Francis Asbury Awl is profiled in the Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, page 258:
Francis Asbury Awl, son of John Michael Awl, was born at Harrisburg, 8 April 1837, where he resides. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 served in the three months’ service as adjutant of the Eleventh Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers [11th Pennsylvania Infantry]. In 1862 [he] raised for the nine months’ service, Company A of the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers [127th Pennsylvania Infantry], and participated in the Fredericksburg Campaign. In 1864 he assisted in organizing the Two Hundred and First Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers [201st Pennsylvania Infantry], of which he was commissioned Colonel and served in that capacity until mustered out at the close of the war. He was a clerk in the Harrisburg National Bank prior the war; subsequently cashier of the banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., in New York, for a period of seven years; was a trustee for twelve years of the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital and secretary of the board; and from 1891 to 1896 deputy superintendent of banking. Colonel Awl married, 5 June 1872, Mary Elizabeth Thompson, born 9 August 1847, in New York City. They have two sons, Jay Wesley Awl and Francis Asbury Awl.
Colonel F. Asbury Awl enlisted on 24 April 1861 as a 1st Lieutenant in Company D of the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry at Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and was mustered into service on 24 April 1861 at Harrisburg. Just after joining this regiment, he was promoted to the headquarters staff as Adjutant on 26 April 1861. According to the Union Army, Volume I, “five of the… companies were recruited on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, three on the East Branch, and two in Westmoreland county. A band of music, comprising sixteen pieces, under the leadership of Daniel Repass, was attached to the regiment….” After three months, the regiment was ordered back to Harrisburg, where it was discharged on 31 July 1861.
Then, as the 127th Pennsylvania Infantry was formed in August 1862, Francis Asbury Awl signed up at Harrisburg and began serving there, each as Captain of one of the companies. F. Asbury Awl was Captain of Company A and his brother, J. Wesley Awl was Captain of Company B. This regiment had in its ranks about 50 men who have now been identified as having some connection to the Lykens Valley area and served until it was discharged in May 1863, prior to the Gettysburg Campaign.
The 201st Pennsylvania Infantry was formed in August 1864. F. Asbury Awl was commissioned as Colonel of this regiment and his older brother, J. Wesley Awl, as Lieutenant Colonel. The 201st Pennsylvania Infantry contained more than 20 men who have been connected to the Lykens Valley area. The regiment was discharged on 21 June 1865 at Harrisburg.
After the war, Conrad Zimmerman openly supported the white supremacist views of Heister Clymer by signing a call for denial of equal rights to African Americans, both those who were previously slaves and those who were previously freemen. The statement was published in the Harrisburg Patriot of 24 July 1866 and included his name, regiment, company and rank.
Heister Clymer was a white supremacist candidate for Pennsylvania Governor on the Democratic Party ticket in 1866, and was previously profiled here on 22 June 2020.
The call for a meeting of Union Soldiers was printed in the Harrisburg Patriot, 24 July 1866, along with an up-to-date list of Clymer supporters who openly supported Heister Clymer‘s white supremacist views and wanted to deny “negro equality and suffrage” even to those who had been free men before the war.
The undersigned honorably discharged Union soldiers, believing that we battled in the late war for the Union of these States, and had successfully maintained it, view with alarm the persistent efforts of radical men who seem determine, practically to destroy the Union we went forth to save. They would have the community believe that Union soldiers are willing to give up in the hour of victory the great object to which their sacrifices and toll and blood were given….
Therefore we unite in requesting all the honorably discharged officer, soldiers and seamen of Dauphin County who favor the wise and constitutional policy of President Johnson, who oppose the doctrine of negro equality and suffrage, and desire the election of the Hon. Hiester Clymer, to meet in Mass Convention at the Democratic Club Room, Walnut Street, below Third, Harrisburg, at 7 1/2 o’clock, on the evening of the 25 July 1866, for the purpose of electing fourteen delegates to the Convention of Union Soldiers, which is to assemble in this city [Harrisburg] on Wednesday, 1 August 1866.
The Dauphin County veterans who signed the racist petition calling for the meeting were from a variety of regiments and social levels. Included in the list were some residents of Upper Dauphin County, the area north of Peter’s Mountain – all of which is included in the geographic area of the Lykens Valley Blog.
Francis Asbury Awl was only one of many honorably discharged Union soldiers who openly supported the white supremacist gubernatorial campaign of Heister Clymer in 1866. The full list of those with a connection to Upper Dauphin County was presented here on 23 June 2020. See:
In 1867, F. Asbury Awl led an unsuccessful campaign to deny Harrisburg’s African Americans the right to vote. A copy of a petition was placed in the Patriot which listed the names of the signers, all former Civil War veterans.
In 1891, F. Asbury Awl, while serving on the board of the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, a scandal occurred regarding the treatment of the inmates, and the director resigned. An investigation was conducted and F. Asbury Awl was in the center of the politics which involved the governor, an appointed investigative group, and several doctors. The final conclusion was that there was no wrongdoing, despite the appalling conditions that were discovered.
In 1902, F. Asbury Awl went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to visit his son Frank Awl, who was stationed there following his return from assignment in Manila, the Philippines. The next year F. Asbury Awl and wife went to New York for Frank’s wedding to Sadie M. Steinwender.
In February 1904, the Patriot reported that F. Asbury Awl had an attack of chills, and in mid-March 1904, the nature of his illness, cancer of the liver, was disclosed. On 25 March 1904, Colonel F. Asbury Awl died. The obituary noted the following:
For many years Colonel Awl was connected with the Old People’s Gas and Gaseous Fuel Company, and was associated with many other local business enterprises. He was also secretary and treasurer of the State Lunatic Asylum and a trustee of Grace Methodist Church….
Colonel Awl had suffered from cancer of the liver and a gall duct. He was forced to take to his bed on 1 January, although his illness at that time was not considered alarming….
Colonel F. Asbury Awl is buried in the Harrisburg Cemetery.
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News items are from on-line resources of the Free Library of Philadelphia as well as the newspaper resources found on Ancestry.com.
First published on the Civil War Blog, 6 February 2013.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.