Jack, the Four-Legged Soldier
Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Library of Congress
When members of the Niagara Fire Insurance Engine Company of Pittsburgh went off to war in the summer of 1861, they brought along the stray dog (pictured above) who had wandered into their firehouse sometime before the outbreak of the conflict.
“Jack,” as the firemen—now soldiers in Company F of the 102nd Pennsylvania Infantry—had named him, was quickly embraced by the men in the regiment. He accompanied them through some of the war’s largest engagements, including the Seven Days Battles (during which Jack was shot through the shoulder and back), Antietam, Fredericksburg (where he was slightly wounded), Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor. According to the men of the 102nd, Jack came to understand various bugle calls and would search for the regiment’s wounded and dead in the wake of battle.
After Confederate troops captured him during the fighting at Salem Church in May 1863, Jack spent six months at the POW camp at Belle Isle, Virginia, before his release that fall. He returned to the regiment but went missing on December 23, 1864, never to be seen again. Some in the 102nd speculated he might have met a violent end, perhaps being killed by some “mercenary person” for the silver collar the men had bought him after his release from captivity.
Related topics: animals
