A brief sketch of the life of John Wesley Awl is found on page 259 of the Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County:
John Wesley Awl, was born at Harrisburg, on 21 November [1832], and died there on 2 March 1894; was educated at Dickinson College, read law with F. K. Boas, Esq., and admitted to the bar in 1856. During the war for the Union he entered the service in 1862 as Captain in the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers [127th Pennsylvania Infantry]. Upon the organization of the Two Hundred and First, Pennsylvania Volunteers [201st Pennsylvania Infantry], he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel; in May 1865, was appointed Commandant of the “Soldier’s Rest” at Alexandria, Virginia; mustered out with his regiment 21 June 1865. Upon the organization of the National Guard of Pennsylvania he was Adjutant of the Fifth Division, and subsequently Adjutant of the Third Brigade; as an attorney he was careful, methodical and trustworthy; as a military officer he was highly regarded by his fellow-officers and greatly loved by his men; a life-long member of the church of his father, he was a faithful official. He was unmarried.
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, both John and his brother Francis 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 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, John Wesley Awl 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.
John Wesley 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 1886, the Philadelphia Record presented an investigative report that exposed horrible conditions at the Mt. Joy Orphans’ School. J. Wesley Awl and the governor of Pennsylvania were part of a delegation to investigate the report and found that all of what was written in the Record was true. The New York Times reported on 6 March 1886:
SOLDIERS’ ORPHANS ABUSED
HOW THE SONS OF HEROES ARE TREATED IN PENNSYLVANIA
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, 5 March 1886 — Today Gov. Pattison, Attorney-General Cassidy, Co. J. Wesley Awl, of this city, and a stenographer visited the Soldiers’ Orphans’ School at Mount Joy, Lancaster County, to investigate charges of neglect and mismanagement, and found a condition of affairs which fully justified the recent charges in the Philadelphia Record.
They found the children huddled together in inadequate, ill-ventilated dormitories, the beds and bedding unclean and foul of smell. Their clothing was insufficient, some of the boys wearing “cast offs.” None of them were provided with underclothing and all wore clothing of the same weight as that worn in summer…. The effect of poor light and indifferent care was found in sore eyes, many boys being thus afflicted. One of the boys dispenses medicine in the infirmary…. In the boys’ lavatory four towels did duty for 184 boys, or 46 boys to one towel. In the boys’ bathroom, a place about 10 feet square, in a bathtub about 18 inches wide and five feet long, 8 boys were allowed at a time, while ten towels were allowed to the 184 bathers.
The investigation concluded that a syndicate of men had pilfered outrageous sums of money from the institution when the money was supposed to be spent on the care of the orphans. The difference in this case and that of the State Lunatic Asylum, was that J. Wesley Awl had no supervisory authority over the Orphans’ School and was being asked to participate in the investigation as a respected attorney and as Adjutant of the Pennsylvania National Guard, whereas his brother, F. Asbury Awl, was a member of the board of the institution where the abuses were taking place.
J. Wesley Awl dropped dead at his desk in Harrisburg on 2 March 1894, the same day that Confederate General Jubal Early died. Due to his leadership position in the Pennsylvania National Guard, J. Wesley Awl‘s obituary was reported in newspapers throughout the state.
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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.