Once More For The Country - Civil War Broadside

(Civil War - Pennsylvania) ONCE MORE FOR THE COUNTRY! Pottsville, PA. August 1861. Printed broadside measuring 18 x 24 inches. Professionally framed 21 x 27 1/2 inches. Illustrated with fabulous open winged eagle hold THE UNION FOREVER!" banner. The call being printed in large block letters.

In full the poster reads "the undersigned desires to have the Company which has been commanded by him for three months past, the "TOWER GUARDS," GO AGAIN TO SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT AND HELP CRUSH OUT THE GREAT REBELLION. He therefore offers a bounty of five hundred and five dollars, to one hundred and one picked men," (Non-commissioned Officers and Privates,) who will form and fill up the Company and enlist for three years or during the war in the service of the United States. The bounty to be over and above all that may be paid to them by the State and General Governments, and be distributed equally among them, and paid them by the undersigned as soon as they are mustered in. The Company will not be led by the undersigned, but is to be commanded by HENRY PLEASANTS as CAPTAIN, And each other officers as he and the undersigned shall name, and the Colonel commanding shall approve. The Company to go either in a Regiment to be commanded by COL. JAMES NAGLE, or some other satisfactory Colonel, or as an independent company of Rangers. All who are disposed to make up this Company of picked men, will please call and enroll their names at the OFFICE of Henry Pleasants OVER GARRIGUES' BOOK STORE, IN CENTRE STREET. C. TOWER, Captain.

POTTSVILLE, August 10th, 1861.

American lawyer, land speculator in the Schuylkill Valley in Pennsylvania, officer for coal and railroad companies and organizer within ten days of the attack on Fort Sumter, Charlemagne Tower (1809-1889), was an enthusiastic Unionist. He raised a unit, referred to as "Tower Guards" Company H of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment and were attached to a brigade commanded by Major General Robert Patterson. The unit served notably in the engagement at Falling Waters but later were part of the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. But that was in July of 1861. This broadside, dated August 10th, 1861 again relates his enthusiasm for the Union in his recruiting of 270 men from Schuylkill County to enter the Union Army under a three-month enlistment agreement.

After the war Tower was named the U.S. Provost Marshal for Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District. He served from April 1863 through May 1864. He moved to Philadelphia in 1875 and continued his business interest in becoming proprietor of the Honeybrook Coal Company and one of the board of directors of the Northern Pacific Railway. As the Northern Pacific sold off much of their land holdings due to financial difficulties in Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington, Tower acquired several large tracts.

James Nagle (April 5, 1822 – August 22, 1866) served as a officer both in the Mexican - American war and the Civil War. During the latter conflict, he recruited and commanded four infantry regiments from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and led two different brigades in the Eastern Theater. As the war progressed, worsening health problems precluded prolonged field service, but Nagle is perhaps best known for his actions at the 1862 Battle of Antietam, where his brigade played a key role in securing Burnside's Bridge, a key crossing over the contested Antietam Creek.

Henry Clay Pleasants (February 16, 1833 – March 26, 1880) was a coal mining engineer and an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is best known for organizing the building of a tunnel filled with explosives under the Confederate lines outside Petersburg, Virginia, which resulted in the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. The Union troops, however, failed in their opportunity to break the Siege of Petersburg.

Professionally framed, minor separations at cross-folds, slight edge wear and short closed tears to edges and slightly toned. Overall a very visually striking early Civil War broadside with no copies recorded in OCLC. (Sources: Wikipedia)