The 75th Pennsylvania Volunteers, made up largely of German immigrants from Philadelphia, had been ordered to cross the Shenandoah River at Castleman's Ferry in Clarke County, Virginia and join the pursuit of General Jackson's Confederate forces. The river was running fast and high and when two companies of the regiment tried using a damaged old ferry boat, it swamped in mid-river and two officers and fifty-one enlisted men drowned. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
"A Sad Disaster," New York Times, April 18, 1862, p. 1.
Samuel P. Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65 ... (Harrisburg, PA: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1869), II: 916.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Crime/Disasters