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F. Pettit

F. Pettit

Federal (USV)

Corporal

Frederick Pettit

(1842 - 1864)

Home State: Pennsylvania

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 100th Pennsylvania Infantry

Before Antietam

He mustered as Corporal, Company C, 100th Pennsylvania Infantry on 19 August 1862.

On the Campaign

He joined his regiment in Maryland on 10 September 1862, and first saw action at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on the afternoon 14 September:

... After resting about 3 hours we were formed in line of battle. The rebels had advanced upon our cannon and we must drive them back. The 45th reg. Pa and 17th Michigan went in before us and drove them behind a stone wall. We then advanced to the top of the hill through a shower of musket balls. When we came to the edge of the woods we halted and commenced firing. we were about as far from them as from our corn crib to the barn. They were in a line behind a stone fence and we were in the edge of the woods with a clear lot between us.

I fired 11 shots. most of the boys fired 15 before the rebels ran. When they ran I went over with J. Wilson and we took 3 rebels from amongst the killed and wounded that were not hurt. The lane was full of killed and wounded rebels. We counted 27 dead in one place the next day. 13 men in our company went in and 2 were killed and 6 wounded. We encamped for the night near the battlefield.

The rest of the War

He was wounded in action at Cold Harbor, VA in May or June 1864, and was killed in the trenches at Petersburg, VA on 9 July 1864.

References & notes

Basic information from Bates1. Quote above from his letter home of 20 September 1862, found in Infantryman Pettit: the Civil War letters of Corporal Frederick Pettit, late of Company C, 100th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment, "The Roundheads," 1862-1864, William G. Gavin, editor (1990). His photograph from one of unknown provenance posted online by the Friends of the South Mountain State Battlefield, source also of additional details. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

Birth

1842

Death

07/09/1864; Petersburg, VA; burial in Poplar Grove National Cemetery, Petersburg, VA

Notes

1   Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871  [AotW citation 17683]