Shen. Historical Society talk to focus on Anthracite miners’ pivotal role in Civil War
SHENANDOAH – While what would then become Shenandoah borough was just being planned when the Civil War broke out, miners from our region played a notable role in that conflict.
That will be the subject of August’s talk at the Greater Shenandoah Area Historical Society next Tuesday, August 1 at the society at 201 South Main Street.
Dr. Peter Skirmantas will present on the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Schuylkill Regiment.
The regiment, he says, was part of “what is arguably the most spectacular single event of the Civil War,” the detonation of a confederate fort near Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864.
“The 48th included experienced coal miners and was commanded by a mining engineer, and they excavated a tunnel under the rebel fort,” he says. “There, they detonated tons of gunpowder, opening a huge gap – subsequently called “the crater” – in the confederate lines. This should have led to a war-ending defeat for the Confederates, but due to unfortunate events beyond the control of the 48th, it did not.”
The presentation will include a discussion of the digging of the tunnel and the subsequent battle and will offer several “lessons learned.”
“However, this tunnel and the resultant crater were not the only accomplishments of the 48th. In fact, digging the tunnel accounted for only six weeks of its three years of service,” he adds. “Long before these events, the 48th was already considered to be an elite unit and deserves recognition accordingly. In all, the regiment took part in twenty battles, lost 35% of its men, earned three medals of honor — and deserved more. Yet it was so good at peacekeeping duties that when it left a rebel town it had occupied for weeks, the people of the town didn’t want them to leave.”
The presentation comes two days prior to the 159th anniversary of the explosion, and will examine the legacy of the 48th Regiment both before and after the battle.
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Skirmantas was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and holds a PhD in military history from Ohio State University.
Like many graduate students he made ends meet by working various jobs to supplement his income as a graduate teaching associate: he slung groceries, worked on a road survey crew, put shingles on roofs, assembled graphic plotter computers, sold cameras, and did some freelance photography.
He taught at Purdue university for three years and then took a job as an historian for the Air Force at Kelly Air Force Base San Antonio, Texas, and later with the Department of Defense in Virginia. In all, he spent 33 years working as an historian for the armed services, which gave him the opportunity to travel throughout the country and to some out of the way places like Crete, the Azores, Sicily, and Turkey. He published over 100 articles for Department of Defense in-house magazines; compiled, wrote, and published a double-volume pictorial history on quartermaster operations; and conceived, scripted, and appeared in several dozen Department of Defense videos.
He has a daughter and son-in-law, two sisters, and four stepchildren. He is married to Anne Chaikowsky La Voie, whom he met during the Shenandoah Sesquicentennial Celebration in 2016.
Peter was in town that day because he has roots here: his father was born here, and his grandfather (and three of his grandfather’s children, who would have been Peter’s aunts and uncle) are buried in Our Lady of Lourdes cemetery in Shenandoah Heights.
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