During this year of celebrating our nation's Semiquincentennial we should take the time to learn a bit about that history.  After all, it expanded over 250 years,  

Henry Smith

not just one year of party planning.  This story shares information about a Pennsburg Civil War veteran who answered the call for service.

            It was called the "Great Rebellion, Civil War, or War Between the States."  By any name, they were the darkest of all American days.  The only light in the darkness was carried by thousands of Union and Confederate volunteer soldiers who proved that they cared about a cause more than they cared about themselves.  

            Henry Smith of Pennsburg was one of a multitude of citizen soldiers who answered the call to arms.  On September 23, 1861, the 19-year-old Smith traveled to Philadelphia and enlisted in the 72nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry of the Grand Army of the Republic.

            In 1861 Pennsburg was still known as Heiligville, a village of Upper Hanover Township, that was incorporated in 1887.  It was part of Philadelphia County until 1784 when Montgomery County was created to better serve the residents of the upper end of the county.

            Maybe it was the lure of the colorful French uniforms or the claim that it was "an excellent chance for young men to attach themselves to a first-class Regiment" that prompted Smith to sign on with Baxter's Philadelphia Fire Zouaves.

            Back then, the Philadelphia Fire Department was manned by volunteers.  They were strong, patriotic, and brave.  The regiment of Fire Zouaves, formed by Colonel DeWitt Baxter, numbered 1,600 men at the beginning of the war.  Nearly every fire company in the city was represented in its ranks, and many of the volunteers from the area joined up with the spit-and-polish unit. 

            The 72nd was originally formed as the 3rd California Volunteer Infantry Regiment as an effort to have that state represented by regiments in the Union Army.  In

The main monument to the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry, a bronze statue of a Zouave holding his clubbed musket, is a tribute to their heroic actions on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

October 1861, the brigade was reclaimed by Pennsylvania.  The four regiments (69th, 71st, 72nd, and 106th) that were predominantly raised in the Philadelphia area were joined together as the Philadelphia Brigade.

            Many wore red baggy pants, white leggings, a jacket trimmed in red, and a tasseled red fez or turban. Their uniforms made them stand out on the battlefield, but many of these units also stood out because of their reputations as hard and steady fighters.

            Smith spent his first year of service on peaceful guard duty along the upper Potomac River and in the Shenandoah Valley.  By this time, most of the Zouaves had discarded the conspicuous and showy uniforms that sported the red pants. 

           The next three years would take Henry Smith through the battles of Balls Bluff, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, and Antietam.  It was at Antietam that Henry was injured when a mini-ball hit him in the leg.  The injury healed and Smith went on to fight in the battlefields at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania and others.            

            By the time the Zouaves arrived at the battle of Gettysburg, casualties had depleted their ranks and they numbered only 458 able-bodied soldiers. 

            At Gettysburg, they found themselves among the rear lines, in a support role along Cemetery Ridge.  Then, on the day that Confederate General George Pickett launched his infamous charge, the decimated group of volunteers rose once more with the strength and bravery they were noted for.  When the advance of the Confederate troops reached the famous "stone wall" and began to overtake the Union defense, the Zouaves were rushed to the front, striking the assailants in fierce hand-to-hand combat at the clump of trees.

            After the devastating battle was over, Smith was but one of the 266 Zouaves surviving.  Today, a bronze statue of a Zouave holding his clubbed musket stands at the site as a tribute to their heroic actions that day.  Of the Philadelphia Fire Zouaves, it was written that "the story of its achievements and losses forms one of the most brilliant pages in the annals of our citizen soldiery of the patriotic Quaker City." 

            Henry returned to farming after the war.  With the excitement and danger of his honorable war record behind him, he lived with his wife Sophia in Pennsburg until his death in 1913.