Harold T Partenheimer was born about 1848 or 1849, in Philadelphia, to Henry R Partenheimer and Margaret A McMullen.(1) Since some documents have his name as 'Henry', he may have been named after his father.(2) In the 1850 census and 1858 city directory, Henry R is listed as having no occupation, but in the 1860 census he is a clerk, with $500 of personal property.(3) They seem to have had at least four children:
On 21 February 1865, Harold enlisted in the 91st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.(7) He was enlisted at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by Captain Lehman, for one year.(33) His uncle, John C Partenheimer, was a Captain in company B, and Harold joined that company.(8)
According to the army's description of him, he was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had a light complexion, was 5' 6" tall, had hazel eyes, and dark hair; he also had a burn scar on the right side of his cheek, and the letters 'HP' on his left forearm.(9) His occupation was clerk.(10)
He joined with other new soldiers on 11 March 1865.(11)
He started as a private, but was promoted to musician.(12)
He was with his company on the company muster rolls for March/April and May/June 1865; in May/June he was detailed at divisional headquarters.
He mustered out on 10 July 1865, with his company.(13)
Less than a year later, on 26 March 1866, in Philadelphia, he enlisted in the regular army, for three years. He was assigned to the 18th US Infantry, Company G. He gave his occupation as clerk, said he had never been married and had no children. He still had hazel eyes, dark hair, a fair complexion, but had grown an inch, to 5' 7" tall.(14)
Companies D and G were assigned to Fort C F Smith, on the Bozeman Trail, from its beginning, in August 1866.(15) (They were reassigned to the 27th Infantry by February 1867.(16)) The Bozeman Trail, through the Big Horn Mountains of Montana, led to the gold field in Montana, through territory granted by treaty to the Sioux and Cheyenne. Under Red Cloud, they defended their territory. In 1866, the US Army built three forts along the Bozeman trail to defend it: Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith.(17) After the Fetterman Disaster, when the Sioux and Cheyenne defeated and killed Captain Fetterman and 80 men,(18) the Sioux continued attacking travelers along the Bozeman Trail, and rendering it useless.(19)
Fort C. F. Smith was 91 miles from Fort Phil Kearny, and 281 miles from Virginia City.(20) The weather and Sioux combined to make it isolated. No one reached Fort Smith between 30 November 1866 and 4 June 1867.(21) One of the soldiers there later reported that it was under siege most of the time; leaving the fort risked their lives.(22)
In November of 1867, a wagon train left Fort Phil Kearny for Fort Smith. It was initially commanded by Lieutenant F L McCarthy, of the 27th US Infantry.(22A). About five miles from Fort Phil Kearny, a wagon train commanded by Lieutenant ERP Shurly met them, and on 2 November 1867 Lieutenants McCarthy and Shurley traded commands.(22B). The train was defended by 40 men,(23) with a howitzer,(24) who were returning to their post.(25) Because of a "violent snow storm", they made very little progress the next day--only about one and one-half miles. On 4 November, the weather was better, but the road was slippery. They were following the bottom of Peno Creek, and reached a difficult place, about twenty miles from Fort Phil Kearney, near Goose Creek.(27) They had to go down a steep hill barely wide enough for a wagon, with a ravine on the left, and bluffs on the right. Further, the road tilted toward the ravine, and the road was very slippery because of melted snow. By about eleven AM, they had lowered all but three of the wagons down the slope. Then they were attacked by three or four hundred Indians. Beside the three wagons at the top of the hill, with the howitzer, two wagons were at the base of the hill, and the rest were just past the next small hill. The main attack came from the rear, which forced them to move the howitzer to the wagon corral. They protected themselves with sacks of corn. (26). They sent five messengers back to Fort Phil Kearny, and Colonel Smith (commander there) sent troops to relieve them. They returned with three dead and two injured:(28)
Harold's death wasn't reported in Philadelphia until almost a year later, in the 26 October 1868 issue of the Public Ledger. Perhaps that's because the situation along the Bozeman trail continued to deteriorate, until the government abandoned the forts in the spring and summer of 1868.
According to the death notice in the Public Ledger, he was buried near Fort Phil Kearny. Bodies buried there were disinterred in October 1888 and removed to Custer Battlefield National Cemetery,(30) but the Department of Veterans Affairs has no record of his burial.(31) However, of the 76 soldiers removed from Fort Phil Kearny, and re-interred in in the Custer Battlefield National Cemetery, the names of only 10 are known.(32)
1850 US Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, Roxborough, p.256 verso, lines 8-10 (Henry, Margaret, and Harold Partenheimer)
1860 US Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 17th ward, p.1073, lines 21-24 (Henry, Margaret, Harold, Maggie, and Rudolph Partenheimer, and Louisa Grow)
Harold Partenheimer, Compiled Service Record, National Archives: includes Volunteer Enlistment form, Declaration of Recruit, and 5 cards transcribing muster roll entries for:
Civil War Veterans' Card File, available at the Pennsylvania State Archives, searched 18 May 2004 (H Partenheimer; rolls have Harold, also Harry)
company B, [third] descriptive roll, entry 53 (Harold Partenheimer)
Brown, Dee. The Fetterman massacre. Lincoln, NE: University of Lincoln Press, c1962.
Fort C. F. Smith, Montana, Returns; National Archives, Records of the US Adjutant General, microcopy 617, Returns from US Military Posts 1800-1916, roll 1190, Fort C F Smith Mont, Aug 1866-July 1868 [see especially the return for November 1867, which has a less detailed report than the Fort Phil Kearny return]
Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, Returns; National Archives, Records of the US Adjutant General, microcopy 617, Returns from US Military Posts 1800-1916, roll 910, Fort Phil Kearny [includes a description of the fight, in the return for November 1867]
Hebard, Grace Raymond, and E A Brininstool. The Bozeman trail: historical accounts of the blazing of the overland routes into the Northwest, and the fight with Red Cloud's warriors. [besides an extensive discussion of the trail, it includes a description of Fort C F Smith (vol. 2, pp.135-146), with a statement by 'Major' Shurly (pp.144-146).]
Johnson, Dorothy M. The bloody Bozeman: the perilous trail to Montana's gold. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971. (The American Trails series.)
Mattes, Merrill J. Indians, infants and infantry: Andrew and Elizabeth Burt on the frontier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. Reprint. Originally published 1960. [Includes a lengthy description of Fort C F Smith in 1866-1868 [pp.123-172], and a long paragraph about the Goose Creek fight, on p.139.]
Partenheimer, Harold. Death notice, published in Philadelphia Public Ledger 26 Oct 1868.
Partenheimer, Harold T.
Shurly, Lt E R P. Report of Lieutenant ERP Shurly, Commanding Escort, to George M Templeton, 1st lieut. and post adjutant, Fort C. F. Smith, M. T., written 10 November 1867, at Fort Philip Kearny, D. T. (From the collection of Glenn Sweem, provided by Scott Burgan.)
Tuttle, Edmund Bostwick. The boy's book about Indians: being, what I saw and heard for three years on the plains. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1873. (Western Americana; frontier history of the Trans-Mississippi west, 1550-1900; 5469.) [A brief description of the Goose Creek fight, on p.109]
'Ft. Phil Kearney, Wyo. Reburials at Custer Battlefield National Cemetery', received from Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, January 1998
Annual Record of Events, 27th US Infantry, 1867, manuscript, National Archives [cited by Mattes]
1. His name: his death notice has Harold T; other records have Harold, Harry, or Henry. Birthdate: 1850 census, 1860 census, compiled service record, death notice; PA State Archives card. Place: compiled service record: Volunteer enlistment; also enlistment records, regular army. Parents: Harold's death notice, Public Ledger (26 Oct 1868) lists Henry and Margaret as his parents; he is living with them in the 1850 and 1860 census. Their marriage notice, in the Public Ledger 15 Jan 1848, lists her birth surname. Date: *; his declaration in March 1866 claims he was 19.
2. In particular, his signature on the Volunteer Enlistment and Declaration of Recruit in his Civil War Compiled Service Record is 'Henry Partenheimer'.
3. 1861 McElroy's Philadelphia directory. In the 1861 McElroy's directory, he may be listed as a packer; in the 1870 and 1871 directories, his occupation seems to be produce, and in the 1886 directory, varieties. (I say 'seems' because I don't yet know whether the Henry in the directory is this Henry.)
4. 1860 census.
5. 1860 census.
6. death notice, Public Ledger 29 June 1860, p.2 col.4; Cedar Hill cemetery information.
7. Compiled service record: Volunteer enlistment, and Declaration of recruit. PA State Archives card.
8. John: his compiled service record. Harold: compiled service record: Declaration of recruit, and transcriptions of muster rolls.
9. Compiled service record: Volunteer enlistment. PA State Archives card. Descriptive roll (which has hazel complexion (!), dark eyes, and light hair).
10. Compiled service record: transcriptions of 21 February 1865 and 11 March 1865 muster rolls. PA State Archives card.
11. Compiled service record: transcription of 11 March 1865 muster roll.
12. The 21 February and 11 March 1865 muster rolls have his rank as Private, but the two Company muster rolls have his rank as Musician. Also, his death notice in the Public Ledger claims he was a 'drummer boy'.
13. Compiled service record: transcription of Muster-out roll, which claims he owed the US $6.21, had been paid $33.33 of his bounty, and was owed another $33.33. PA State Archives card.
14. Register of enlistment; declaration of recruit; unnamed form.
15. The Register of enlistment has a brief notation that seems to mean he was first in Company G, 18th Infantry, and then in Company G, 27th Infantry.
16. See the Returns for Fort C F Smith, January 1867 (18th Infantry) and February 1867 (27th Infantry).
17. See Hebard and Brininstool.
18. See Brown.
19. See Johnson, pp.305-306, citing a letter by Nelson Story who arrived in Bozeman on 4 December and claimed in a letter to the University of Wyoming that '[n]o freighting was done after I came through'. See also Johnson, pp.316-318, citing a "Train Report" from 1868, which showed only one civilian train.
20. Hebard and Brininstool, v.2, p.140.
21. Regimental records, quoted in Mattes, p.130. Hebard and Brininstool, v.2, p.140, also quote AB Ostrander as reporting that Forts Phil Kearny and Reno heard nothing from Fort CF Smith from 20 February 1867 through 26 April 1868.
22. Lt Shurly, in Hebard and Brininstool, v.2, pp.145-146. Mattes quotes Elizabeth Burt's memory of a rare picnic in summer of 1868, which was not interrupted (pp.165-166), and of a flower-picking expedition on 16 April 1868, which was (pp.159-161).
22A. Report by Lt Shurly, 10 Nov 1867.
22B. Report by Lt Shurly, 10 Nov 1867.
23. Lieutenant Shurly fought in the Civil War, and was a brevet Colonel. He retired in December 1868, apparently because of the wounds he suffered in the Goose Creek fight along the Bozeman trail. [Mattes, p.288 n.35; p.176; and p.291 n.2]
24. Mattes, p.139, mentions the howitzer; the other details are also present in the Return from Fort Phil Kearny, November 1867.
25. The Return from Fort Phil Kearny doesn't list Lieut. Shurly in its list of commissioned officers, and claims no men dead or wounded for November 1867.
26. Report by Lt Shurly, 10 Nov 1867.
27. Returns, Fort Phil Kearny, November 1867; Mattes p.139 suggests it was about 18 miles from Fort Phil Kearny. The Register of enlistments says Harold Partenheimer died 'near Goose Creek DT'.
28. Returns, Fort Phil Kearny, November 1867. The Returns for Fort C F Smith, November 1867, have two small differences: they refer to Peno Creek, not Goose Creek, and they have Private McKeever wounded, not dead.
29. According to Mattes, p.139, Shurly suffered an arrow wound in the foot; p.289 n.40 says the wound was caused by a musket ball, according to the regimental report.
30. Brown, p.201, footnote *.
31. letter, Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery System, 9 October 1997.
32. letter, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, 27 January 1998, with 'Ft. Phil Kearney, Wyo. Reburials at Custer Battlefield National Cemetery'
33. Descriptive roll.
[I did not find an entry for him in the index on <www.ancestry.com> to the 1890 veterans' census (searched March 2007)]
[I did not find an entry for him in the index on <www.ancestry.com> to the pension index by name (searched March 2007)]
| line | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Dwellings visited | 93 | ||
| Families visited | 93 | ||
| Name | Henry Partenheimer | Margaret Partenheimer | Harold Partenheimer |
| Age | 28 | 25 | 1 |
| Sex | M | F | M |
| Color | |||
| Occupation of males over 15 years | none | ||
| Real estate owned | |||
| Birthplace | " [sc. Pa] | " | " |
| Married within year | |||
| Attended school within year | |||
| Over 20 & can't read/write | |||
| Deaf, dumb, blind, etc. |
| line | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| Dwelling number | 1298 | |||||
| Family number | 2291 | |||||
| Name | Henry Partenhaver [?] | Margaret | Harold | Maggie | Rudolph | Louisa Grow |
| Age | 36 | 32 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 17 |
| Sex | m | f | m | f | m | f |
| Color | ||||||
| Occupation | Clerk | |||||
| Value of real estate owned | ||||||
| Value of personal estate | 500 | |||||
| Place of birth | Pa | " | " | " | " | " |
| Married within year | ||||||
| Attended school within year | ||||||
| Cannot read & write | ||||||
| Deaf, dumb, blind, etc. |