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First Posted: 9/23/2012
When Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 12, 1865 formally ending the Civil War, Pittston was represented by George C. Sigmann, a Corporal in the 11th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Calvary.
There may have been other Pittston area men in the regiment, but Sigmann is to only one who has been identified as having been there.
Sigmann had been born in Baden, Germany, in 1844. He came to the United States with his family when he was eight, settling in Pittston. Sigmann joined the Union Army in March of 1864 just before his 20th birthday to serve three years or to the end of the war.
As it turned out he would serve one and one-half years.
Though he was mustered in at Scranton, he assigned to Company H of the 11th Calvary Regiment which was headquartered in Bethlehem.
Sigmann rode and fought in some little known, yet pivotal, battles in the last year of the war including the siege of Suffolk, the Beaver Dam Church engagement, the Front of Petersburg, Wilson’s Raid, White Oak Swamp, Five Forks, Deep Creek and Amelia Springs, all in Virginia and all part of the Appomattox Campaign, and at the Battle of Five Forks less than two weeks before Appomattox cut the Confederates off from an important railroad.
During the expedition Company H destroyed large amounts of railroad track, station buildings, locomotives and cars.
Sigmann was discharged on August 20, 1865, apparently uninjured.
Sigmann lived in Pittston after the war until 1887 when he was 43. He moved to Conyngham area where he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic Post 567. He died in 1925 at age 81.
Sigmann’s story was uncovered by Tom Weiss an antique dealer at the J. C. Townend building in Wyoming. He bought some things from the estate of Louise Scrimgeour of West Pittston before she died at age 95 in 2001, including the portrait with this story. Sigmann was Scrimgeour’s grandfather. She was the daughter of James B. and Kathryn Sigmann Scrimgeour.
Sigmann lived in Pittston after the war until 1887 when he was 43. He died in 1925 at age 81.