Nicholas Biddle: A Forgotten Hero of the Civil War

Nicholas Biddle in the Uniform of the Washington Artillerists

[Hoptak Collection]

Sometime around 7:00 p.m. on the evening of April 18, 1861, some 475 Pennsylvanians, organized into five companies of volunteer militia, arrived in Washington, D.C. They were the first organized volunteer soldiers to reach the capital after the commencement of the Civil War. Fort Sumter had been fired upon less than one week earlier and it had been but three days since President Lincoln issued his first call-to-arms, seeking 75,000 men to serve for ninety days. The arrival of these Pennsylvanians help set many in Washington at ease, including President Lincoln himself. In fact, so thankful was the recently inaugurated president that he paid these five companies a personal visit and insisted on shaking the hands of all of the nearly 500 volunteers from the Keystone State. The companies were quartered in the halls and chambers of the U.S. Capitol building, and Lincoln slowly made his way around to each of the five units, thanking each member for their service and their prompt arrival.

But the journey of these Pennsylvania volunteers to Washington was not an easy one. Earlier in the day, while marching through Baltimore, they had come under the attack of a vehement mob of Southern sympathizers. Initially, the Pennsylvanians were simply insulted, yelled at, and cursed at, but the crowd soon swelled to more than 2,000 strong, and one can imagine the anxiety felt by the unarmed volunteers as they made their way through the city. The men of the five companies were at first escorted by a small detachment of U.S. army soldiers, under the command of fellow-Pennsylvanian John Pemberton, who would soon resign his commission and cast his lot with the Confederacy. When Pemberton's command, ordered to Fort McHenry, filed away from the Keystone Staters, all that was left to ensure the safe passage of these men through the city was the police force, many members of which soon joining in the chorus of anti-Union and anti-Lincoln sentiment. When the companies finally reached Camden Station and began boarding train cars, violence erupted.

Some in the crowd rushed toward the Pennsylvanians with knifes and pistols, only to be stopped by the increasingly overwhelmed police force. Gunpowder was sprinkled on the floors of one of the cars, hoping a match would be struck by one of the Pennsylvanians on their way to the capital. An attempt to hijack the train was made, but was quickly averted when the engineer drew his sidearm and threatened to kill those making the attempt. Then a shower of bricks, stones, bottles, and other projectiles fell among the Pennsylvanians, injuring a number of them.

And now, as Lincoln made his way from man to man in the Capitol Building, he saw firsthand some of the injuries. Ignatz Gresser, a member of the Allen Infantry who would later earn a Medal of Honor for heroics at Antietam as a corporal in the 128th PA, was debilitated by an ankle injury, while Private David Jacobs, of the same company, lost a number of teeth and sustained a broken wrist when he was struck by bricks. Then, however, President Lincoln stood face-to-face with Nicholas Biddle, suffering from what was perhaps the worst injury sustained during the day's attack.

With his head wrapped in blood soaked bandages, Nicholas Biddle was wearing the uniform of the Washington Artillerists although he was not officially a soldier. He was not allowed to be, for he was a black man. As Biddle made his way through Baltimore as the orderly, or aide, to Captain James Wren, the sight of a black man in uniform especially enraged many in the crowd. Shouts of "Nigger in Uniform!" were raised, and as Wren later wrote, "poor Nick had to take it." He was soon felled; struck on the head with a brick, which reportedly left a wound deep enough to expose bone.

As some of Biddle's blood fell upon the floor of the Capitol, Lincoln took him by the hand and recommended he seek medical treatment for his injury. But Biddle refused, preferring instead to stay with his company.

Many contemporaries, and even some students of the war today, recognize Nick Biddle as the Union's first war-time casualty. At least the first to have been wounded by hostile foes. While it is impossible to verify this, it is interesting that Biddle has been largely overlooked, even forgotten, in American history. 

Yet his story is an important one and needs to be told.

So, who was Nicholas Biddle?

The man has remained a mystery. Purportedly born a slave in Delaware in 1796, Biddle made his way to freedom and may have first settled in Philadelphia. His real name is unknown. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, it is alleged the escaped slave was employed as a servant to the wealthy financier Nicholas Biddle. When Biddle, the financier, took a business trip to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in 1840, his servant, for whatever reason, remained in the Schuylkill County seat, and was known from that point forward as Nick Biddle, after his employer.

1840 was also the same year that young, eighteen-year-old James Nagle organized the Pottsville Blues, a militia company that would soon become the Washington Artillerists, upon changing its branch of service. Once in Pottsville, Biddle became friends with the members of this unit and was attached to it for the next twenty years. He practiced with it and paraded with it regularly through the city. 

When civil war erupted in April 1861, Biddle, described as "a gently aging man of sixty-five," departed Pottsville with the Washington Artillerists, as an aide, or orderly, of the company's then commander, Captain James Wren. Making their way first to Harrisburg and then to Washington via Baltimore, the Washington Artillerists, along with the National Light Infantry, also of Pottsville, the Logan Guards of Lewistown, Ringgold Light Artillery of Reading, and the Allen Infantry of Allentown, were the first organized troops of Northern volunteers to reach the nation's capital after the start of the Civil War and thus went down in history as the "First Defenders."

The "First Defenders" were 90 Day enlistees, and would spend their term of service in the defenses of Washington. When their enlistment expired in late July, the vast majority of these troops reenlisted to serve in three-year organizations. The Washington Artillerists formed the nucleus of Company B, 48th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Nick Biddle, suffering from his painful wound, remained in Pottsville as his comrades in the Artillerists reenlisted throughout the summer of 1861. He found work performing odd jobs for the citizens, but later in life, he was destitute. Throughout the late 1860s and into the 1870s, Biddle, with his head still deeply scarred, was seen walking around Pottsville carrying a piece of paper, seeking donations. The Miner's Journal reported: "If poor old Nick Biddle calls on you with a document, as he calls it, don't say you are in a hurry and turn him off, but ornament the paper with your signature and plant a good round sum opposite your name. Nick has been a good soldier and now that he is getting old and feeble, he deserves the support of our citizens."

Biddle would always insist that he had large amounts of money saved up in the bank, but when the died on August 2, 1876, at the age of 82, it was discovered that he died penniless. Having no money to cover funeral expenses, the survivors of the Washington Artillerists and the National Light Infantry assumed the burden. They also arranged for his funeral. With the Pottsville Drum Corps in the lead, the members of the two First Defender units led a lenghty funeral procession through Pottsville, from the home of Biddle to his final resting in the "colored burial ground" behind the Bethel A.M.E. Church. Rev. Samuel Barnes, the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, delivered the sermon, and read extensively from the Book of Job. Each of the surviving members of the two militia organizations also donated one dollar a piece to pay for a humble tombstone, upon which they had inscribed: "In Memory of Nicholas Biddle, Died August 2, 1876. His was the Proud Distinction of Shedding the First Blood in the Late War for the Union, Being Wounded while Marching through Baltimore with the First Volunteers from Schuylkill County. 18 April 1861. Erected by his Friends in Pottsville." Sadly, this stone fell into disrepair and was later broken and toppled. Recently, however, a new marker was placed at the final resting place of Nicholas Biddle, upon which is inscribed "First to Shed Blood in the Civil War." 

Nick Biddle's First Headstone, Erected by the First Defenders, Had Toppled Over and Broke Apart
[From Schuylkill County in the Civil War]

A New Head Stone Marks Nicholas Biddle's Final Resting Place
[Hoptak Photograph]