Organization of the regiment

• Company A – Port Clinton, Schuylkill County – Captain Daniel B. Kaufman
• Company B – Pottsville, Schuylkill County – Captain James Wren
• Company C – Schuylkill County – Captain Henry Pleasants
• Company D – Pottsville, Schuylkill County – Captain Daniel Nazle
• Company E – Schuylkill County – Captain William Winlack
• Company F – Minersville, Schuylkill County – Captain Joseph H. Hoskings
• Company G – Pottsville, Schuylkill County – Captain Philip Nagle
• Company H – Pottsville, Schuylkill County – Captain Joseph A. Gilmour
• Company I – Middleport, Schuylkill County – Captain John R. Porter
• Company K – Cressona, Schuylkill County – Captain H. A. M. Filbert

Pope’s Campaign in Northern Virginia

Battle of Groveton (Brawner Farm)

Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas)

Captain H. A. M. Filbert of Company I and six other men were killed, 61 were wounded, and 74 missing. First Lieutenant Isaac F. Brannan was promoted to Captain of Company I.

Chantilly

The regiment had two men slightly wounded

Maryland Campaign

Attached to 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Corps, Army Potomac

Battle of South Mountain

The regiment fought at Fox’s Gap, firing off all its ammunition while positioned behind a rail fence which limited its casualties to 11 men wounded and 1 missing.

Battle of Antietam

The regiment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Sigfried. It was engaged at Burnside’s Bridge and on the slopes below the town. losing Lieutenant William Cullen of Company E and 7 other men were killed, 51 men wounded and 1 man missing.

From the War Department marker at Burnside’s Bridge at Antietam:

At daylight of the 17th Nagle’s Brigade was about a half mile northeast of this point. It moved to the south and, at 10 A.M., was formed for assault on the bridge. The 2nd Maryland took position in the old lane 110 yards southeast of this point, and the remainder of the Brigade under cover of the hill and in rear of the 2nd Maryland. At 11 A.M. the 2nd Maryland, closely followed by the 6th New Hampshire, both moving by the flank, charged down the hill under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry. They passed through the opening in the fence at this point and reached within 250 feet of the bridge, when their advance was checked. Many of the men took shelter behind the fences and trees bordering the stream, and supported Ferrero’s Brigade in its successful assault. The Brigade then crossed the bridge, filed to the left, and occupied the high ground beyond. Late in the day it moved forward and co-operated in checking the advance of the right of A.P. Hill’s Division.

From the War Department marker along Branch Avenue at Antietam:

The Brigade assisted in carrying the Burnside Bridge, and crossed it soon after 1 P.M. After the repulse of the three Divisions of Willcox, Scammon and Rodman later in the day Ferrero’s and Nagle’s Brigades advanced to the crest of the ridge about 420 yards east of this to check Confederate pursuit. The 48th Pennsylvania supported and relieved the 51st Pennsylvania, engaging the Confederates posted on this line and behind the stone walls right and left of this point. The engagement continued into the night, and the Regiment and Brigade bivouacked on the ground on which they had fought.

Battle of Fredericksburg

Burnside’s second Campaign (Mud March)

Knoxville Campaign

Campbell’s Station

Siege of Knoxville

Rapidan Campaign

Battle of the Wilderness

Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

Assault on the Salient

Lieutenant Henry Jackson was killed. The regiment had lost 187 casualties since the 5th

North Anna River

Totopotomoy

Lieutenant S. B. Laubenstine was killed, and Major Gilmour and Lieutenant William Hume were mortally wounded, all hit by sharpshooters.

Battle of Cold Harbor

The regiment lost 75 casualties

First Assault on Petersburg

A surprise assault at dawn on the 17th by the brigade captured 600 prisoners and four guns. The regiment lost 75 casualties , including Lieutenant Curtis Pollock, who was mortally wounded.

Corporal Patrick Monaghan of Company F earned the Medal of Honor for recapturing the colors of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery.

Private Robert Reid of Company G was awarded the Medal of Honor for the “Capture of flag of 44th Tennessee Infantry (C.S.A.).”

Siege of Petersburg

Jerusalem Plank Road

From Lieutenant Colonel Pleasants’ official report on digging the mine:

“It was commenced at twelve M., the 25th of June, 1864, without tools, lumber, or any of the materials requisite for such a work. The mining picks were made out of those used by our pioneers; plank I obtained, at first by tearing down a rebel bridge and afterwards by sending to a, saw-mill five or six miles distant, and the material excavated was carried out in hand-barrows, constructed of cracker boxes.

The work progressed rapidly until the 2d of July, when it reached extremely wet ground. The timbers gave way, and the roof and the floor of the mine nearly met. I retimbered it and started again. From this point I had to excavate a stratum of marl, the consistency of which was like putty, and which caused our progress to be necessarily slow. To avoid this, I started an inclined plane, and in about one hundred feet rose thirteen and one-half feet, perpendicular.”

See more about digging the mine at Petersburg from the wayside marker at the Crater.

From Lieutenant Colonel Pleasants’ official report:

On the 17th of July the main gallery was completed, being five hundred and ten and eight-tenths feet in length. The enemy having obtained information of the mine, and ‘having commenced searching for it, I was ordered to stop operations, which were, however, re-commenced on the 18th of July, by starting the left lateral gallery…

The mine was excavated by the enlisted men of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. As the excavation progressed the number required to carry out the earth increased, until, at last, it took nearly every enlisted man in the regiment, which consisted of nearly four hundred effective men. The whole amount of material excavated was eighteen thousand (18,000) cubic feet.

The great difficulty to surmount was to obtain the exact distance from the entrance of the mine to the enemy’s works, and the course of these works. This was accomplished by making five separate triangulations with a the odolite and taking their mean. The triangulations were made in our most advanced line of works, and within one hundred and thirty three yards of the enemy’s line of sharp-shooters.”

From Lieutenant Colonel Pleasants’ official report on charging the mine:

“Having received the order to charge our mine on the 27th of July, I commenced putting in the powder at four P. M., and finished at ten P. M. The charge consisted of three hundred and twenty kegs of powder, each containing about twenty-five pounds, [four tons.] It was placed in eight magazines, connected together by wooden tubes half filled with powder. These tubes met from the lateral galleries at the inner end of the main gallery, and from this point I placed three lines of fuses for a distance of ninety-eight feet. Not having fuses as long as required, two pieces had to be spliced together to make the requisite length of each of the lines.

The tamping was begun at ten P. M., July 27th, and completed at six P. M., July 28th; thirty-four feet of main gallery was tamped, and ten feet of the entrance of each of the lateral galleries, but the space between the magazines was left clear of tamping.”

Mine Explosion, Petersburg

From Lieutenant Colonel Pleasants’ official report on firing the mine:

I received orders from corps headquarters, on the 29th of July, to fire the mine at half past three A.M., July 30th. I lighted the fuse at a quarter past three A.M., and having waited until a quarter past four without any explosion having taken place, an officer and a sergeant (Lieutenant Jacob Douty, company K, and Sergeant Henry Rees, company F) of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, volunteered to go in and examine into the cause of the delay. It was found that the fire had stopped where the fuses were spliced. They were re-lighted, and at sixteen minutes of five A. M., the powder exploded.

The size of the crater formed by the explosion was at least two hundred (200) feet long, fifty (50) feet wide, and twenty-five (25) feet deep. I stood on top of our breastworks and witnessed the effect of the explosion on the enemy. It so completely paralyzed him, that the breadth of the breach, instead of being only two hundred feet, was practically four or five hundred yards. The rebels in the forts, both on the right and left of the explosion ran away, and for over an hour, as well as I could judge, not a shot was fired by their artillery. There was no fire from infantry from the front for at least half an hour; none from the left for twenty minutes, and but few shots from the right.”

Having dug and set off the mine, the regiment did not participate in the battle. The battle was a disaster but the mine was a great success, and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants and the regiment were praised by General Meade.

Weldon Railroad

Poplar Springs Church

The regiment lost 2 killed, 7 wounded and 47 prisoners

Fall of Petersburg

Colonel George Gowen and 9 other men were killed, Lieutenant Thomas Sillyman and 56 other men were wounded and 24 missing in the assault on Fort Mahone.

Surgeon William R. D. Blackwood earned the Medal of Honor when he “removed severely wounded officers and soldiers from the field while under a heavy fire from the enemy, exposing himself beyond the call of duty, thus furnishing an example of most distinguished gallantry.”