Deadly Skirmishing

Deadly Skirmishing. May 24, 1864. One of the units that suffered heavily in the skirmish fighting in the woods before you was the 56th Pennsylvania Infantry. The exhausted and depleted nature of the Army of the Potomac was demonstrated by the loss in officers in this veteran regiment. First Lieutenant Charles E. Baker of Company A commanded the regiment, as all of the field staff and staff officers and the 10 company commanders were killed, wounded, prisoners or reassigned., The close nature of the fighting within the forest required the few remaining officers of the regiment to lead from the front, with resulting casualties. The 56th Pennsylvania quickly lost two veteran Lieutenants who had risen from the ranks; Benjamin F. Young, Company D, killed and Lemuel Shaw, Company K, wounded. Young was a 34-year old former painter from Philadelphia, with a dark complexion, grey eyes and dark hair. Shaw, a 23-year old teacher from Clearfield, Pennsylvania survived his injury only to be mortally wounded just before the end of the war in March 1865., Another casualty was 20-year old draftee, Private Lorenzo Hipple. From Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, Hipple joined the regiment in September 1863, leaving behind his former trade as a boatman. The body of the grey eyed, brown haired private was never recovered, and his service record indicates no possessions were found to be sent home. The only memory received by his widowed mother was a $100.00 enlistment bounty and $106.40 back pay., The body of Lieutenant Young of the 56th Pa. rest under this stone, which mistakenly identifies his rank and his regiment. Young and Private Dragoo of the 7th Indiana (Stop 9) both were originally buried at the Matthews Farm and now lay side by side in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Almost all the other fallen exhumed from the Matthew Farm rest in unknown graves. Some of the dead were never recovered from the battlefield., Donated to the People of the United States by the American Civil War Roundtable of the United Kingdom