the great battle for the constitution and the Union.

We have braved the danger of land and sea, climate and disease, for our glorious cause, and it is with no ordinary degree of pleasure that the Colonel compliments the officers of the regiment for the faithfulness at their respective posts of duty and their uniform and gentlemanly manner towards one another.

Whilst in numerous other regiments there has been more or less jammings and quarrelling [sic] among the officers who thus have brought reproach upon themselves and their regiments, we have had none of this, and everything has moved along smoothly and harmoniously. We also compliment the men in the ranks for their soldierly bearing, efficiency in drill, and tidy and cleanly appearance, and if at any time it has seemed to be harsh and rigid in discipline, let the men ponder for a moment and they will see for themselves that it has been for their own good.

To the enforcement of law and order and discipline it is due our far fame as a regiment and the reputation we have won throughout the land.

With you he has shared the same trials and encountered the same dangers. We have mutually suffered from the same cold in Virginia and burned by the same southern sun in Florida and South Carolina, and he assures the officers and men of the regiment that as long as the present war continues, and the service of the regiment is required, so long he stands by them through storm and sunshine, sharing the same danger and awaiting the same glory.

Saint John’s Bluff and the Capture of a Confederate Steamer

During a return expedition to Florida beginning 30 September, the 47th joined with the 1st Connecticut Battery, 7th Connecticut Infantry, and part of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry in assaulting Confederate forces at their heavily protected camp at Saint John’s Bluff, overlooking the Saint John’s River area. Trekking and skirmishing through roughly twenty-five miles of dense swampland and forests after disembarking from ships at Mayport Mills on 1 October, the 47th captured artillery and ammunition stores (on 3 October) that had been abandoned by Confederate forces during the bluff’s bombardment by Union gunboats.

Thecapture of Saint John’s Blufffollowed a string of U.S. Army and Navy successes which enabled the Union to gain control over key southern towns and transportation hubs. In November 1861, the Union’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron had established an operations base at Port Royal, South Carolina, facilitating Union expeditions to Georgia and Florida, during which U.S. troops were able to take possession of Fort Clinch and Fernandina, Florida (3-4 March 1862), secure the surrender of Fort Marion and Saint Augustine (11 March) and establish a Union Navy base at Mayport Mills (mid-March).

That summer, Brigadier-General Joseph Finnegan, commanding officer of the Confederate States of America’s Department of Middle and Eastern Florida, ordered the placement of earthworks-fortified gun batteries atop Saint John’s Bluff and at Yellow Bluff nearby. Confederate leaders hoped to disable the Union’s naval and ground force operations at and beyond Mayport Mills with as many as eighteen cannon, including three eight-inch siege howitzers and eight-inch smoothbores and Columbiads (two of each).

After the U.S. gunboatsUncasandPatroonexchanged shell fire with the Confederate battery at Saint John’s Bluff on 11 September, Rebel troops were initially driven away, but then returned to the bluff. When a second, larger Union gunboat flotilla tried and failed again six days later to shake the Confederates loose, Union military leaders ordered an army operation with naval support.

Backed by U.S. gunboatsCimarron,E. B. Hale,Paul Jones, Uncas, andWater Witchthat were armed with twelve-pound boat howitzers, the 1,500-strong Union Army force of Brigadier-General Brannan moved up the Saint John’s River and further inland along the Pablo and Mt. Pleasant Creeks on 1 October 1862 before disembarking and marching for Saint John’s Bluff. When the 47th Pennsylvanians reached Saint John’s Bluff with their fellow Union brigade members on 3 October 1862, they found the battery abandoned. (Other Union troops discovered that the Yellow Bluff battery was also Rebel free.)

According to Henry Wharton, “On the day following our occupation of these works the guns were dismounted and removed on board the steamerNeptune, together with the shot and shell, and removed to Hilton Head. The powder was all used in destroying the batteries.”

Meanwhile that same weekend (Friday and Saturday, 3-4 October 1862), Brigadier-General Brannan, who was quartered on board theBen Defordas the Union expedition’s commanding officer, was busy penning reports to his superiors while also planning the next move of his expeditionary force. That Saturday, Brannan chose several officers to direct their subordinates to prepare rations and ammunition for a new foray that would take them roughly twenty miles upriver to Jacksonville. (A sophisticated hub of cultural and commercial activities with a racially diverse population of more than two thousand residents, the city had repeatedly changed hands between the Union and Confederacy until its occupation by Union forces on 12 March 1862.) Among the Union soldiers selected for this mission were 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers fromCompany C,Company Eand Company K.

According to Schmidt, the small force steamed upriver roughly one to two hundred miles “to Lake Beresford, where they then assisted incapturing the [68-ton] steamerGovernor Milton,”which had been renamed in honor of Florida’s governor after having been “formerly known as theGeorge M. Bird[under its previous owners] a New England family named ‘Swift’, who were timber cutters and used it as a tug boat to tow rafts loaded with live oak to the lumber market.”

Integration of the Regiment

On 5 and 15 October 1862, respectively, the 47th Pennsylvania made history as itbecame an integrated regiment, adding to its muster rolls several Black men who had escapedchattel enslavementfrom plantations near Beaufort, South Carolina. Among the formerly enslaved men who enlisted at this time wereBristor Gethers,Abraham JassumandEdward Jassum.

Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

From 21-23 October 1862, under the brigade and regimental commands of Colonel T. H. Good andLieutenant-Colonel George W. Alexander, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers next engaged the heavily protected Confederate forcesin and around Pocotaligo, South Carolina—including at Frampton’s Plantation and the Pocotaligo Bridge—a key piece of southern railroad infrastructure that Union leaders had ordered to be destroyed in order to disrupt the flow of Confederate troops and supplies in the region.

Harried by snipers en route to thePocotaligo Bridge, they met resistance from an entrenched, heavily fortified Confederate battery which opened fire on the Union troops as they entered an open cotton field. Those headed toward higher ground at theFrampton Plantation fared no better as they encountered artillery and infantry fire from the surrounding forests.

The Union soldiers grappled with Confederates where they found them, pursuing the Rebels for four miles as they retreated to the bridge. There, the 47th relieved the 7th Connecticut.

But the enemy was just too well armed. After two hours of intense fighting in an attempt to take the ravine and bridge, depleted ammunition forced the 47th to withdraw to Mackay’s Point.

Losses for the 47th Pennsylvania were significant. Two officers and eighteen enlisted men died; an additional two officers and one hundred and fourteen enlisted were wounded.

Following their return to Hilton Head on 23 October 1862, the remaining 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers recuperated from their physical and emotional battering as they gradually resumed their normal duties.

In short order, several members of the regiment were called upon to serve as the funeral honor guard for Major-General Ormsby M. Mitchel and given the honor of firing the salute over this grave. (Commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Corps and Department of the South, Mitchel succumbed to yellow fever on 30 October 1862. The Mountains of Mitchel, a part of Mars’ South Pole discovered in 1846 by Mitchel as a University of Cincinnati astronomer, and Mitchelville, the first Freedmen’s town created after the Civil War, were both named after him.)

Having been ordered back to Key West on 15 November 1862, much of 1863 would be spent garrisoning federal installations in Florida as part of the 10th Corps, U.S. Department of the South. Companies A, B, C, E, G, and I would once again garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, but this time, the men from Companies D, F, H, and K, including Private Samuel Kern, would garrisonFort Jefferson, the Union’s remote outpost in the Dry Tortugas off the southern coast of Florida.

After packing their belongings at their Beaufort, South Carolina encampment and loading their equipment onto theU.S. Steamer Cosmopolitan, the officers and enlisted members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry sailed toward the mouth of the Broad River on 15 December 1862, and anchored briefly at Port Royal Harbor in order to allow the regiment’s medical director,Elisha W. Baily, M.D., and members of the regiment who had recuperated enough from their Pocotaligo-related battle injuries at the Union’s General Hospital at Hilton Head, to rejoin the regiment.

At 5 p.m. that same evening, the regiment sailed for Florida, during what was later described by several members of the regiment as a treacherous and nerve-wracking voyage. According to Schmidt, the ship’s captain “steered a course along the coast of Florida for most of the voyage,” which made the voyage more precarious “because of all the reefs.” On 16 December “the second night, the ship was jarred as it ran aground on one during a storm, but broke free, and finally steered a course further from shore, out in the Gulf Stream.”

In a letter penned to theSunbury Americanon 21 December, Henry Wharton provided the following details about the regiment’s trip:

On the passage down, we ran along almost the whole coast of Florida. Rather a dangerous ground, and the reefs are no playthings. We were jarred considerably by running on one, and not liking the sensation our course was altered for the Gulf Stream. We had heavy sea all the time. I had often heard of ‘waves as big as a house,’ and thought it was a sailor’s yarn, but I have seen ‘em and am perfectly satisfied; so now, not having a nautical turn of mind, I prefer our movements being done on terra firma, and leave old neptune to those who have more desire for his better acquaintance. A nearer chance of a shipwreck never took place than ours, and it was only through Providence that we were saved. The Cosmopolitan is a good river boat, but to send her to sea, loadened [sic, loaded] with U.S. troops is a shame, and looks as though those in authority wish to get clear of soldiers in another way than that of battle. There was some sea sickness on our passage; several of the boys ‘casting up their accounts’ on the wrong side of the ledger.

According to Corporal George Nichols of Company E, “When we got to Key West the Steamer had Six foot of water in her hole [sic]. Waves Mountain High and nothing but an old river Steamer. With Eleven hundred Men on I looked for her to go to the Bottom Every Minute.”

Although theCosmopolitanarrived at the Key West Harbor on Thursday, 18 December, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers did not set foot on Florida soil until noon the next day. The men from Companies C and I were immediately marched to Fort Taylor, where they were placed under the command of Major William Gausler, the regiment’s third-in-command. The men from Companies B and E were assigned to the older barracks that had been erected by the United States Army, and were placed under the command of B Company Captain Emanuel P. Rhoads while the men from Companies A and G were placed under the command of A Company Captain Richard A. Graeffe, and stationed at newer facilities known as the “Lighthouse Barracks” on “Lighthouse Key.”

On Saturday, 21 December,Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. Alexander, the regiment’s second-in-command, sailed away aboard theCosmopolitanwith the men from the regiment’s remaining companies—Companies D, F, H, and K—and headed south to Fort Jefferson, where they would assume garrison duties in the Dry Tortugas, roughly seventy miles off the coast of Florida (in the Gulf of Mexico). According to Henry Wharton:

We landed here on last Thursday at noon, and immediately marched to quarters. Company I. and C., in Fort Taylor, E. and B. in the old Barracks, and A. and G. in the new Barracks. Lieut. Col. Alexander, with the other four companies proceeded to Tortugas, Col. Good having command of all the forces in and around Key West. Our regiment relieves the 90th Regiment N.Y.S. Vols. Col. Joseph Morgan, who will proceed to Hilton Head to report to the General commanding. His actions have been severely criticized by the people, but, as it is in bad taste to say anything against ones [sic, one’s] superiors, I merely mention, judging from the expression of the citizens, they were very glad of the return of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers….

Key West has improved very little since we left last June, but there is one improvement for which the 90th New York deserve a great deal of praise, and that is the beautifying of the ‘home’ of dec’d. soldiers. A neat and strong wall of stone encloses the yard, the ground is laid off in squares, all the graves are flat and are nicely put in proper shape by boards eight or ten inches high on the ends sides, covered with white sand, while a head and foot board, with the full name, company and regiment, marks the last resting place of the patriot who sacrificed himself for his country….

1863

Although water quality was a challenge for members of the regiment at both of their Florida duty stations throughout 1863, it was particularly problematic for Private Samuel kern and the other 47th Pennsylvanians who were stationed at Fort Jefferson. According to Schmidt:

‘Fresh’ water was provided by channeling the rains from the fort’s barbette through channels in the interior walls, to filter trays filled with sand; and finally to the 114 cisterns located under the fort which held 1,231,200 gallons of water. The cisterns were accessible in each of the first level cells or rooms through a ‘trap hole’ in the floor covered by a temporary wooden cover…. Considerable dirt must have found its way into these access points and was responsible for some of the problems resulting in the water’s impurity…. The fort began to settle and the asphalt covering on the outer walls began to deteriorate and allow the sea water (polluted by debris in the moat) to penetrate the system…. Two steam condensers were available … and distilled 7000 gallons of tepid water per day for a separate system of reservoirs located in the northern section of the parade ground near the officers [sic, officers’] quarters. No provisions were made to use any of this water for personal hygiene of the [planned 1,500-soldier garrison force]….

As a result, the soldiers stationed there washed themselves and their clothes, using saltwater from the ocean. As if that weren’t difficult enough, “toilet facilities were located outside of the fort,” according to Schmidt:

At least one location was near the wharf and sallyport, and another was reached through a door-sized hole in a gunport, and a walk across the moat on planks at the northwest wall…. These toilets were flushed twice each day by the actions of the tides, a procedure that did not work very well and contributed to the spread of disease. It was intended that the tidal flush should move the wastes into the moat, and from there, by similar tidal action, into the sea. But since the moat surrounding the fort was used clandestinely by the troops to dispose of litter and other wastes … it was a continuous problem for Lt. Col. Alexander and his surgeon.

As for daily operations in the Dry Tortugas, there was a fort post office and the “interior parade grounds, with numerous trees and shrubs in evidence, contained … officers quarters, [a] magazine, kitchens and out houses,” per Schmidt, as well as “a ‘hot shot oven’ which was completed in 1863 and used to heat shot before firing.”

Most quarters for the garrison … were established in wooden sheds and tents inside the parade [grounds] or inside the walls of the fort in second-tier gun rooms of ‘East’ front no. 2, and adjacent bastions … with prisoners housed in isolated sections of the first and second tiers of the southeast, or no. 3 front, and bastions C and D, located in the general area of the sallyport. The bakery was located in the lower tier of the northwest bastion ‘F’, located near the central kitchen….

Additional Duties: Diminishing Florida’s Role as the “Supplier of the Confederacy”

On top of the strategic role played by the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers in preventing foreign powers from assisting the Confederate Army and Navy in gaining control over federal forts in the Deep South, the Kolbs and other members of their regiment would also be called upon to play an ongoing role in weakening Florida’s abilities to supply and transport food and troops throughout the area held by the Confederate States of America.

Prior to intervention by Union Army and Navy forces, the owners of plantations and livestock ranches, as well as the operators of small, family farms across Florida, had been able to consistently furnish beef and pork, fish, fruits, and vegetables to Confederate troops stationed throughout the Deep South during the first year of the American Civil War. Large herds of cattle were raised near Fort Myers, for example, while orchard owners in the Saint John’s River area were actively engaged in cultivating large orange groves (while other types of citrus trees were easily found growing throughout the state’s wilderness areas).

The state was also a major producer of salt, which was used as a preservative for food. As a result, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers and other Union troops across Florida were ordered to capture or destroy salt manufacturing facilities in order to further curtail the enemy’s access to food.

And they would be undertaking all of these duties in conditions that were far more challenging than what many other Union Army units were experiencing up north in the Eastern Theater. The weather was frequently hot and humid as spring turned to summer, the mosquitos and other insects were an ever-present annoyance and serious threat when they were carrying tropical diseases, and there were also scorpions and snakes that put the men’s health at further risk.

As part of their efforts to ensure the efficacy of their ongoing operations, regimental officers periodically tweaked the assignments of individual companies during that year of garrison duty. One of those changes occurred on 16 May 1863 when D Company Captain Henry D. Woodruffand his men marched to the wharf at Fort Jefferson and climbed aboard yet another ship—this time for their return to Fort Taylor, where they resumed garrison duties under the command of Colonel Tilghman H. Good.

Four days later,enlisted members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were finally given eight months’ worth of their back pay—a significant percentage of which was quickly sent home to family members who had been struggling to make ends meet.

Despite all of these hardships, when members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were offered the opportunity to re-enlist during the fall of 1863, more than half chose to do so, knowing full well that the fight to preserve America’s Union was not yet over. Among those who re-enlisted was Private Samuel M. Kern, who re-enrolled for a second three-year term of service at Fort Taylor, Key West Florida on 10 October 1863, and was then officially re-mustered on 12 October at the same rank with the same company of the same regiment.

1864

In early January 1864, the regiment experienced yet another significant change when it was ordered to expand the Union Army’s reach by sending part of its membership north to retake possession of Fort Myers, a federal installation that had been abandoned in 1858 following the U.S. government’s third war with the Seminole Indians. Per orders issued earlier in 1864 by General D. P. Woodbury, Commanding Officer, U.S. Department of the Gulf, District of Key West and the Tortugas, that the fort be used to facilitate the Union’s Gulf Coast blockade,Captain Richard Graeffe and a group of men from Company A were charged with expanding that fort and conducting raids on area cattle herds to provide food for the growing Union troop presence across Florida. Graeffe and his men subsequently turned the fort into both their base of operations and a shelter for pro-Union supporters, escaped slaves, Confederate Army deserters, and others fleeing Rebel troops.

Red River Campaign

Meanwhile, all of the other companies of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry had begun preparing for the regiment’s history-making journey to Louisiana. Boarding yet another steamer—theCharles Thomas—on 25 February 1864, the men from Companies B, C, D, I, and K of the 47th Pennsylvania headed forAlgiers, Louisiana(across the river from New Orleans), followed on 1 March by other members of the regiment from Companies E, F, G, and H who had been stationed at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

Upon the second group’s arrival, the now almost-fully-reunited regiment moved by train on 28 February to Brashear City (nowMorgan City, Louisiana) before heading toFranklinby steamer through theBayou Teche.There, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry joined the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the Department of the Gulf’s 19th Army Corps (XIX Corps), and became the only Pennsylvania regiment to serve in theRed River Campaignof UnionMajor-General Nathaniel P. Banks.(Unable to reach Louisiana until 23 March, the men from Company A were effectively placed on a different type of detached duty in New Orleans while they awaited transport to enable them to catch up with the main part of their regiment. Charged with guarding and overseeing the transport of two hundred and forty-five Confederate prisoners, they were finally able to board theOhio Belleon 7 April, and reached Alexandria, Louisiana with those prisoners on 9 April.)

The early days on the ground in Louisiana quickly woke the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers up to just how grueling this new phase of duty would be. From 14-26 March, most members of the 47th marched for AlexandriaandNatchitoches, near the top of the L-shaped state. Among the towns that the 47th Pennsylvanians passed through during their long treks while stationed in Louisiana were: New Iberia,Vermilionville(now part of Lafayette),Opelousas, andWashington.

From 4-5 April 1864, the regiment added to its roster of young Black soldiers whenAaron Bullard(later known as Aaron French),James Bullard,John Bullard,Samuel Jones, andHamilton Blanchard (also known as John Hamilton) enrolled for military service with the 47th Pennsylvania at Natchitoches. According to their respective entries in the Civil War Veterans’ Card File at the Pennsylvania State Archives and on regimental muster rolls, the men were then officially mustered in for duty on 22 June at Morganza. Several of their entries noted that they were assigned the rank of “(Colored) Cook” while others were given the rank of “Under-Cook.”

Often short on food and water throughout their long, harsh-climate movement through enemy territory, the 47th Pennsylvania encamped briefly at Pleasant Hill (now the Village of Pleasant Hill) the night of 7 April before continuing on the next day.

Rushed into battle ahead of other regiments in the 2nd Division, sixty members of the 47th were cut down on 8 April during the intense volley of fire unleashed during the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads (also known as the Battle of Mansfield because of its proximity to the community ofMansfield). The fighting waned only when darkness fell. The exhausted, but uninjured collapsed beside the gravely wounded. After midnight, the surviving Union troops withdrew to Pleasant Hill.

The next day, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were ordered into a critically important defensive position at the far right of the Union lines, their right flank spreading up onto a high bluff. By 3 p.m., after enduring a midday charge by the troops ofConfederate Major-General Richard Taylor(a plantation owner who was the son ofZachary Taylor, former president of the United States), the brutal fighting still showed no signs of ending. Suddenly, just as the 47th was shifting to the left side of the massed Union forces during that Battle of Pleasant Hill, the men of the 47th Pennsylvania were forced to bolster the 165th New York’s buckling lines by blocking another Confederate assault.

During the engagement, the 47th Pennsylvania succeeded in recapturing a Massachusetts artillery battery lost during the earlier Confederate assault. Unfortunately, the regiment’s second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander, was nearly killed during the fight that day, and Color-Sergeant Benjamin Wallswas shot in the left shoulder while mounting the 47th Pennsylvania’s colors on one of the recaptured caissons.Sergeant William Pyerswas then also wounded while grabbing the American flag from Walls as he fell to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Although all three survived, many 47th Pennsylvanians were far less fortunate, including Private Samuel Kern who was wounded during the battle and then captured by Confederate States Army troops. Forcibly marched with other Union soldiers one hundred and twenty-five miles to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas. Situated in the midst of pine forest, it was the largest Confederate prison west of the Mississippi River. According to text from a plaque at the site of the fort’s remnants:

During the winter of 1863-64 the camp housed only about 170 prisoners, mostly officers. Life was generally pleasant and the men were well treated. Prison crafts and endeavors flourished. Fairly substantial log cabins were erected. Streets were laid out and named…. Most important…Captain Amos Johnson of the USS Sachem was named “commissioner of Aqueducts” and developed a series of catch basins in the spring branch, one for drinking, one for washing, and one for bathing.

But the Confederate prison was, in reality, not that “homey,” and it became worse as time wore on. During the early weeks of the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana, seven hundred prisoners were captured and marched to the camp. An addition two thousand Union soldiers were marched to the same facility after being taken prisoner during or after the fighting at Sabine Cross Roads (Mansfield) and Pleasant Hill:

The Camp Commander, Col. R. T. P. Allen, received orders on April 12 to prepare for the new inmates. The existing stockade did not have sufficient area to house them, and an emergency enlargement was undertaken. Local slaves were again impressed… [and the area of the stockade] was expanded to about eleven acres” [from its original four acres].

Continued fighting in Arkansas and Louisiana then generated at least another thousand Union captives:

Hard-pressed CS officials had no ability to provide shelter for the new prisoners, and their suffering was intense…many men could only dig holes in the ground for shelter. Rations were often insufficient and the death rate soares…. Of the 316 total deaths at the camp, 232 occurred between July and November 1864. Probably the most significant factor for the Camp’s low death rate was Captain Johnson’s catch basins that kept the camp’s water from being contaminated.

According to the Texas State Historical Association’s website:

Living conditions at Camp Ford became deplorable in April 1864, when the population was suddenly tripled by the addition of about 3,000 prisoners captured at the defeat of the Union army in Arkansas and the battles at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. The stockade area was doubled in size in an effort to accommodate this influx. The 4,725 inmates were overcrowded and critically short of food, shelter, and clothing. Their plight was desperate for several months, until major exchanges of prisoners in July and October 1864 alleviated somewhat the shocking conditions that had prevailed…. Beginning with the overcrowding in April 1864, the quality of the shelters deteriorated. Nearby timber was less plentiful, and shelters had to be constructed quickly. The prisoners improvised all sorts of crude shelters ranging from brush arbors to blanket tents. Some simply dug holes in the ground for protection from the cold winds. A popular form of shelter was called a “shebang,” a burrow into a hillside covered by a crude A-shaped framework made of poles, sticks, and clay to protect the entrance. The majority of the prisoners required the clothes that they were wearing when captured to see them through their captivity. The acute shortage of clothing was due to a lack of manufacturing in the South and to the federal blockade. In response to a letter from the ranking Union officers at Camp Ford, at least two shipments of clothes from the United States government were received by and distributed among the prisoners.

Unable to survive those harsh conditions, Private Samuel M. Kern died as a prisoner of war (POW) at Camp Ford in Texas on 12 June 1864. Just over a month later, eight hundred and fifty-six of the Union troops who had been taken prisoner in Louisiana “were paroled and sent to Shreveport for exchange.”

Private Kern’s death was subsequently reported as follows in the 31 August 1864 edition of Perry County, Pennsylvania’s Advocate and Press:

12 June 1864; Samuel M. Kern died in Prisoner of War Camp Ford, Texas aged 24 years. Taken prisoner in battle in Louisiana; Co. D, 47th Reg’t PA Vol.; a s/o Michael Kern of Madison township.

Buried somewhere on that prison camp’s grounds, his final resting place remains unknown.

What Happened to the Father and Siblings of Samuel M. Kern?

Sometime near or after the end of the American Civil War, Michael Kern packed up his family and moved them west to Shelby County, Illinois. By early July 1870, he was farming land in that county’s community of Dry Point. Living with him were his children Anna, Hannah, Henry, and George. His son, David, was employed by, and living at, the Dry Point family farm of Samuel Rollen, according to that year’s census.

By 1879, Samuel M. Kern’s father, Michael, was infirm enough that he filed for, and was later awarded, a U.S. Civil War Pension in recognition of the fact that his son, who had helped to support him with his farming endeavors, had died at a Confederate prisoner of war camp in 1864. By 1880, Michael Kern was residing at the Dry Point family farm owned by his daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Samuel Kesler. Also residing with them were her three children and her brother-in-law, William Kesler.

According to that year’s family census, Michael Kern’s sons, Henry and David, had relocated to the community of Colfax in Wilson County, Kansas, where Henry had begun a new life as a farmer, husband, and father. David was documented as helping his brother to farm that Colfax property.

Roughly a decade later, after a long, full life, family patriarch Machael Kern quietly passed away in Shelby County, Illinois on 3 February 1890, and was laid to rest at the Mound Cemetery in that county’s community of Cowden.

Still residing in Colfax, Wilson County, Kansas in early June 1900, Samuel M. Kern’s younger brother, David Kern, was now living alone and employed as a day laborer. Following his death there on 30 December 1900, his remains were returned to Shelby County, Illinois and then also buried at the Mound Cemetery in Cowden.

Samuel Kern’s sister, Anna Bella, who was closest to him in age, never married. Employed as a housekeeper for most of her adult life, according to federal census records, she ultimately settled in the Village of Germantown, Vermilion County, Illinois, where she purchased and maintained several properties that she bequeathed, upon her death on 16 September 1906, to her siblings, Hanna J. (Kern) Kesler and George Kern. She, too, was interred at the Mound Cemetery in Cowden.

Samuel Kern’s youngest brother, George Martin Kern, who resided for a time in Jackson Township, Perry County, had wed Ella Sarah Ebberts (1860-1931) in Newport, Perry County in 1904. After relocating to Shelby County, Illinois and beginning his own new life there, he passed away on 6 December 1924. Like other Kern family members, he was also buried at the Mound Cemetery in Cowden. George’s daughter, Ida Mary Kern (1891-1983), later wed Walter Franklin Long (1891-1968), and went on to live a long, full life, eventually passing away in her early nineties.

Samuel Kern’s sister, Hannah Jane (Kern) Kesler, who had married Samuel Kesler (1848-1909) in 1872, also lived a long life. Her children were: Harry Oscar (1878-1959), Moody Oliver (1882-1939), Lois Mae (1887-1973), and Gracie Kesler (1891-1893). Following her death in Vermilion County, Illinois on 1 September 1932, Hannah J. (Kern) Kesler was also interred at the Mound Cemetery in Cowden.

Henry Andrew Kern, the last surviving sibling of Civil War POW Samuel M. Kern, died at the age of eighty in Memphis, Shelby County, Illinois on 28 January 1934. After marrying Mary Elizabeth Grubb (1859-1941) on 25 February 1878, Henry and his wife, who was known to family and friends as “Mollie,” had welcomed the births of six children: Cynthia Jane (1880-1974), Samuel Elmer (1882-1962), Anna Elizabeth (1888-1965), Bessie Gertrude, who was born in Wilson, Kansas on 8 July 1891, Lois Eva (1895-1938), and Dewey William Kern (1898-1938).

All of their long lives were made possible, in very large part, by the sacrifices of Private Samuel Kern.

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. “Early Days as a Prison Camp” (historical marker, Camp Ford). Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society.
3. “Florida’s Role in the Civil War,” in Florida Memory. Tallahassee, Florida: State Archives of Florida.
4. Gilbert, Randal B.A New Look at Camp Ford, Tyler Texas: The Largest Confederate Prison Camp West of the Mississippi River (3rd Edition). Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
5. Kern, Anna B., and George, and Hannah J. Kesler, in Will Records, 1906 (Anna B. Kern, 4 September 1906). Vermilion, Illinois: Vermilion County Probate Court.
6. Kern, David, in U.S. Census (Colfax, Wilson County, Kansas, 1900). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
7. Kern, George (brother of Samuel M. Kern), Michael Kern (father of George Kern), and Mary C. Kern (mother of George Kern), in Marriage Records, Perry County, Pennsylvania (Newport, Perry County, 22 March 1904). Bloomfield, Pennsylvania: Clerk of the Orphans’ Court, Perry County.
8. Kern, Henry (Samuel M. Kern’s brother), Mary, Cynthia, and David (Samuel M. Kern’s brother), in U.S. Census (Colfax, Wilson County, Kansas, 1880). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
9. Kern, Michael, Anna, Hannah, Henry, and George, in U.S. Census (Dry Point, Shelby County, Illinois, 1870). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
10. Kern, Michael, Catherine, Samuel M., Anna, David, and Hannah, in U.S. Census (Jackson Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 1850). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
11. Kern, Michael, Samuel M., Anna, David, Hannah, William, Henry, and George, in U.S. Census (Madison Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 1860). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
12. Kern, Samuel M., in Civil War Muster Rolls (Co. D, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
13. Kern, Samuel M., in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Co. D, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania State Archives.
14. Kern, Samuel M. (death notice which mentions his father, Michael). Perry County, Pennsylvania: Advocate & Press, 31 August 1864.
15. Kern, Samuel M. and Michael, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (application no.: 250301, certificate no.: 230206, filed by the father, Michael Kern, on 25 August 1879). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
16. Kesler, Samuel, Jennie (Samuel M. Kern’s sister), Mary, Gertrude, Harry, and William, and Kern, Michael (Samuel M. Kern’s father), in U.S. Census (Dry Point, Shelby County, Illinois, 1870). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
17. Lawrence, F. Lee. “CAMP FORD,” Handbook of Texas Online. Denton, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, accessed 9 June 2015.
18. Prisoner of War Records, Camp Ford and Camp Groce (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Tyler Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 2010.
19. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
20. Simmons, G. W. Camp Ford, Texas Sketch, Harper’s Weekly, 4 March 1865 (accessed 9 June 2015: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting Star of the Republic Museum, Washington, Texas).
21. Thoms, Alston V., principal investigator and editor, and David O. Brown, Patricia A. Clabaugh, J. Philip Dering, et. al., contributing authors.Uncovering Camp Ford: Archaeological Interpretations of a Confederate Prisoner-of-War Camp in East Texas. College Station, Maryland: Center for Ecological Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, Texas A & M University.