John Patrick McGill

Born: May 4, 1836.

Son of William Perry McGill and Juliana Anna Cochran

Died: June 25, 1862, near Richmond, Va.

In John P. McGill again came to the surface that humorous vein that for generations had characterized the clan. He was a printer, and the old-time printing office was the college of the brightest wits of the day, and that he was a past master in fun and frolic, jest and joviality, sarcasm and screaming mirth was never disputed.

He was a writer of epigrams, a perpetrator of jokes, and an all-round disturber of melancholy. A history of his hilarious deeds and doings would make the most interesting and mirth-provoking chapter that was ever read.

And withal he was a patriot, a lover of the land of his birth, and held in supreme contempt the pretensions of the man owning and mulatto breeding old vagrants, of the South, who, assuming to be great, thought to disrupt the country and destroy the republic.

And so it came that when there was a call for troops he went out with McLane's Erie Regiment of three months' men, and on the reorganization for the three years' service, he enrolled at Meadville, Pa., Aug. 15, 1861, in Company B (Capt. John F. Morris), 83d Regiment, Penn. Inf. Vol., and was promptly made First Sergeant of his company. In this capacity he served with marked efficiency, and during the long period from August, 1861, to March, 1862, in which the authorities were engaged in making invalids of strong men, and filling the hospitals, his services were invaluable in keeping up the spirits and promoting the healthful enjoyment of his men. When the facts of real war came in evidence he proved equal to every emergency without abating in the least his full quota of fun.

On the 24th day of June word came to me that the Sergeant was sick and had been taken to the field hospital. I hastened to see him; he was sane, but it was evident that he was smitten with that virulent type of malarial fever bred in the Chickahominy swamps.

On the 25th preparations were on for a great battle. Everything was in motion; trains and ambulances were being hurried to and fro. I went to the hospital: it was being dismantled and taken down, and my friend was dead.

The Company B boys gathered around me like lost children. They all loved their big, humorous sergeant, and they wanted to send his body home; they could not bear the thought of burying his remains in the stinking soil of the Chickahominy swamps, but they had no money and the cost of embalming, casket and express charges would be considerable. The money was raised; an ambulance and driver procured, an armed sergeant and guard detailed to act as escort.

Meanwhile his brother, William Johnston, of the Pennsylvania Reserves, arrived, also armed and equipped. The Reserves, far to our right, were already skirmishing with the approaching foe, but Colonel Dick gave Johnston a pass and himself carried it to the several headquarters, and procured the necessary endorsements, and when he handed him the document and allowed him to see to his brother's burial, he told him to go armed and equipped as he would never again see anything he left behind.

The body was placed in the ambulance; the escort and solitary armed mourner took seats inside, and the equipage was rushed to the Heintzelman embalming establishment at White House Landing. The establishment was a private enterprise, without any official status, but sanctioned and protected by army officers. They received the body, took pay for the process, but did not perform the operation; instead, the remains were placed in a casket, hermetically sealed, and hurried on board an express boat that was about leaving the Pamunkey, and it was the last one that sailed before the place was abandoned to the enemy.

The casket was received at home, and all that remained of John Patrick McGill was consigned to mother earth where repose the bones of his ancestors. The funeral is said to have been very large, and the Woodcock Company of State Uniformed Militia interred him with military honors.

It is through Augustus McGill’s 1910 volume, The McGills, Celts, Scots, Ulstermen and American Pioneers: History, Heraldry and Tradition, that we are given a vivid glimpse into the life of John Patrick McGill—son, soldier, and the kind of man whose humor became family legend. Born May 4, 1836, to William Perry McGill and Juliana Anna Cochran, he belonged to that rare sort who could stir laughter even in the shadow of war, leaving behind not just a record of service, but a memory that endured.

John Patrick McGill (1836–1862) – Civil War Sergeant, Printer, and Beloved McGill Family Story

In the end, John Patrick McGill came home. Not alone, but carried by those who had laughed with him, served beside him, and refused to leave him behind. His story—of humor, service, and quiet heroism—remains a lasting part of our family history, a reminder that even in war, it is the human spirit that endures.here...