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The Youngest General

www.hspa-pa.org

Originally aired on June 14, 1996 - In part 94 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles the life and career of Brigadier General GalushaPennypacker, the youngest man ever to hold this rank in the US army.

#94 – The Youngest Union General

The youngest Federal general in the Civil War was not the flamboyant George Custer, as most people would assume. That distinction belongs to an obscure Pennsylvanian with the odd name of Galusha Pennypacker.

He was born June 1, 1844, near Valley Forge. His Mennonite father was a veteran of the Mexican War, his grandfather a soldier under George Washington. Pennypacker received a good starting education in private schools. Then, struck by war fever at the age of sixteen, he enlisted in a 90-day regiment of Pennsylvania reserves and became the unit’s quartermaster sergeant.

Pennypacker next recruited an infantry company. It became part of the 97th Pennsylvania and he (at the age of seventeen) became its captain. Elevation to major followed in October, 1861. For the next three years, the Pennsylvania regiment saw service in Florida and along the South Carolina coast. Only an attack of intermittent fever kept Pennypacker from the ill-fated Union attack in July, 1863, at Fort Wagner – an engagement where the all-black 54th Massachusetts gave its blood for glory.

By the time the Pennsylvania joined General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James in Virginia in the spring of 1864, Pennypacker was colonel of his regiment. Young, round-faced, with large eyes and a drooping mustache, Pennypacker always displayed what one officer called “that earnest and persistent attention to every detail of duty”. His “usual energy and unsparing devotion”, another soldier commented, made the colonel one of the most beloved men in the army.

In the first stages of the siege of Petersburg, the Pennsylvanian saw action at Swift Creek, Drewry’s Bluff, and Chester Station. He was wounded four times, including painful injuries to an arm and an ankle. When Butler’s forces late that year began amphibious operations against Fort Fisher, North Carolina, Pennypacker was there in temporary command of a brigade. Union forces finally seized the coastal fortification in a January, 1865, assault. In the hand-to-hand fighting, a superior officer reported, Pennypacker “was seriously wounded while planting the colors of his leading regiment of the {enemy’s} works” and was “the real hero at Fort Fisher”. For this exploit, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

That fifth battle wound was both dangerous and crippling. A bullet had pierced Pennypacker’s side and fractured part of the pelvic bone. Pain was excruciating throughout ten months of incapacitation.

Pennypacker was in the military hospital at Fort Monroe, Virginia, when he learned of his promotion to the rank of brigadier general. He was twenty years old: the youngest general officer ever appointed in the service of the U. S. Army. Brevet promotion to major-general followed a month before the Civil War ended. A fellow soldier noted: “Though young in years yet ripe in the wisdom of feeling for those under his command, Pennypacker’s influence was ever salutary and inspiring.”

The army went through the usual downsizing in the postwar years. Pennypacker reverted back to colonel and successively commanded the 34th and the 16th U. S. Infantry regiments. In 1883 the 39-year-old officer retired from the army because of increasing disability from his Civil War injuries. Pennypacker spent his remaining years in Philadelphia, where he died in 1916 at the age of seventy-four.

Galusha Pennypacker seldom appears on the pages of Civil War history. He was not always in the big military theatres, nor did he serve under field commanders who courted publicity. Yet Pennypacker’s gallantry is unimpeachable, his contributions sterling. Further, no other American has had the distinction of becoming a general before his was old enough to vote.

Dr. James I. "Bud" Robertson, Jr., is a noted scholar on the American Civil War and Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech.