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M.E. Richards
(1830 - 1876)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Education: University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1851
Command Billet: Aide-de-camp
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania he studied the law and was admitted to the bar at Pottsville, PA on 7 June 1853. In 1860 he was a wealthy 30 year old attorney living in Frank Kaercher's hotel in Pottsville. He enlisted there and mustered in Harrisburg on 18 April 1861 as a Private in the National Light Infantry - Company D of the 25th Pennsylvania Infantry - and had duty at Harpers Ferry and Washington, DC before he mustered out with his company on 23 July (or 1 August). He enrolled again and mustered as First Lieutenant, Company A, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry on 22 September 1861. He was appointed Adjutant of the regiment the next day. He was detailed and detached as an aide to brigade commander J.J. Bartlett on 14 June 1862.
On the Campaign
He was with Colonel Bartlett as ADC on the Maryland Campaign, and the Colonel later reported:
My warmest thanks are due to the brave, able, and gallant assistance rendered me on this as on all former occasions by Lieutenant R. P. Wilson, acting assistant adjutant-general, and Lieutenant M. E. Richards, acting aide-de-camp.
The rest of the War
He served with General Bartlett to 22 September 1864, then returned to his regiment and was reappointed Adjutant. He mustered out with them a month later at the end of their term of service.
After the War
By 1870 he was a lawyer living with his parents and 4 siblings in Pottsville, PA.
References & notes
His service basics from Bates1 and the Card File,2 as M. Edgar Richards. Personal details from family genealogists, S.T. Wiley's Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Schuylkill County Pennsylvania (1893), the US Census of 1860 & 1870, and the Catalog of the University of Pennsylvania (1880). His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph in the US Army Heritage & Education Center collection, kindly provided by David A. Ward, author of The 96th Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War (2018).
Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post 595 (1893) in Pottsville was named for him.
More on the Web
His 1851 commencement oration Improvements of the Age - a "tongue-in-cheek commmentary on mid-nineteenth century progress" - is online from the University of Pennsylvania Archives.
Birth
03/31/1830; New Hanover, PA
Death
11/11/1876; Philadelphia, PA; burial in Pottstown Cemetery, Pottstown, PA
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871 [AotW citation 31116]
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 31117]