Mahlon Henry Beary

A 21 year old law student in Massachusetts at the start of the war, he returned home to Allentown, then enlisted in Reading on 4 August 1862. He mustered as Private, Company D, 128th Pennsylvania Infantry on 15 August in Harrisburg.

He was wounded in action at Antietam, his right index finger "shot off", on 17 September 1862.

He mustered out with his Company on 19 May 1863.

He returned Allentown, continued the study of the law there, and was admitted to the bar on 9 November 1863. He practiced law until 1869 when he went to Missouri, bought land and raised grain and stock, and had a general store - later, a drug store - in Bethel, MO. He entered the Keokuk Medical College (now part of the University of Iowa) in about 1878 and graduated with an MD in 1880. He practiced medicine back in Bethel until 1891 then he returned to Allentown, resumed the practice of law, and invested in real estate.

He was a speaker at the dedication of the 137th Pennsylvania Infantry's memorial on the Antietam battlefield on 17 September 1904 (the 128th's went up the next year). He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) - Post 158 in Bethel and Post 87 in Allentown - and attended many veteran's events, including the massive 50th anniversary reunion at Gettysburg in 1913. He died the next year in Allentown at age 73.

Service information from Bates1 and the Register.2 Personal details from a sketch in Jordan, Green, and Ettinger's ... Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of the Lehigh Valley (Vol. II, 1905) and his obituary in the Allentown Democrat of 19 September 1914. His attendance at the Gettysburg 50th from the Allentown Democrat of 14 June 1913. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Emma A. Newhard (1845-1908) about 1864 and they had 6 children.

A group photograph of members of GAR Post 158 - including Beary - at a reunion meeting at Salt River, Shelby County, Missouri in August 1895 is online from the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

11/12/1840; Allentown, PA

09/18/1914; Allentown, PA; burial in Linden Street Cemetery, Allentown, PA