A Cross Section of Civil War Era New Jerseyans
In commemoration of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee has compiled brief biographies of New Jerseyans of the era, famous and obscure, whose lives were affected by the conflict and the events surrounding it. The representative sampling here is part of the total of 150 stories of soldiers and civilians, including heroes, scoundrels and ordinary folks just getting by, that will be published in book form in the near future. These are the tales of men and women of diverse races, religions and ethnic backgrounds, and the selections include enlisted men, officers, nurses, politicians, diplomats, manufacturers, merchants, writers, poets and artists who were born in or immigrated to our state and lived here before, during or after the war. When faced with the most climactic event in American history, the people of New Jersey’s Civil War generation became, whether they wished it or not, actors upon the historical stage rather than observers. Many of their lives were, indisputably, in the oft-quoted words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, graphically “touched with fire,” others less so, but all of them, for better or worse, would never be the same.
The biographies have been submitted by a number of contributors, whose names are noted following each entry. Where applicable, sources for further information on an individual subject are noted in parentheses. Fuller citations are available in a brief selected bibliography of books, articles and manuscripts which will, in turn, often lead the reader to further sources. Internet citations provide complete access information.
Joseph G. Bilby, Editor
Purchase New Jersey Goes to War
Solomon Andrews was born in Perth Amboy in 1806. A physician and inventor, Andrews served as long-time mayor and public health officer of his native city. In 1849 he converted a pre-Revolutionary War barracks to house “The Inventor’s Institute,” where he invented and produced a wide variety of useful products, including a burglarproof lock. Andrews made significant improvements to Perth Amboy’s quality of life, including designing the city’s first sewer system, which dramatically reduced its yellow fever toll. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered his services to the Sanitary Commission, a predecessor of the Red Cross, and accompanied Union forces during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
Andrews’ greatest invention grew out of his life-long obsession with manned flight, an interest spurred by the war. He developed a vehicle suspended from a balloon that could be self-propelled and steered through the air, even into the wind, using a ship-like rudder and harnessing the forces of gravity through mechanically contracting and expanding multiple hydrogen gas filled cigar-shaped bags. The doctor offered his invention to the government, promising, in a letter to President Lincoln, to “sail the airship…5 to 10 miles into Secessia and back again.”
The “Aereon” measured 80 feet long and 20 feet wide. With Andrews at the controls, learning to fly as he went along, it first took to the sky over Perth Amboy on June 1, 1863. Despite some developmental setbacks, Andrew’s theories seemed to work. Though it may well have proved useful for military purposes, the airship was so far ahead of its time that Andrews’ letters to Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and members of Congress went unanswered. No doubt many thought him a crank.
Actually, Andrews was closer to genius than crank. At war’s end he formed the Aerial Navigation Company to advance his idea that passengers and mail could travel by air, and on June 6, 1866 flew his machine from Perth Amboy and over New York City on the way to Oyster Bay, Long Island. When he cruised above Broadway at 1,500 feet, “the commotion along that great thoroughfare was tremendous.” Unfortunately, a bank failure ruined Aerial Navigation. Solomon Andrews died on October 19, 1872 in Perth Amboy, ending the career of a brilliant, patriotic and far-seeing Jerseyman who always thought “outside the box.” (McPhee, Deltoid Pumpkin; Miers, Where the Raritan Flows; Miers, New Jersey and the Civil War)
John W. Kuhl
George Ashby was born in Burlington, New Jersey on January 25, 1844. In 1864, Ashby, an African American then living in Crosswicks, enlisted as a private in the 45th United States Colored Infantry, organized at Camp William Penn outside of Philadelphia between June and August of 1864. He served in Virginia during the siege of Petersburg and was present for the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865. At the end of hostilities, the 45th, with a large number of other federal troops, was transferred to Texas on occupation duty. While serving with his regiment, Ashby was promoted several times until he reached the rank of first sergeant of Company H.
Sergeant Ashby was mustered out of the service at Philadelphia with the 45th in November 1865 and returned to his life as a New Jersey small farmer. In January 1944 a reporter interviewed the old veteran, who predicted an allied victory in World War II and stated that if he could, he would “enlist all over again.” When George Ashby died in Allentown on April 29, 1946, he was the last surviving New Jersey Civil War veteran. He is buried in Allentown. (Bilby, Forgotten Warriors)
Joseph G. Bilby
Cornelia Hancock, who would become known as the “Florence Nightingale of America,” was born on February 6, 1840 to an old New Jersey Quaker family at Hancock’s Bridge in Salem County. Hancock was introduced to social work through her brother in law, a Philadelphia physician.
In the wake of the large numbers of casualties at the battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, the military requested civilian medical assistance. Hancock’s brother-in-law answered the call and took her with him, despite the disapproving orders of superintendent of nurses Dorothea Dix, who thought Cornelia unsuitable for nursing soldiers because she was too young and attractive. Hancock arrived at Gettysburg two days after the battle and without any official support or supplies, but she helped wherever she could, writing letters for the wounded, praying with them, making them comfortable with blankets and foraging food supplies. Despite her innate dislike of alcohol, she dispensed with scruples and began to serve what would become a trademark “punch” of condensed milk laced with whiskey.
In addition to her material aid, Hancock’s cheery mood and optimism did much to raise the morale of her patients, and she quickly became an indispensable army nurse, serving through the winter camp of 1863-1864 and the brutal overland campaign of the summer of 1864. Cornelia Hancock was one of the first Union women to enter Richmond after its capture. Although she was particularly highly regarded among the south Jersey men of the 12th New Jersey Infantry, soldiers throughout the Army of the Potomac recognized and cheered her whenever she appeared. The dance tune The Hancock Gallop was written in her honor and a medal was cast to commemorate her service.
After the war Hancock, supported by other Quakers, moved to South Carolina and founded a school for black children that eventually reached an enrollment of several hundred students. After leaving the South for health reasons in 1875 she spent the rest of her life in social work in Philadelphia, and was especially active and successful in Wrightsville, a poverty-stricken neighborhood in the southwest section of the city. Cornelia Hancock died from nephritis on 31 December 1927 at her home in Atlantic City, and was buried at Harmersville. (www.lyoncamp.org; Lurie & Mappen, Encyclopedia of New Jersey)
John W. Kuhl
Robert Harriot was born in Ireland in 1819, and began a “race performance” career at the age of fifteen. Harriot gained a reputation competing throughout the British Isles in walking and running competitions often featuring additional tasks like picking up stones, vaulting hurdles or walking a thin wooden plank. Monetary prizes were awarded and spectators gambled on the outcomes of these contests.
Harriot immigrated to Jersey City in 1850 and continued as a professional “pedestrian,” famed for walking “a thousand miles in a thousand hours.” His carefree persona earned him the nickname “Mickey Free” after a character in the popular novel Charles O’Malley: The Irish Dragoon. In May 1852 Harriot married Eliza Fox in Newark. The couple had eight children. Eliza took up her husband’s trade and became well known as a female competitor in the 1850s. “Mickey Free and Mrs. Free” were the only known performing “pedestrian couple.”
In February 1861, when President-elect Lincoln visited Jersey City, Harriot, dressed as a “Wide Awake,” Republican activist, climbed the speakers’ dais, shook Lincoln’s hand, patted him on the back and was promptly clubbed off the platform by a policeman, much to the crowd’s amusement. In August 1861 he enlisted in Company C of the 5th New Jersey Infantry, where his celebrity presence was noted by diarist Alfred Bellard. At the battle of Williamsburg in May 1862, Harriot lost several fingers to a shell fragment and during his convalescence in a Philadelphia hospital walked home to Jersey City for a visit. He was discharged for disability in February, 1863, awarded a pension in April, and reenlisted as a private in Company B, 33rd New Jersey Infantry in August. Most of his service in the 33rd was as a hospital orderly and he was mustered out in July, 1865.
A civilian again, Harriot returned to New Jersey to continue his career, albeit briefly and with limited success, as age and military service took a toll his body. He became a mason and stonecutter and later Jersey City dog pound master and built a “home on wheels” which he relocated around the city periodically. Always a colorful character, Harriot had several run-ins with the law, including charges of shooting at his wife and perjury. Robert “Mickey Free” Harriot died November 21, 1878 of pneumonia and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Jersey City. (Cumming, Runners and Walkers; NY Clipper; NY Times)
James M. Madden
Charles Fern Hopkins was born on May 16, 1842 in Hope, New Jersey. His father Nathan was a harness maker and Hopkins was apprenticed to that trade at the age of twelve. The senior Hopkins was also a fervent abolitionist, and his home was a station on New Jersey’s Underground Railroad.
In June of 1861, Hopkins, by then a Boonton harness maker, enlisted in Company I of the 1st New Jersey Infantry. At Gaines Mill, Virginia, on June 27, 1862, Hopkins was wounded twice. As the 1st retreated, he heard badly wounded Sergeant Richard Donnelly call out for help, halted and carried Donnelly to relative safety through a gauntlet of enemy fire. Wounded again himself, Hopkins collapsed on the field and was taken prisoner but paroled the following day. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his selfless heroism in saving Donnelly, who survived to eventually become Quartermaster General of the New Jersey National Guard.
Promoted to corporal, Hopkins was captured again in the battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. Less lucky this time, he ended up in the infamous Andersonville Prison. For ten months, Hopkins kept a diary of his suffering and privation, carefully recording the names of fellow Jerseymen who died in captivity. Eventually exchanged, he was mustered out of the army in Trenton in April, 1865.
In 1867, Hopkins married Hettie Ann VanDuyne. The couple had seven children. A public spirited citizen, he was elected mayor of Boonton in 1880 and also served as a New Jersey Assemblyman, Morris County Freeholder, State Senate Assistant Sergeant at Arms and Boonton postmaster.
Hopkins spearheaded the effort to erect an Andersonville National Cemetery monument commemorating the 235 New Jersey soldiers and sailors who died there. The column, capped with the figure of a soldier at rest, reads: “Go, stranger, to New Jersey; tell her that we lie here in fulfillment of her mandate and our pledge, to maintain the proud name of our State, unsullied, and place it high on the Scroll of Honor, among the States of this Great Nation.”
Charles F. Hopkins died in 1934, the last surviving Civil War Medal of Honor recipient from New Jersey. He is buried in Greenwood cemetery in Boonton. (Styple & Fitzpatrick, Andersonville Diary; Switala, Underground Railroad)
William B. Styple
William Scudder Stryker was born in Trenton in June, 1838 and graduated from Princeton in 1858. In April 1861 he enlisted as a private in “A Company, New Jersey National Guard Infantry,” a militia organization called up by Governor Charles Olden to protect the state arsenal, and was mustered out after three months. In the summer of 1862, Stryker was appointed a major by Governor Joel Parker and assigned as disbursing and quartermaster officer at Freehold’s Camp Vredenburg, where he helped organize the 14th New Jersey Infantry.
In February 1863 Stryker was commissioned a major and paymaster of U. S. Volunteers, assigned to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and as a member of General Quincy Gillmore’s staff, participated in the siege of Charleston, including the disastrous July attack on Battery Wagner. After that fierce fight Major Stryker visited the survivors of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry in a successful search for Henry D. Wood, an African American soldier from Trenton. Stryker was later transferred to the Columbus, Ohio Parole Camp, and served as senior paymaster until 1866, when he resigned as a brevet lieutenant colonel.
On April 12, 1867, Governor Marcus Ward commissioned Stryker a brigadier general and appointed him New Jersey’s adjutant general, in charge of the state’s military administration, a post he held for the rest of his life. In 1870 Stryker married Helen Boudinot Atterbury. The couple had three children. He was brevetted major general during Governor Joel Parker’s second term in 1874.
His thirty-three years in office made Stryker the longest serving adjutant general in New Jersey history, but he is best known for his work as a historian. His assiduous attention to detail in compiling lists of Jerseymen who served in the nation’s wars resulted in publications that remain standard references today, and no one can write New Jersey military history without consulting his numerous books and articles, rich with primary source material, on the state’s role in the American Revolution. As a member and officer of many American and European historical societies, including a term as president of the New Jersey Historical Society, Stryker’s contributions to New Jersey historiography were enormous. When he died in Trenton on October 29, 1900 William Stryker was remembered as “modest and unassuming beyond most men.” His accomplishments certainly spoke for him. General Stryker is buried in Trenton’s Riverview Cemetery. (Bilby & Goble, Remember You Are Jerseymen; Luzky, Adjutants General of NJ)
Joseph G. Bilby
