Up for auction a RARE! "Civil War General" Joseph RC Ward Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

ES-4010

Civil War Union Army Soldier. The son of Matilda and

Colonel George Ward (who rose to the rank of Colonel in the Pennsylvania Militia),

he counted among his uncles Richard Vanderhorst Bonneau, who was an 1852 West

Point graduate, and who would serve a a Major in the Confederate Army during

the Civil War. In the late 1850s and early 1860s he accompanied his uncle while

he served on the western frontier as a Lieutenant in the Regular Army. When the

Civil War started, he came home to Philadelphia to offer his services, but was

repeatedly denied enlistment for being too young. After months of trying,

friends intervened and convinced Colonel Turner G. Moorhead to allow him to

enlist in his newly-raised 106th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (at the time

called the 5th California). Mustered in as a drummer boy (officially a Private

and Musician) in Company I on August 24, 1861, he served through his regiment's

campaigns until April 1864. At that time he applied to be assigned to the

Cavalry Headquarters as an orderly. After initial rejection, he was assigned as

he desired, and served in that capacity until July, 1864. During his tenure he

sustained a slight wound at the Battle of Spotsylvania, served as personal

orderly for Major General John Gibbon, and was promoted to Corporal. On July

20, 1864, by his own request, he returned to his regiment, and served until his

enlistment expired by law, and he was honorably mustered out on September 10,

1864. While awaiting official muster out, he was appointed as a member

of the crew of the "USS Wyoming" in Philadelphia, but had to be

discharged from the Union Navy after only two weeks, because the "Wyoming"

was set to sail and he was not yet officially out of the Army. In April

1865, as the war was winding down, he joined the Pennsylvania Militia as a

member of the Grey Reserves, which later became the 1st Pennsylvania National

Guard regiment. He embarked a long National Guard career, commanding troops in

Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Pittsburgh during the 1877 Railroad Riots, and

rising to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1906 he published a history of the

106th Pennsylvania Infantry.