Open main menu
Open main menu
G. Shorkley
(1835 - 1907)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Command Billet: Regimental Adjutant
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
From about 1853 he was in the iron and agricultural implement manufacturing business with his brothers in Lewisburg, PA. He enrolled on 9 October 1861 as First Lieutenant, Company H, 51st Pennsylvania Infantry. He was appointed Regimental Adjutant on 6 June 1862.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in the left arm in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862. He was later honored by brevet to Captain, USA for "gallant and meritorious service" there.
The rest of the War
He was treated at the Georgetown Seminary Hospital and the General Hospital in Philadelphia into the Spring of 1863. Not entirely recovered, he served as Aide-de-camp to General D. N. Couch on the Gettysburg Campaign. He rejoined his Regiment in November 1863. He was detached as Acting Inspector-General to Brigadier General Hartranft shortly afterward. He was promoted to Captain, Company H, on 22 April 1864. He lost the fingers of his right hand in action at the Crater, Petersburg, VA on 30 July 1864. He returned in November 1864, and was again wounded, in the right thigh, on 25 March 1865 at Ft Steadman, VA. In April he was assigned as Acting Inspector-General of the Ninth Corps, then under General Parke. He mustered out on 27 July 1865. He received additional brevets to Major, volunteers (30 July 64) for operations before Petersburg, VA; Lieutenant Colonel (25 Mar 65) for Ft Steadman, VA; and Colonel (9 Apr 65) for War service.
After the War
He was appointed in the Regular Army to First Lieutenant, 15th US Infantry on 23 February 1866 and was promoted to Captain on 13 October 1867. He had service in the South and West. He was on the staff, Department of the Missouri at Ft. Leavenworth, KS as instructor of musketry by 1883. He retired on 23 September 1885.
References & notes
Basic information from Bates1 and Heitman2. Details from a bio sketch in Bates' Martial Deeds of Pennsylvania (1876). His picture from a photograph in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Library of Congress. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
More on the Web
His papers and a wartime diary are in the Union County Historical Society, Lewisburg, PA [finding aid]. See a discussion of some garrison scandals in the West in the 1870's involving Shorkley, from Verity Gay McInnis' dissertation (2012).
Birth
05/20/1835; Scipio, NY
Death
02/13/1907; Hawthorne, FL; burial in Lewisburg Cemetery, Lewisburg, PA
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871, Vol. 2, pp. 13, 35 [AotW citation 14898]
2 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 884 [AotW citation 14899]