Henry Royer

Son of county judge Joseph Royer, he studied the law after graduating from Yale and was admitted to the bar at Pottsville on 17 March 1861. He enrolled on 23 September 1861 in Company H, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry, and was appointed First Lieutenant. He was promoted to Captain on 12 February 1862.

He commanded his Company on the Campaign. He was noted as "straggling" with Captain Haas of Company G on 8 September 1862 as they passed through Rockville, MD, where they "stole some plums and corn and cooked coffee in a large cornfield." He led his Company in action at Crampton's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He resigned 13 January 1863. He mustered as Colonel of the 53rd Regiment, Militia of 1863 on 13 July 1863 and mustered out 20 August 1863.

He practiced law in Pottsville to December 1864, when he went into the dry goods business as partner in Whitfield & Royer. He began farming as a sideline in 1865, and then full time in 1872 due to declining health. In 1875 he returned to the dry goods business, which by 1890 was H. Royer & Son. In 1893 he moved to Denver, CO for his health.

Basic information from Bates1 and Hunt.2 His presence on the Campaign from Colonel Cake’s Official Report and the straggling" quote is from Captain Jacob Haas' wartime diary, extracted and interpreted by Haas' grandson James, online [PDF] from the US Army Heritage and Education Center. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Personal details from family genealogists and his bio sketch in the Biographical Record (1897), Yale Class of 1858.

He married Mary M. Whitfield of Pottsville in Hagerstown, MD on 13 October 1862 and they had 3 children.

07/08/1837; Trappe, PA

02/13/1903; Denver, CO; burial in Charles Baber Cemetery, Pottsville, PA