Military Monday: Fellow serviceman searches for Mahlon Eckman

Enoch S. McCarty missed his fellow servicemen. He placed an ad in the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer on 24 October 1881.

The article read:

Enoch S. McCarty, of Kimble, Luzerne Co., PA, desires to know the post office and whereabouts of any or all of the following: John R. Martin, Henry W. Shultz, Samuel McIntyre, Mahlon P. Eckman, who, during or after the war, lived at or near this city. They belonged to the same company with McCarty.

Mahlon Eckman happened to be my husband’s “1^st cousin 4x removed” according to Family Tree Maker. So, of course this one caught my attention!

He was born in 1831 to Henry and Susan Longnecker Eckman. Henry's parents were John Martin Eckman and Elizabeth Sides. Henry's sister, Elizabeth, is my husband's 3rd great grandmother!

Mahlon had a brother, Hiram, who was three years younger. In 1860, he married Margaret Jane Armstrong. They would have five children together: Cyrus, Henry, Joseph, Mary and Daniel.

Mahlon appears on a draft registration paper with many other Eckmans from Lancaster County in June 1863. At that time he listed his occupation as postmaster.

On 5 September 1864 Mahlon Eckman enlisted as a Private in Company D, Pennsylvania 2nd Cavalry Regiment. The 2^nd Regiment had actually been organized from September 1861 to 1862 in Philadelphia. The Regiment served, before Mahlon enlisted obviously, at the Battle of Gettysburg. His first action would have been Belcher’s Mills on 17 September, followed soon after by Poplar Springs Church during the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.

The 2^nd Regiment continued to see action that fall and into the winter. They continued on to Stoney Creek Station. Bellefield, Dabney’s Mills, and finally Hatcher’s Run. The men then remained on provost duty with the Army of the Potomac. On 2 April, they were there as Petersburg fell and the Regiment took part in pursuit of Confederate General Robert E Lee. They were at the Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865 when Lee surrendered his army.

The Regiment marched to Washington, DC in May. There was a Grand Review on the 23^rd and Mahlon was mustered out on 31 May 1865. Those who remained consolidated with the 20^th Pennsylvania Calvary in June and formed the 1^st Provisional Calvary. Enoch (you thought I forgot about him, didn’t you?) went on to join the 1^st Provisional Calvary. He was discharged in July 1865.

Enoch was literally just a boy during the War. Born in 1848, he would have only been 16 when he enlisted in April 1864. After the war, Enoch went back home to Dallas in Luzerne County, where he married Alice Montross and raised a family. The 1870 US Census shows him to be a farmer. He and Alice had a son Franklin (b. 1870), daughter Helen (b. 1872), son Walter (b. 1875), daughter Minnie (1879) and a younger son (name I could not read in his will).

He died on 21 April 1893 and is buried at the Wardan Cemetery in Dallas. His widow lived until 1912 and is buried with him.

Sources:

2^nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Calvary (59^th Volunteers). National Park Service.

Historical Data Systems, comp.

U.S.

, Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.

The Daily Intelligencer. (Lancaster, PA), 24 October 1881. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

Military Monday is a genealogical prompt of GeneaBloggers.

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