Colonel John Wainwright, U.S.V.

Colonel Ninety-Seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Colonel John Wainwright was born at Syracuse, New York, July 13, 1839. His father was Samuel Force Wainwright, his mother Maria Humphry. He is descended from the Wainwrights and Forces, so long settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey. His name and stock has long been known as having its representatives in the army and navy of the United States, and has a history as patriots, soldiers, and sailors in our struggle for independence and in later wars.

At the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861 his traditional soldier-blood made him a private in Company G, Second Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry, for three months, enlisting April 18. He was honorably discharged July 26, 1861. With this regiment he took part with Patterson's column in the Shenandoah Valley.

He re-enlisted as a private in Company F, Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, September 23, at West Chester, Pennsylvania, and began a military career which has but few parallels in the records of the war of the Rebellion, in that he came home at the close of the war the colonel commanding the same regiment which at the commencement of the Rebellion received him as a private in the ranks of one of its companies, having in the mean while been promoted, step by step, through every grade of intermediate rank. He never sought this promotion, and as evidence of the appreciation in which his services were held by his superior officers, every step of his military advancement came to him unsolicited. His biography is a complete history of the Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, in which he served continuously only seventeen days short of four years. He first found himself in command of his regiment on August 25, 1864, while yet a first lieutenant, and continued in command, with but a short interval, until his muster out of service over one year later, August 28, 1865. He was then in command of the post at Weldon, North Carolina, and of the section of country thereabouts.

He participated in the, expedition to Port Royal, South Carolina, December, 1861 siege of Fort Pulaski, Georgia; capture of Fort Clinch, Fernandina, and Jacksonville, Florida; occupation of Edisto Island and James Island, South Carolina; battles on James Island, South Carolina, June 10 and 16, 1862; reoccupation of James Island, South Carolina; capture of Morris Island, South Carolina; siege of Forts Wagner, Gregg, Sumter, Moultrie, and Johnson, and capture of Forts Wagner and Gregg, in 1863; capture of Camp Cooper, Woodstock Mills, and King's Ferry, Florida; capture of Bermuda Hundred and City Point, Virginia; battles of Swift Creek, Proctor's Creek, Fort Darling, Drury Bluff, Chester Station, Green Plains, Cold Harbor, Petersburg Heights, Cemetery Hill, explosion of mine, siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Strawberry Plains, Weir Bottom Church, Charles City Road, Darbytown Road, in 1864; Fort Fisher, Sugarloaf Hill, capture of Fort Anderson, capture of Wilmington, North Carolina, occupation of Raleigh, N. C.; surrender of Johnston, in 1865. He served in the Tenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-fourth Army Corps in the Army of the South, Army of the James, Army of the Potomac, and Army of the Ohio, in the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Colonel Wainwright has been a citizen of Wilmington, Delaware, since the war; has always taken an active interest in military affairs; is a member of the District of Columbia Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and past department commander, G. A. R., Department of Delaware, a position to which he was elected in his department without an opposing candidate. He has also occupied responsible positions on the staffs of Past Commanders-in-Chief Louis Wagner and George Merrill.

He was married to Miss Emma M. Edwards, of Coatesville, Pa., April 18, 1864, and their three children are Blanche J., G. Maude, and John Drayton Wainwright.

Source: Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War, published by L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893, 419 pgs.

Related Links:

• Civil War Records
• Civil War Microfilm at the National Archives
• Wainwright Surname