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| Captain Ross R. Sanner Company H, 85th Pennsylvania Infantry U.S. Army Education and Center |
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| Whitemarsh Island (showing defenses) near Savannah, Georgia LOC |
This week's post will focus on Sanner. Like Ream, Sanner taught school prior to the war as a teenager. Unlike Ream, Sanner continued his career as an educator following the war. In fact, his remarkable career as a principal and instructor spanned about 60 years. He began teaching as a teenager and "Professor" Sanner was still teaching school at the age of 76.
A news article five decades after the Civil War contrasted the postwar careers of the two cousins."[Ream] recovered from his wounds and became one of the greatest and richest money magnates of the United States, while Capt. Sanner elected to follow the humble though nonetheless honorable vocation of a pedagogue and in worldly goods and chattels is accounted a poor man in his old age, though rich in honor and respect shown him by the many pupils who have been under his guidance. The multi-millionaire, Norman B. Ream, remained his steadfast friends until his death, but did not remember him in his will...The writer (editor of the Republican) [William S. Livengood] had the privilege of being one of his primary pupils in 1868 and among the readers of the Republican are many who received their first instruction from this grand old pedagogue and who have ever since held him in grateful memory and high esteem." [Meyersdale Republican, February 17, 1916]
Sanner enlisted into Company H as a 19-year old sergeant. On August 23, 1863, while stationed on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina, Sanner was shot in the neck by a Confederate sharpshooter. He recovered, rejoined his company and six months later saved Ream's life on Whitemarsh Island.
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| Sharpshooters near Fort Wagner on Morris Island, SC |
Four months after that, Sanner was wounded for the second time at Ware Bottom Church during the Bermuda Hundred Campaign and was sent to Chesapeake Hospital at Fortress Monroe. [Ream, his cousin, had also been wounded at Ware Bottom Church one day earlier]. Sanner returned to his regiment on the last day of July six weeks later, but was subsequently granted a medical discharge in September of 1864 after nearly three years of service.
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| Arrival of Wounded Soldiers at Fort Monroe Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper |
Sanner returned home to Somerset County but was plagued by paralysis in his arm and stiffness in his neck. He was nonetheless able to resume his teaching career, beginning in Grantsville, Maryland, just 17 miles from his birthplace.
Among the various places at which he taught school were the Maryland cities of Cumberland, Frostburg, Oakland, Grantsville, Selbysport and Friendsville, as well as the Pennsylvania towns of Uniontown, Somerset and Confluence. For four years he was an instructor at the soldiers' orphan school in Jumonville, PA. He was still teaching until three weeks prior to his death.
Sanner died in 1918. At his funeral, Dr. Walter S. Mountain, a life-long friend and fellow veteran of Company H, delivered the eulogy. Mountain said, "Capt. R.R. Sanner and I were schoolboys together and in the same company during the Civil War, hence I know something of his bravery and how well he did his duty as a soldiers...Our first fight was at Williamsburg, Va, and the captain [Sanner] was not found in the rear. He showed the same bravery at Yorktown, Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill. The next battle was at Newbern, NC, [Goldsboro Expedition] where Capt. Jackson was hiding behind a bank along a stream for fear he might be shot, and for which he was dismissed from the service for cowardice, and Capt. Sanner showed his bravery by staying on the bank where he was exposed and won his captaincy...[On Morris island]..the captain exposed his head above the ramparts and a confederate caught him in the neck with a bullet, and he was sent to the hospital. He was offered his discharge, but he said, 'No I am going back to my company to help lick the enemy.' A Confederate [at Ware Bottom Church] caught him in the arm and maimed him till the job was completed." [Meyeresdale (PA) Republican, April 11, 1918]
Sanner is buried at Confluence, Somerset County in the Methodist Cemetery.
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| Sanner, age 74 Meyersdale Republican, 2-17-16 |
