page_title: 52nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment
section_title: Casualties
hierarchical_section_title: 52nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment / Casualties
caption_attribution_description: English: Documentation of fatal chest wound sustained by Pvt. Henry King, Co. C, 52nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the Battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, 1862 (excerpt: "Civil War Widows' Pensions": mothers' pension file of Catharine King, U.S. National Archives).
context_page_description: The 52nd Pennsylvania Infantry was a volunteer infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
context_section_description: The 52nd Pennsylvania incurred a number of casualties during its tenure of service, including men who were killed in action, mortally or severely wounded in battle and died later from those wounds, men injured so severely or made so ill by ailments contracted while in service that they were discharged on surgeons' certificates of disability, like Frank Charles Bunnell, and others who were wounded but were able to return to duty following medical treatment, as well as those who were declared missing in action, and/or who were captured and held as prisoners of war (POWs). At least one, Private William Moyer of C Company, was killed by friendly fire, while I Company's 1st Sergeant Benjamin Franklin Jones contracted tetanus after accidentally shooting himself in the hand while cleaning his rifle at the regiment's camp on Morris Island, South Carolina. Another member of the regiment, Porter Summers of B Company, was believed to have been killed by scalding water during a boiler explosion while serving on detached duty aboard the gunboat USS Mound City during the Battle of Saint Charles, Arkansas.
  Siege of Yorktown, Lee's Mill, Virginia, early May 1862
  Pruyne, Jr., John (private, Co. F): Certified by his commanding officer, Capt. Cook, as having been “killed by the explosion of a torpedo in front of the enemy's works, May 4, 1862” at Lee's Mill, Virginia
  Battle of Seven Pines (also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks), Virginia, May 30 to June 1, 1862
  Dunkelberger, Israel (private, Co. D): Sustained “Vulnus Sclopeticum” (gunshot wound); died from that wound at the Union hospital at Annapolis, Maryland on June 4, 1862
  English, James C. (private, Co. A): Native of Tipperary County, Ireland; died at a Union hospital in Washington, D.C. from combat-related wounds
  Jenkins, Robert (private, Co. A): Discharged on a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability due to battle wounds; died at home from battle wound-related complications
  Jones, Benjamin Franklin (1st sergeant, Co. I): Killed in action
  King, Henry (private, Co. C): Died at a Union hospital in Philadelphia from chest wound sustained in battle (see image above right for further details)
  Lott, George D. (sergeant, Co. B): Discharged on a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability due to battle wounds; died at home from battle wound-related complications
  McGonnel, Edward (private, Co. D): Killed in action
  Moyer, Benjamin (private, Co. D): Killed in action
  Shoemaker, Henry (private, Co. C): Died from amputation required for treatment of combat-related gunshot wound to leg
  Slenker/Slinker, Henry (corporal, Co. C): Reported by his commanding officer as having been "killed at his post" by gunshot
  Spacht, Michael (private, Co. D): Per the U.S. War Department's Pension and Record Office, “Wounded hand and face (also shown as wounded arm) ... May 31.1862: Treated June 4 to 24.62 ... died June 24, 1862, cause Vulnus Sclopet” (gunshot wound) at a Union hospital, Washington, D.C.
  Attack on Fort Johnson, South Carolina, July 3, 1864
  Bunyon, Silas A. (lieutenant and acting adjutant, Co. E): Mortally wounded during the attack; died later the same day (July 3, 1864) at Morris Island, South Carolina
  Scott, Jr., George (1st sergeant, Co. D): According to an affidavit filed by Col. Henry Holt, Scott was “mortally wounded in the attack on Fort Johnson, James Island, S.C. ... and died on the evening of the 4th of July 1864.” Holt also noted that, at the time of his death, Scott “was commissioned as 2nd Lieut in my company but not mustered.”
  Prisoners of War (POWs) 
  Among the regimental casualty figures for the 52nd Pennsylvania were men who were captured by Confederate troops and held as prisoners of war, including Private Ezra Ripple (1842–1909) of K Company. A native of Carbon County, Pennsylvania who was a druggist at the time of his enlistment with the 13th Pennsylvania Militia, he was captured on July 3, 1864, while serving with the 52nd Pennsylvania. Held initially at Fort Johnson in South Carolina, he was transported to the Confederate States Military Prison at Andersonville, Georgia on the Fourth of July. 
caption: The fatal chest wound sustained by Pvt. Henry King in the Battle of Fair Oaks was documented in his mother's Civil War pension file (U.S. National Archives/Fold3).
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