John Rutter Brooke

From Pottstown, in April 1861 he was commissioned Captain in the 4th PA (three months) Regiment. On 21 August 1861 he was commissioned Colonel of the Fifty-third Regiment, which he led on the Peninsula campaign.

He was in command of the 3rd Brigade of the First Division/Second (II) Corps, and was wounded.

He continued in command of the Brigade at Fredericksburg, and commanded the 4th Brigade at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (wounded), the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor (wounded). In May 1864 he was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers, and served on court martial duty.

He continued in career Army service rising to Major General served in the Spanish-American War and retired in 1902. He died in Philadelphia in 1926 at age 88. He was the next-to-last surviving full-rank Union General.

Thanks to Mike Snyder for the General's birthplace, and that 'The Brooke family home was on the north bank of the Schuylkill River just upstream from the mouth of Sprogel's Run and less than one-half mile from Pottstown's present eastern boundary'.

7/21/1838; Pottsgrove Township, PA

9/5/1926; Philadelphia, PA; burial in Arlington National Cemetery , Arlington, Virginia