George Washington Ziegler Black

A 19 year old merchant in Bedford County, he enlisted as a Private in Company H of the 3rd Pennsylvania Infantry on 20 April 1861, for three months' service, and mustered out with them on 29 July. He enrolled again, in Rays Hill on 5 October 1861, and mustered as 2nd Lieutenant of Company H, 107th Pennsylvania Infantry on 5 March 1862 in Harrisburg.

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was promoted to Captain on 28 October 1862 and was discharged on 22 November 1863. In early 1864 he enrolled in the 19th Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC), transferred to the 81st Company, 2d Battalion in April, and by October he was serving under General Pope in Davenport, Iowa as Captain of the 172nd Company, 2nd Battalion, VRC. He was honored by brevets to Major and Lieutenant Colonel on 13 March 1865.

He owned the Frederick Republican newspaper 1867-1869 and President Grant appointed him Deputy Postmaster for Frederick, MD in 1869. He served as such to 1872. In 1894, by then a lawyer in Washington, DC, he was appointed by the governor to be part of a group to assist the Antietam Battlefield Commission in marking Pennsylvania troop locations on the battlefield. By 1906 he was a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in Washington, DC.

Service information from Bates,1 the Card File,2 the ORs,3 and the Army Register.4 His 1894 appointment from the Altoona Tribune of 2 March 1894. Personal details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave; his stone has his birth year as 1844.

He married Mary Briscoe Pigman (1839-1929) in 1873 and they had a son Hanson Briscoe Black (1874-1934) and daughter Louise (b. 1876), who died before she was 6 months old.

07/28/1839; Cumberland, MD

11/08/1914; Halltown, WV; burial in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA