Open main menu
Open main menu
T. Beer
(1842 - 1932)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
Thomas was the youngest son of German-born farmer Benjamin Beer (1790-1860) and his Irish wife Lydia "Lithie" Derric Beer (1796-1849). He lived in the village of Fallen Timber in Cambria County, PA and was 19 years old when he enlisted at Ebensburg (or Elizabeth), PA on 1 July 1861. He mustered on 6 July in Philadelphia as a Private in Company F, 28th Pennsylvania Infantry and was ill later that year with malaria while in camp at Point of Rocks, MD.
On the Campaign
He was wounded by a gunshot to his right shoulder in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 19 September and transferred to Columbia General Hospital in Washington, DC on 25 September. He worked as an orderly there and later wrote that he met President Lincoln. He returned to duty by May 1863. He was wounded twice more, in the thigh at Ringgold Gap, GA in November 1863 and at Pine Knob, GA on 15 June 1864. He was discharged at the end of his enlistment on 20 July 1864. He was later, at least briefly, on the rolls of the 147th Pennsylvania Infantry.
After the War
By 1865 he was working as a carpenter and farmer with his brother Samuel (1828-1906) in Adams County, IL. He farmed his own place there by 1870 and to at least 1910. He began receiving a veteran's pension for disability in March 1907, then at $12 per month. By May 1920, it was up to $50. In 1920 he was retired in Loraine, IL and by 1930 was living with his son Ray and family in Camp Point, Adams County, IL.
References & notes
His service basics from Bates,1 the Card File,2 and his pension cards, online from fold3. Casualty and hospital information from Nelson3 and the Patient List.4 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1870-1930, and his obituary in the Quincy (IL) Herald Whig of 7 January 1932. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to Matt Beer for his photograph and additional details from Thomas' post-war diary and his pension applications.
He married Mary Amanda Selby (1847-1868) in November 1865 and they had a daughter Lydia (1867-1950). He married again, Mary Phoebe Evans (1847-1920) in 1869 and they had 5 children.
Birth
06/06/1842; Fallen Timber, PA
Death
01/06/1932; Loraine, IL; burial in New Loraine Cemetery, Loraine, IL
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871, Vol. 1, p. 457 [AotW citation 33678]
2 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17> [AotW citation 33679]
3 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, pg. 128 [AotW citation 16361]
4 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #4.156 [AotW citation 33680]