California native pens book about the Civil War’s 85th Pennsylvania regiment
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Washington County native Dan Clendaniel recently released a book about a local regiment of the Civil War that was comprised of soldiers in the Fayette, Greene, Washington and Somerset counties.
鈥淪uch Hard and Severe Service: The 85th Pennsylvania in the Civil War鈥� is about Clendaniel蘑菇视频 great grandfather John Clendaniel蘑菇视频 regiment from Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Clendaniel, of California, Pennsylvania, said this book covers the first two years of the war (1861-1863), but starts with a chapter about the Whiskey Rebellion to compare that rebellion against the federal government to what happened 70 years later during the Civil War.
鈥淭he organizer and colonel of The 85th Pennsylvania was Joshua B. Howell, a prominent attorney from Uniontown who died during the war from a fall from his horse,鈥� Clendaniel said. 鈥淥ne company was from Uniontown, another was from Brownsville and a third was from the mountains near Uniontown and Connellsville.鈥�
He added that The 85th Pennsylvania lost about 100 men to battlefield wounds and another 150 to disease during the course of the war.
鈥淭heir largest battle losses were at Seven Pines in 1862 and Second Deep Bottom in 1864 鈥� both of which occurred near Richmond, Virginia,鈥� Clendaniel said.
The author began his research as a family history project.
鈥淢y great-grandfather (John Clendaniel) and his brother (Stephen Clendaniel) were members of Company D of the regiment,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey were from Jefferson, Greene County. Our family has ten letters written by the Clendaniel brothers during the war which my sister, Nancy Yakopovich, transcribed in the 1990蘑菇视频.鈥�
Dan Clendaniel said he knew little of the brothers鈥� war experience, even after reading the letters, but then began to look for more primary documents (letters, diaries, memoirs) written by other men of the regiment.
鈥淒uring my 10 years of research, I found 50 items written by men of the regiment about their war experiences and I also researched documents written by men of other regiments who were brigaded with the 85th Pennsylvania,鈥� he said.
Dan Clendaniel also found some sources written by Confederates against whom the 85th Pennsylvania fought.
鈥淎s much as possible, I use the words of the soldiers to tell their own story of the war,鈥� he said. 鈥淢y father, Bill Clendaiel, was alive during the first two years of my research. He never met his grandfather, John (who survived the war) and I greatly enjoyed our conversations in which I filled in dad about John蘑菇视频 experiences.鈥�
After a few years of research, he decided to turn his project into a book.
The official history of the regiment was written in 1915 by Luther Samuel Dickey of Allegheny County, but a big focus of the book is official records written by higher-up officers.
鈥淢y book tries to tell the story of the regiment from the point of view of the common soldier,鈥� Dan Clendaniel said. 鈥淢y over-riding question was: What was the war like for my great-grandfather and the rest of the men on a day-to-day basis?鈥�
The book also includes three significant events in which the regiment was involved in the last six months of the war 鈥� a large-scale POW exchange, the Battle of Fort Gregg near Petersburg, Virginia, and the surrender at Appomattox 鈥� which he said was not addressed in Dickey蘑菇视频 book
Dan Clendaniel graduated from California University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and moved to Manassas, Virginia in 1979 to begin a teaching career.
He has two more volumes of the history of the 85th Pennsylvania that are written and will soon be published. Volume 2 covers the years 1864-65, including Appomattox, where the 85th Pennsylvania played a key role.
Volume 3 will be biographies of all the men in the regiment.
He also has two online blogs regarding the 85th Pennsylvania. The first, 85thpennsylvania.blogspot.com, has weekly features about the regiment that did not make it into the book.
The other is a personal blog on Facebook in which he is tracking the events of the regiment on a daily basis from 1861 to 1865.
The book is published by Monongahela Books of Morgantown and can be purchased online at www.lulu.com for $30. There is also a link on his weekly blog to purchase the book.