63d Regiment
Pennsylvania Volunteers
History of Company K
"Hays Guards"
Company K, Sixth-third Pennsylvania Volunteers, was organized as follows: Charles Wesley Chapman was raising a company in Pittsburgh, Pa., the demand was so great for troops at Washington that he joined the Sixty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers at Washington, D. C., with fifty-four men; a man named Lightner also came to the regiment with fifty-two men from Mercer County.These two squads were consolidated and elected Charles W. Chapman as captain; William Hays Brown as First Lieutenant; and Theodore Baggaley as Second Lieutenant. The officer that recruited the squad from Mercer County being well along in years, retired.
The company thus organized was given the position of left center company and designed as Company “K”; the colors of the regiment had position on right of company.
The majority of the company were native born; the only German being August Moots; but there were several of German parentage; four Scotch and ten Irish, and the average age was about nineteen.
The history of Company “K” is the history of the regiment, as they were never detached, and participated in all the engagements of the Sixty-third.
Source: Gilbert Adams Hays, Captain. Under the Red Patch: Story of the Sixty-third Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1864. Published by the 63d Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment Association. Pittsburg: Market Review Publishing Company, 1908.
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