The Late Seth Dickey of Mercersburg

Writer's acknowledgment: Our thanks to Mrs. Agnew Patterson of Mercersburg for contributing the papers of Seth Dickey. Mrs. Patterson's late husband was a nephew of Mary Patterson Dickey who gave the papers to him.

Seth Dickey was born in 1841, which made him, by modern measure and statistics, prime resource material for the Civil War. With the death of his father, James Jr. in 1855, Seth inherited much of the Dickey family wealth and land along Dickey's Run. The early records of the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church compiled by the Rev. John King show many entries, baptisms, marriages of the family of the original James Dickey who was as Scots-Irish as the ancient "Londonderry Air."

After the Civil War, Seth Dickey married Annie Smith descended from Squire William Smith, the founder of Mercersburg. There were a son and daughter born to the couple both of whom died from childhood illnesses. Anne Smith Dickey died in 1879 and in 1905 Seth remarried. His second wife, Mary Patterson Dickey, was the object of many romantic poems written by her husband in his later life.

Seth had enough combativeness of the Scots-Irish to be an excellent soldier in the Civil War but he was a well-balanced individual, a man of letters with an academic education, including art school. Writing about varied subjects, he preserved much of the thought and character of his times. When Seth died April 15, 1925, I was a student at Chambersburg High School and was interested in everything about the Civil War that I could find. I recall reading about the death of this man, one of the last survivors of the famous 126th Pa. Vol. Infantry.

Our Kittochtinny region has supplied its share of Civil War heroes or those who have had heroic experiences in that great struggle. Many of these experiences have been written into the Society papers. However, Seth Dickey, of Mercersburg, lived out a long life without any particular heroic acclaim, although he marched unflinchingly up Maryes' Heights at Fredericksburg, got up close to the terrible Stonewall and lived to tell the tale.

The 126th Pennsylvania! Rushed into being by a frantic call for 100,000 men to serve for 9 months following McClelland's defeat in the Peninsular Campaign, it was recruited almost entirely from Franklin County. There were several companies from Chambersburg, Waynesboro and Greencastle and practically all communities of the County were represented and included Company C Mercersburg where Seth Dickey volunteered. Col. James Elder, original commander, was severely wounded at Fredericksburg and Lt. Col. D. Watson Rowe of Greencastle assumed command. Col. Rowe, an excellent leader, was slightly wounded in the face at Chancellorsville and after the war became judge of Franklin County Courts (1874). Hon. D. Watson Rowe was a member of the Kittochtinny Historical Society at the time of his death in 1913. His rather austere, bearded visage appears on page 397 of Bates History of Franklin County.

Seth Dickey, in his chronology of the recruiting of Company C of the 126th Pennsylvania Vol. Infantry, pens an exciting portrayal of the times in Mercersburg. There were nightly meetings at the Mansmn House wlth addresses by the Rev. Dr. Thos. Creigh, Dr. Phillip Schaff and others. Seth observed that more effective than the speeches was the stirring, thrilling band music of a Mexican War Veteran, Lt. Jacob West of St. Thomas and his band consisting of one fifer, three snare drummers and one bass. With four drummers to one fifer no wonder everyone was aroused!

When the roll of Company "C" was completed and officers elected at Diagnothian Hall, the citizens of Mercersburg subscribed $50.00 to buy a Mercersburg flag, a beautiful silk affair with "Mercersburg" in gold letters. Capt. Brownson entrusted the flag to Private Dickey but when the company got to Camp Curtain, Harrisburg, it was learned that "No company flags were allowed."

Seth's account of the physical examination at Camp Curtain was colorful, to say the least; he writes, "the following day of arrlval, we were taken into a large tent open at one end, where sat the army surgeon, who, after we were divested of our clothes, pinched and punched and gouged us to his entire satisfaction, then told us to jump as high as we could and knock our feet together as often as we could before landing and finally, to show our teeth and snap them together as if we were expected to eat REBELS!"

A little basic training and off went the 126th Pennsylvania Vol. Infantry to Baltimore. General Pope had been disastrously beaten at 2nd Bull Run and all available troops were being rushed to the defense of Washington. When Seth's regiment manned the trenches around the Capital and no enemy attack occurred, the men liked to boast humorously "that the rebs were afraid to attack Company C."

The 126th Infantry became a part of General McClellan's reserve at the Battle of Antietam. He had 40,000 men which he didn't use. When President Lincoln asked McClellan why he didn't use them, McClellan replied in a hushed voice, "These are the only reserves of the Army" as though they were "untouchables."

The battle of Fredericksburg was covered in the regimental history of the 126th Pennsylvania Vol. Infantry by Col. D. Watson Rowe who acknowledges that he received some of the narrative from comrade Seth Dickey. William Conrad's paper,Franklin's First Nine Month Men, in this volume gives an account of this regiment. Seth Dickey's account is quite the same except for his historic claim that Humphrey' s Division and the 126th got farthest up Maryes' Heights that dreadful afternoon of senseless assaults. Some Indiana troops after the war claimed they were the ones but Seth straightened them out with some very concise proof. Seth said, "As we broke into the double quick, I noticed a board fence back of the Marye House still standing after Summer's earlier assaults. The fence was 40 yards from the wall. We hit the fence and it went down. Our momentum carried us another 20 yards before we were forced out of this hellish spot." If Seth Dickey won a point in valor, Major Gen. Ambrose P. Burnside, commanding the Army of the Potomac, earned a pathetic place in American history.

Seth, of course participated in Burnside's famous mud march and after Burnside was relieved and "fighting Joe" Hooker assumed command, the morale of the Army improved. The Spring campaign found Hooker dividing his Army, leaving 40,000 men under Gen. Sedgewick at Fredericksburg, while he with 80,000 crossed the Rapidan April 29 and took the road which would bring him in on the rear of the Confederate Army.

Seth tells what it was like at Chancellorsville: "Before going into the fight, I took from my knapsack such articles of clothing as could be illy (sic) dispensed with and crammed them into my haversack pockets and shirt front and then threw away the knapsack that I might have more freedom for my arms, in action."

Another excerpt about the battle: "During the night of May 3, 1863, about one o'clock on that morning when all were Iying on the ground asleep with arms at hand, there broke suddenly on our ears a wild Rebel yell, it came singing through the damp night air and brought us all to our places on the jump. They were charging Hancock's Corps which lay near ours but with a single volley his wide awake men stopped them. Then all was quiet again except our tongues, which would not be stilled. During this talk our new messmate Nickolas C. Trout, younger brother of Lieutenant Trout, remarked that he felt that he would be killed in the fight that all knew would begin in the morning. He could not account for the feeling but felt sure the messenger of death was awaiting him. Someone then said, 'Nick, having such feelings you had better not go into the fight.' Nick replied with some spirit, "I am not made of that kind of stuff! I'm going in. "' And he did go in with no indication whatever that he dreaded the fate that he believed would overtake him, and left his body to be buried with the unknown Union dead. Seth adds, "A noble brave boy of cherished memory."

Of the actual fighting in which Seth took part at Chancellorsville he writes the following: "Gen. Hooker, who commanded the army of the Potomac at the battle of Chancellorsville, remembering the good work performed by Humphrey's division at Fredericksburg, ordered Tyler's brigade of this division, after the eleventh corps had been driven back by Stonewall Jackson, to make an effort to recover the ground thus lost and, if possible, drive the enemy from his stronghold in the thickets of the wilderness. On that pleasant Sabbath morning, May 3rd, 1863, with 100 rounds of ammunition, Tyler's men advanced promptly and confidently to position in the woods with Gen. French's command on our left and our right, in the air, and opened with a brisk fire which was maintained with so much vigor as to frustrate several attempts of the enemy to form for a charge on our front.

"Our command held its position for over two hours when, from lack of ammunition and consequent slacking of the fire, the enemy succeeded in turning our extreme right and forcing the entire line back under the protection of the batteries placed along the Chancellorsville and Elys Ford Road, near the small white house. The retreat was hurriedly and successfully accomplished but, with heavy loss, being fired on by the enemy who followed us out of the woods into the open ground where they were checked and driven back with great slaughter by the eleven guns that opened on them with grape- cannisters-and shells. Many of the dead and wounded of both sides that lay in the woods were burnt by the fire kindled from exploding shells. After a few minutes rest, the remnant of this badly shattered brigade that entered the woods with 1600 men and lost 446 of their number reassembled by bugle call and moved to a new position. One of defense instead of assault. But no further fighting occurred on that day. The terrible carnage of the 3rd followed as it was by a day of inaction by Hooker and the enemy in his immediate front, made the 4th seem by comparison with the 3rd like a Puritan Sabbath. This day of inaction by Hooker gave Lee the opportunity to send a strong force to aid in attacking Sedgewick at Fredericksburg and driving them back across the Rappahanock. Company C suffered 13 casualties at Chancellorsville, about a third of those in action."

After covering Hooker's retreat over the Rapidan, the 126th Pennsylvania on the 20th of May was mustered out of the service their 9 months' tour of duty was completed.

So Seth Dickey came home to Mercersburg surfeited with danger and adventure only to have the entire Rebel Army follow him into the Cumberland Valley. This must have been a terribly frustrating experience for him as he was just out of uniform and he was confronted with enemy action with civilian status. In June, 1864, he received a draft notice but was excused as he was in the Army when Congress passed the act.

Now came the blessings of peace and they were mixed. Seth was 27 years old when he married Anne Smith. The death of his two children and his wife had a profound effect upon him. He became more philosophic and eventually turned to writing as an outlet for hls feelings.

His papers that have been preserved date mostly toward the end of the l9th century. He began a roster of all the members of Company C, 126th Pennsylvania Vol. Infantry, giving information as to where they lived, adding a date when they died and recalling something about each one. As dates and notes are added the handwriting becomes less firm; and a final entry of May, 1924, listng the five remaining veterans of Company C is barely discernable.

Following is Seth's record of his comrades in Company C:

Following are a few selections from Seth Dickey's verses. He filled two notebooks with his writings and selections of other authors he liked. Irrespective of their literary merits his verses do communicate the mores of the times in which Mr. Dickey lived.

Interviews with those now living who remember Seth Dickey give shape and significance to his later years. Miss Virginia Rose, now living in Mennohaven, and Mrs. Mildred Witherspoon Jacobs of Mercersburg were children in 1905 when the wedding of Mr. Dickey and Mary (affectionately known as Molly) Patterson took place, and they confided to each other, "Why are such old people getting married?"

One recalls that Mr. Dickey was "quite a ladies' man". Mrs. Minnie Snyder Miller, Mercersburg, remembers that her aunt's telephone was quite busy the morning following the news of Mr. Dickey's marriage to Molly Patterson. Many were deploring the fact that a very eligible widower had been taken out of circulation. Mrs. Miller also remembers him as being a very generous and wonderful person, and that he was making a table for her friend at the time of his death. (Woodworking was a hobby of his.)

Virginia Rose recalls the day Mr. Dickey gave the chapel to the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church. This was an addition to the present old stone (1794) section of this historic church. Virginia's father, Dr. James G. Rose, was the minister at that time. Virginia also remembers that Seth Dickey, John L. Finafrock and Dr. William Mann Irvine of the Academy held many intellectual discussions pertaining to history, politics and philosophy. A memorial window is visible in the sanctuary of the church today, reminding us of the value of Seth Dickey to his church and community.

Mrs. Lynn Steiger, coming to Mercersburg as a young bride, recalls the daily gathering of children on Mr. Dickey's front porch where he entertained them with stories of adventure and imagination.

All of these persons who remember Seth Dickey agree that both Seth and Mary Patterson Dickey were very special, wonderful people. A recent find, a diary written in 1897, listed Seth Dickey as one of the most influential and important citizens of the town.

Perhaps the real measure of the man was the fact that he recorded his times and experiences and this merits a place in our Kittochtinny history.