A Brief History of the 87th.

On September 29, 1861, Company C and four other companies traveled by rail to Cockeysville, Maryland, to help guard the many vital bridges on the Northern Central Railroad between the Maryland border and Baltimore. The regiment spent an uneventful winter stationed over a 30 mile stretch of the track. On June 22, 1862, the eager boys of the 87th boarded a train and headed west only to find themselves saddled with more railroad guard duty, this time the supply depot at New Creek, Virginia (now Keyser, West Virginia). They spent two hot summer months performing inconsequential picket duty until beginning four months of grueling mountain marches in a fruitless search for Rebel guerrillas. On December 24, the exhausted regiment, now part of General Robert H. Milroy's 8th Corps, was assigned a permanent camp at Winchester, Virginia.

Combat had eluded the 87th Pennsylvania but it arrived shockingly on June 13, 1863. Confederate General Richard Ewell's corps, on its way to destiny at Gettysburg, swarmed Milroy's badly outnumbered garrison at Winchester. The 87th suffered one-third casualties, primarily captured, sending every man for himself. Those who escaped reformed into two units, one at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and the other at Bloody Run, Pennsylvania. Not until late September did they reunite as members of the 3rd Corps, Army of the Potomac. In November they took part in the abortive Mine Run campaign and spent the winter camped at Brandy Station, Virginia.

Although the 87th began its service early in the war and was attached to a variety of different departments and divisions, it did not begin to see action on the frontlines of battle until June 1863 when it confronted Confederate forces traveling north at the Second Battle of Winchester in the Gettysburg Campaign.

The following March the regiment was transferred to General John Sedgewick's VI Corps and took part in the bloody battles of the 1864 Overland Campaign. In July they were detached to General Lew Wallace only to suffer defeat at the Battle of Monocacy. Later, detached duty sent them to the Shenandoah Valley to engage in the more successful battles of Fishers Hill and Opequon under General Phillip Sheridan.

In October 1864 their three-year enlistment had expired. Those who had not re-enlisted returned to a grateful York to a celebratory feast given by the town at the Army Hospital at Penn Commons. The 200 remaining members of the regiment played an important role at the Battle of Cedar Creek. There, Corporal Daniel Reigle of Company F earned the regiment's only Medal of Honor. The regiment returned to Petersburg, Virginia, and were part of the action that broke the Confederate lines there. Recruits and conscripts filled out the muster rolls, and the now full-sized regiment took part in the smashing victory at Sailor's Creek in April 1865. They were encamped just a few miles from Appomattox Court House when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, the 87th Pennsylvania, along with 10 other regiments, was re-assigned to create the 3rd Division (3rd Brigade) of a badly depleted III Corps. Later, another reorganization of the Army of the Potomac in March 1864 placed the 87th in the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, VI Corps, where it remained through the end of the War.