A Summer Sojourn in Mississippi: Taking Jackson with the 45th Pennsylvania
B y the end of the Civil War, the 45 th Pennsylvania could point to a war record that marked them as one of the most traveled regiments in the U.S. Army. Organized at Camp Curtin near Harrisburg in October 1861, the regiment was assigned to first to duty on the South Carolina coast, fighting at James Island and Secessionville in June 1862. Transported north to join General John Pope’s Army of Virginia shortly thereafter, the regiment became part of the Army of the Potomac and fought at both South Mountain and Antietam in September and later at Fredericksburg in December. The following spring, the 9 th Corps was dispatched to the western theater, first to Kentucky, and shortly thereafter to the Mississippi River to support Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg. Our correspondent, a soldier in Co. I labeling himself as “Young America,” picks up the story in mid-June 1863 at Memphis, Tennessee as the Pennsylvanians are about to depart...