Jacob Bierbower

A 23 year old laborer in Lancaster County, PA he enlisted in Lancaster on 2 September 1861 and mustered into service as Private, Company B, 45th Pennsylvania Infantry on 21 October in Harrisburg.

He was injured in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862, his right forearm bones broken when artillery fire struck a fence in front of him and he was hit by a flying fence rail.

He was admitted to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 5 October and transferred to US Army General Hospital #1 there on 29 December 1862. He was discharged from the hospital on 19 March 1863 and returned to his Company. He was discharged on a Surgeon's Certificate of disability on 10 April 1863 at the convalescent camp in Alexandria, VA.

He lost his arm to amputation at the elbow, date not given. He began receiving an Army pension in 1863. In a 1903 pension record his injuries were described as "loss of R. arm at elbow" and a gunshot wound to his left thigh. In 1910 he was retired and living in Conoy in Lancaster County, PA.

His service from Bates1, the Card File,2 and his pension card, online via fold3. Wound and hospital information from the Patient List,3 with details from a comrade's memory in a piece in the National Tribune of 13 October 1892 [pdf], via newspapers.com. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census for 1860 & 1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave; his stone has his birth in 1837.

He married Johanna Bredena Rebekka Grön (1848-1915) in Washington, DC in March 1893. She had been married twice before and had 4 children.

Thanks to Jim Smith for the pointer to Bierbower and for the National Tribune piece.

01/19/1838; Newberry Township, York County, PA

08/18/1912; Eberton, York County, PA; burial in Bainbridge Cemetery, Elizabethtown, PA