|
|
||
Date published: 5/5/2001
A young man left central Pennsylvania in 1862 for Civil War and glory. What he found, instead, was disease, hardship and a wound that would scar him for life. George Amandus Dietrich was born Oct. 26, 1840, in Cambria County, Pa., between Johnstown and Altoona. His descendant, Mary Ann Dietrich Rogers, lives at Lake of the Woods in Orange County adjacent to the Wilderness battlefield where her grandfather was wounded. In September 1862, the 22-year-old Dietrich joined the Union army and was assigned to the 115th Pennsylvania, then part of the garrison of Washington. The 115th by this stage of the war had seen intense action that June during the Seven Days Battles before Richmond and the Second Battle of Manassas that August. As part of the 3rd Corps of the Army of the Potomac, the 115th moved toward Fredericksburg in November 1862. On the eve of battle the following month, Dietrich contracted rheumatic fever. His case was so severe that he was shipped to Washington and admitted to Douglas General Hospital on Christmas Day 1862. Twelve days later, he was moved to Philadelphia, back in the Keystone State. Dietrich probably was glad to again be in his home state, but mortified that he had missed his first battle. He spent 10 months in Philadelphia, and returned to duty in November 1863. While he convalesced, the 115th suffered severe losses near Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville, and near the Wheatfield at Gettysburg. Dietrich accompanied the 115th in the abortive Mine Run Campaign in late November, then settled into winter quarters near Culpeper.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||||
