Matson Insurance has partnered with Jefferson County History Center to offer exploreJeffersonpa.com readers a look into Jefferson County’s past. Today, the connection between President Lincoln and Captain Craig is highlighted.
[Pictured above: Captain Samuel Alfred Craig had a long and fulfilling life in Brookville after serving his country during the Civil War. (JCHS Collection)]
PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND CAPTAIN CRAIG
A document, a newspaper clipping, and a National Park Service website help us tell the story of Captain Samuel Alfred Craig and his relationship with our sixteenth president. Everyone who’s been to school knows Lincoln was born on February 12th, 1809, in a Kentucky log cabin. Although he did attend school briefly, he was basically self-taught, a great reader, and chose law as his profession.
By the time he was thirty, Lincoln was a lawyer on the 8th Judicial Circuit in Illinois, traveling through nine central and eastern Illinois counties. Samuel Alfred Craig was born in Brookville on November 19, 1839, and two weeks later, Abraham Lincoln was admitted to practice in the United States Circuit Court.
Craig’s parents had traveled to the United States from Londonderry and eventually made their way to Brookville. Samuel went to school in Brookville, apprenticed at both the Jefferson Star and Jeffersonian newspapers, then traveled south to Pittsburgh to Jefferson College in Canonsburg, the college that is Washington and Jefferson College today. The Civil War interrupted his education and he signed up with Company I, 8th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
When his three months were up, he returned to Brookville and taught school before reenlisting in December of 1861. He moved through the ranks as second lieutenant, first lieutenant, and captain in Company B, One Hundred and Fifth Regiment. He fought with the “Wild Cats” at Fair Oaks, Manassas, and Chancellorsville. Injuries to his head, right leg, and right wrist qualified him for service with the Veteran Reserve Corps.
The Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC) was a military reserve organization created within the Union Army. It allowed soldiers rendered unfit for active field service on account of wounds or disease contracted in the line of duty, but who were still fit for garrison or other light duty, to serve. In the opinion of their commanding officers, these soldiers were meritorious and deserving. Thus, the VRC freed able-bodied soldiers for the front lines.
President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton both signed the document commissioning Samuel A. Craig as a captain in the Veteran Reserve Corps, a document held in the History Center’s archive and occasionally exhibited. A current exhibit in the Skylight Gallery shows more about Craig’s relationship with Abraham Lincoln.
Copyright@Jefferson County Historical Society, Inc.
Throwback Thursday is brought to you by Matson Insurance in Brookville.
Submitted by the Jefferson County History Center.
Copyright © 2024 EYT Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of the contents of this service without the express written consent of EYT Media Group, Inc. is expressly prohibited.
